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“Everything about this stinks like a cheap made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. But his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two films on demand about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, when returning writer-director the director picks up with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices and see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion regarding her version of what happened, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a story of rival investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade each other. Of course, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, though they were likely less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool footage. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. While it is satisfying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced during ostensibly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.