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“Everything about this reeks like a cheap TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains how much better it is compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices to see if they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of the events, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that normally attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a tale of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding stunning locations to film, although they were likely less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the film seems to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that remains even when many scenes involve a relatively small cast of characters looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, big action and special effects can display a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a story so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature as much aerial pool video. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. 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 gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title for the film could offer fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.