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“The entire situation smells like a cheap TV movie,” remarks a cynical podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. But his description of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains how much better it is than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those murders (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere with no technology and see whether they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion over her version of what happened, including the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a story of dueling amateur detectives, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating beautiful places to film, though they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the film seems to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature this much aerial pool video. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the emptiness of online fame. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear as if he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel for the film could offer devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.