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“This whole affair reeks of a cheap TV movie,” observes an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. But his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, two films on demand about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains how much better it is compared to much of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to her partner that someone should try leaving a phone-addicted influencer somewhere with no technology to see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, which seems particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape one another. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding stunning locations to film, though they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, however just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt during ostensibly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without investigating them. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title for the film might give fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, for now.