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“This whole affair reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it is compared to much of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning writer-director the director picks up with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer in a place without any devices and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion over her version of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems especially tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase or evade each other. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to film, though they were likely more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even when many scenes involve a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, explosive action and special effects can show off a big budget, however just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is satisfying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without investigating them. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, for now.