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“Everything about this smells like a cheap TV movie,” states a cynical podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. But his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that someone should try stranding a device-obsessed influencer somewhere without any devices and see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of the events, including the killing of Madison’s 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), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that typically capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes consist of a handful of actors of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off a big budget, however just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature this much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear 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 through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film could offer fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, for now.