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“Everything about this smells like a cheap TV movie,” states an opportunistic commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. But his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers is how much better it is compared to much of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning writer-director the director resumes with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere with no technology to see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt over her version of the events, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a story of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape each other. Of course, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating beautiful places to film, though they were presumably less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the film appears to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even as many scenes consist of a handful of actors of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals must believably occupy these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, for now.