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“Everything about this smells of a bad TV movie,” observes an opportunistic podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his description of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two films on demand about a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be compared to much of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that someone ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer in a place without any devices to see if they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion over her version of what happened, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, which seems particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of rival amateur detectives, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, though they were likely less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of people staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, however just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the emptiness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion 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 this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title for the film could offer devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.