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“Everything about this stinks like a bad TV movie,” remarks a cynical commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he once claimed he believed. Yet his description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as 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 movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

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

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices and see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints 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 exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt over her recounting of the events, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears especially tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a tale of rival investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade each other. Of course, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were likely less nefarious about it. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even when numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of people staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature as much aerial pool video. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. While it is satisfying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced while on ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet 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’s nodding at 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 fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, for now.