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“This whole affair reeks like a cheap TV movie,” remarks a cynical podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his assessment of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals 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, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her version of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow 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 is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a tale of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating beautiful places to visit, though they were likely more legitimate about it. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that remains even as 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 consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can show off a big budget, however simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals must believably occupy these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, for now.