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“Everything about this reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an outlandish story he once said he trusted. Yet his description of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker the director picks up with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that someone ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted influencer somewhere without any devices to see if they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt regarding her version of the events, including the killing of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) While the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade one another. Then again, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating beautiful places to film, though they were likely more legitimate in their methods. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, but simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem as if 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 that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.