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“The entire situation reeks like a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical commentator during 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. Yet his description of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

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

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning filmmaker the director picks up with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology to see if they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt over her version of what happened, including the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a story of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape one another. Then again, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to posh places without paying much, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that remains even when numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of characters looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can show off large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it is satisfying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced while on ostensibly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.