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“Everything about this stinks like a bad TV movie,” remarks a cynical commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an outlandish story he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand about a woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it is than plenty of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices and see if they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt over her recounting of what happened, including 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 right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a story of rival investigators, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can show off a big budget, but just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature as much aerial pool video. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of online fame. Though it can be satisfying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced during ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, for now.