Smile 2 (2024) Paramount/Horror RT: 127 minutes Rated R (strong bloody violent content, grisly images, language throughout, drug use) Director: Parker Finn Screenplay: Parker Finn Music: Cristobal Tapia de Veer Cinematography: Charlie Sarroff Release date: October 18, 2024 (US) Cast: Naomi Scott, Rosemarie DeWitt, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Dylan Gelula, Raul Castillo, Peter Jacobson, Ray Nicholson, Lukas Gage, Kyle Gallner.
Rating: ** ½
The best sequels build on the premise of the original film. Others merely retell the story with different characters. I’m afraid Smile 2 falls under the latter category. It’s pretty much the same as the first with all the mind tricks and disorienting upside down shots. It doesn’t bring anything new to the table which is disappointing considering that writer-director Parker Finn has what it takes to be a master of horror like Romero, Craven or Carpenter. He knows how to make an effective scary movie; the problem lies with the script.
It breaks down like this. The evil in the Smile movies is a parasitic curse that gets passed from person to person. Apparently, it’s been around for a while. It feeds on personal trauma. It attaches itself to whoever witnesses the death of somebody afflicted by it. The new host has about seven days to live before the thing causes the affected person to take his or her own life in front of another person who then becomes the entity’s new host and the cycle begins anew. So what exactly is this entity and what is its origin? Finn didn’t explain in the first movie and he doesn’t explain here either. What we have with Smile 2 is a decent horror movie with no real payoff.
This time, the one at the center of action is Skye Riley (Scott, Aladdin), a famous pop singer about to embark on a world tour after taking a hiatus to deal with personal issues- i.e. drug addiction and being in a car accident that claimed the life of her boyfriend. She’s under constant supervision by her mother/manager Elizabeth (DeWitt, La La Land) and their personal assistant Joshua (Riley, The Wilds). They make sure she stays on track and on schedule.
So how does Skye come into contact with the curse? It all starts when Joel (Gallner, Scream 5), the cop ex-boyfriend from the first movie, tries to rid himself of the entity. In doing so, he passes it to Lewis (Gage, How to Blow Up a Pipeline), a drug dealer who happens to do business with Skye. She calls him up one night to score some Vicodin for a back injury she sustained during rehearsal. He tells her to swing by his place which she does on the sly. When she gets there, Lewis is acting crazy and out of control. Then it happens. He smiles that scary smile before smashing his face in with a weight plate. BA-DA-BING! Now Skye carries the curse.
Skye begins to mentally unravel. She has visual and auditory hallucinations. She sees people smiling at her. She’s no longer sure what’s real and what’s not. Even worse, she starts losing it in public. She has an episode at a charity fundraising event during which she assaults an elderly woman. Skye can’t tell anybody what’s going on with her because they’ll think she relapsed. The only one she can confide in is her best friend Gemma (Gelula, Shithouse) who she hasn’t talked to since their falling-out a year ago. Other than her, Skye is all alone in dealing with the insidious evil thing.
Last week, I gave a glowing review to Terrifier 3, praising it for its superior (and plentiful) gore effects and writer-director Damian Leone’s willingness to “go there”. The opening scene of Smile 2 shows similar promise. I don’t want to go into a lot of detail about how it gets to where it goes, but it ends with a grisly image of somebody who’s been hit by a car. The victim is cut in half. His insides are spread all over the street. I smiled with anticipation. Will the rest of the film be this graphic? While it has a few good bloody scenes, it’s all CGI. I’ll grant that CGI gore has come a long way since its early stages, but it still has a long way to go. Besides, nothing will ever beat the sight of good old-fashioned stage blood. Damian Leone knows this.
If you’ve seen Smile, then you know not to believe everything you see in Smile 2. That’s the problem with sequels to tricky movies like Smile. Audiences are already onto them. You can’t fool them twice. The makers need to come up with a way to up their game. Sadly, Finn fails to do that. He doesn’t build on the story, he simply continues it. The only real difference is setting it in the cutthroat, merciless world of pop music where popularity is a fleeting thing. One mistake and you’re cancelled. Skye’s been given a second chance and she can’t mess up again. That means she has to deal with the pressures and demands of fame like hectic schedules and creepy fans like the obsessed wacko who shows up at a meet-and-greet. It’s enough to make the sanest person go insane.
As Skye, Scott does exceptional work. She completely commits to every aspect of the role, especially the all-consuming horror and fear of dealing with something supernatural. That’s on top of the anxiety of mounting a big comeback tour while struggling with sobriety and addiction. Finn really puts his lead actress through the emotional wringer. She handles it like a pro. She makes Skye’s fears feel real and palpable. DeWitt, in a performance that brings to mind Barbara Hershey in Black Swan, is very good as the overbearing stage mom more concerned with keeping the money train going than her daughter’s health and well-being. Ray Nicholson, son of Jack, has a memorable moment as Skye’s deceased boyfriend. One look at that smile and you know exactly whose kid he is.
The good news is Smile 2 is only slightly inferior to the original. Despite its shortcomings, it’s still a pretty good horror movie. It has a few effective scenes like the one where is beset by her smiling back-up dancers. After the opening, it’s the film’s biggest stand-out scene. Although nobody is likely to be fooled again, it’s still freaky trying to figure out where reality stops and the mind f*** begins. To its credit, Smile 2 is never boring even if it runs longer than it needs to at 127 minutes. Still, it’ll please audiences looking to celebrate Halloween with a scary movie.
If Smile 2 does well, I’m sure we’ll see a third movie in the future. It could go one of two ways. One, it could try to follow up on the promise of this installment’s closing scene, but it would be a herculean task. Two, Finn could do a prequel explaining the origin of the entity. Smile: Origin has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
