Major spoilers ahead for Smile 2. You’ve been warned.
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It’s difficult to find a modern horror flick that’s truly scary, especially since the advent of PG-13 horror. If you’re lucky, any random horror flick from the last 10 to 15 years might have creepy atmosphere, a couple of jump scares and some gore, but that’s about it. So Smile (2022) was a pleasantly frightening surprise. While not exactly Exorcist-level terrifying, its relentless intensity was pretty nerve-shredding. So does Smile 2 at least reach that same level? Read on to find out.
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Smile 2 picks up six days after the end of the original, with Joel (Kyle Gallner), the unlucky cop who inherited the Smile curse from former girlfriend Rose (Sosie Bacon). He’s been haunted by the Smiling Entity ever since he watched Rose kill herself. Knowing that the only way to break the curse and stay alive is to kill someone else, he finds some drug dealers who’d be more than deserving of the honor.
Joel hijacks one of the dealers (Zebedee Row) to get him in the house and then proceeds to kill him in front of his brother (Roberts Jekabsons). But then the brother shoots at Joel and in the ensuing exchange, the brother ends up fatally shot. Joel freaks because the whole idea was that the brother would inherit the curse.
But then suddenly he notices behind him another guy named Lewis (Lukas Gage), just a poor shmuck who’s there to buy drugs. Then a bunch more dealer types show up and chase Joel through the house. He escapes through a window and into the street, only to get hit by a truck. His bloody remains make a smile-shaped line on the street. Yikes.
Cut to our next victim, pop singer Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), who’s doing an interview on Drew Barrymore’s talk show. Skye’s been out of commission for a while, dealing with substance abuse issues and recovering from a car accident that killed her then-boyfriend Paul (Ray Nicholson) and seriously injured her. Now she’s about to embark on a world tour that will hopefully be her big comeback.
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Skye’s rehearsing hard and it’s clear that her back injury is still really bothering her. On the down low, she texts an old acquaintance she used to buy meds from – Lewis. After getting dropped off at her apartment by her stage mom, Elizabeth (Rosemarie DeWitt) and assistant Joshua (Miles Gutierrez-Riley), Skye sneaks off to Lewis’ apartment.
When she gets there, a frantic Lewis comes at her with a sword. Skye reminds him that they agreed to meet. Lewis says he doesn’t remember texting her, hurriedly talking about something that’s been following him. Then he switches to a manic but friendly attitude and goes into the other room to get her some Vicodin. He disappears for a few moments but then suddenly comes running out, screaming.
Skye’s totally freaked out, not knowing what he’s reacting to. As in the first movie, Lewis screams horribly until he’s suddenly frozen. Skye thinks he’s dead, but then he looks at Skye with that terrible smile. All she can do is watch in horror as he grabs a heavy-weight plate and smashes his own face in – several times. Nasty. Very nasty. Skye vomits and then goes to dial 911. But then she realizes that she can’t get caught up in this kind of PR nightmare, so she leaves.
Skye tries to continue with work, but her nerves are understandably rattled. She goes to a meet-and-greet, signing autographs and taking photos with fans. But then one scary guy (Ivan Carlo) approaches her and grabs her, telling her disturbing things like he wants her skin. Shaken, Skye takes a break and then returns to find a little girl (Margot Weintraub) waiting. Skye’s weirded out by her unnerving smile but signs her shirt and takes a photo with her. But the girl never talks – just smiles and walks away. Then she gets a text message from an unknown sender asking if she was at Lewis’ house.
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Back at her apartment, Skye calls her former best friend Gemma (Dylan Gelula), whom she parted ways with on very bad terms, and asks if she could come over. Then she sees a shirt on the floor – the one she signed for the scary guy at the meet-and-greet. As she walks down the hall, she sees more of his clothes – even his skidmarked undies (eww). It looks like he’s standing at the end of the hall naked and smiling. Then he runs at her, and Skye runs for the door.
But when she gets there, Gemma’s there. Skye tells her what happened with Lewis and unloads about all the stress she’s under. Gemma offers to stay the night, and as they lie in bed, Skye confides in her about the darkness inside her – to which Gemma replies that she’s a horrible person. Skye turns and looks at her and Gemma’s got the evil smile on her face. Gemma’s face suddenly turns into a horrible monster face with headlights for eyes and a blaring car horn. Then Skye wakes up to find it’s morning and Gemma’s made matcha.
Elizabeth shows up and yells at Skye for running late. Skye begs Gemma to come on tour with her, but Gemma’s a little too overwhelmed to answer. Then, while onstage at Madison Square Garden doing a full-dress rehearsal, Skye thinks she sees her dead boyfriend Paul and stumbles out of the choreography. She gets angry and starts yelling at the dancers for throwing her off.
Skye storms off backstage, passing by a smiling Joshua. When she gets to her dressing room, it’s been trashed. Elizabeth comes in and Skye accuses Joshua of wrecking the room. But Elizabeth says that couldn’t be, since he’s been with her all day. Skye tells Elizabeth that she doesn’t feel like she can do the charity event she’s scheduled to speak at that night. But Elizabeth says that Darius (Raul Castillo), who’s bankrolling the tour, is counting on her.
Later, while waiting to go onstage at the benefit, Skye gets more texts from that unknown caller, saying they know who she is and what she’s going through, and they should meet. A stressed Skye mistakenly wipes her lipstick across her cheek before going onstage. Once she starts speaking, the teleprompter freezes.
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Panicked and overwhelmed, Skye starts riffing a speech that turns into a rant about her life. About how she thought stardom would bring her happiness, but all it’s done is the opposite. And while Elizabeth and Darius (and everyone else) stare at her in embarrassment and shock, Skye thinks she sees Paul again, at one of the tables.
As he gets up and walks toward her, Skye screams at him to “Stop smiling at me!” Then when the hostess tries to intervene, Skye pushes the poor woman off the stage, thinking it’s Paul trying to grab her. Needless to say, the night’s a disaster. Back at her apartment, the unknown caller sends Skye a video of Lewis describing the Smiling Entity. Skye finally agrees to meet them in a public place.
Trying to hide inside a hoodie, she goes to a bar where she meets Morris (Peter Jacobson), the guy who’s been texting her. He tells her that his brother was a victim of the curse and killed himself. He says he’s been investigating the curse and following the line of victims. That’s what led him to Lewis, and that’s how he got her number, off of his phone.
Morris explains how the Smiling Entity feeds on trauma, and how the only other way to get out of the curse is by killing someone else. Of course, Skye refuses to do that. But Morris says he’s figured out another way to get around it. He’s a nurse and he knows how to technically kill her and then bring her back. Skye understandably thinks he’s nuts and runs out just as people are starting to recognize her.
Skye goes back to her apartment, only to find herself besieged by her dancers – all coming at her smiling. Then they surround her and dogpile her, dragging her to the floor. One of them sickeningly sticks his arm down her throat, and she blacks out.
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Cut to a flashback of the night of the car wreck, where she and Paul were doing cocaine and screaming at each other. Paul called her a psycho and Skye grabbed the steering wheel, sending them off the road and into a ravine. When she regained consciousness, Paul was dead, and she was majorly injured. All she could do was wail in agony.
Skye wakes up in a private hospital with Elizabeth by her side, saying they found her in her apartment unconscious. Skye says they have to cancel the tour, she just can’t do it. But Elizabeth says if they cancel, she’ll be dropped by her label and Darius will sue them for millions. Skye accuses her of only caring about the tour and Elizabeth’s anger ratches up considerably, saying how much she’s sacrificed to make Skye what she is.
Then Skye realizes her mom’s been taken over by the Smiling Entity, and Elizabeth punches a mirror, grabbing one of the pieces. She stabs herself repeatedly and gouges an eye out. But when Skye runs for the door (after a nasty yank-out-the-IV thing) she suddenly realizes she’s got the glass in her hand and her gown’s soaked with blood. Joshua tries to come in and she locks him out, sending him away.
Skye tries to escape but the doctors and guards start coming after her. She grabs one of their guns and runs outside, right into Gemma, who’s been getting coffee. Skye carjacks her own driver and Morris texts her with a meeting place in Staten Island. Gemma says she’ll go with her to meet up with Morris.
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While driving, Skye gets a call – from Gemma. The real Gemma, who apparently never answered that initial call days ago. So the Smiling Entity tricked her the whole time – and as Skye screams, she realizes that she’s the one in the driver’s seat and she’s alone.
Skye meets Morris at an abandoned Pizza Hut where they go into the big walk-in freezer. Morris says he’ll inject her with a drug that will stop her heart. Then once the Smiling Entity has disappeared, he’ll resuscitate her. He tells her to lie down and then leaves to get something. But after a moment, he still hasn’t returned.
Then suddenly Skye’s confronted with the Smiling Entity hanging above her, now looking like her during the car wreck. It tries to get inside her mouth but Skye bites off its thumbs. Then she grabs the syringe and injects herself. The Smiling Entity screams as Skye fades into unconsciousness.
But then she wakes up onstage, in costume, apparently in the middle of the show. Her mom’s in the audience, alive and well, along with thousands of fans. She then sees the Smiling Entity in the form of herself, as it rips through the surgical scars on her stomach and comes out through the hole, in its full monstrous, grotesque glory.
It crawls into Skye’s mouth and she collapses, to the shock of the audience. But then she gets back up – and smiles. And all the people can do is watch in horror as Skye bludgeons herself with the microphone and then stabs herself right in the eye, killing herself in front of the entire screaming audience.
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When I first saw the trailer for Smile 2 and understood that it would be centering on a pop star, I was less than enthusiastic. Oh, yay, a story about a poor little rich-and-famous Lady Gaga clone going through a retread of the first movie. Sounds great. I sadly assumed that Smile would be the fluke that launched a thousand subpar sequels.
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Well, I’m so happy to report that I was wrong about that. Smile 2 goes above and beyond its original self-imposed constraints to tell a new story that not only connects directly to the original without retconning, but also expands the scope considerably. And it does this while maintaining what was best in the original. That constant level of stress, that relentless pursuit that never lets up once it gets going.
And the flick’s MVP award definitely goes to Naomi Scott. Like Sosie Bacon before her, she does the heavy lifting in this story. If we don’t buy that she’s terrified, there’s no point to any of it. But she sells Skye’s terror with every fiber of her being. I was exhausted just watching her. And what’s really interesting is that with this being the sequel, the audience actually has more information than Skye does. We know what the smile means – but for most of the flick, she doesn’t. Skye has absolutely no idea what’s happening to her. And that’s even scarier, I think.
What’s most surprising, though, is how well Smile 2 tells the story beneath the story. Naomi Scott’s performance succeeds in showing us a young musician who just wanted to get her music out there and become famous, which led her down a road that only went to bad places.
There’s a touching scene where Skye’s alone in her apartment and just sits down at the piano and sings. Then when she confides in (who she thinks is) Gemma, and especially her frenzied speech at the benefit is the intense, deeply sorrowful and scared plea of someone carrying an unimaginable burden and breaking under the weight. So instead of seeing just the little pop star brat, we see the person, and we feel for her. That kind of depth is so refreshing to see, something that’s so often absent in other horror flicks.
And then, of course, there’s that ending, and what it sets up – a bonkers end to a trilogy, where the curse of the Smiling Entity becomes a global pandemic. I can’t imagine that Paramount would refuse a third installment, as Smile 2’s early box office is already exceeding expectations. So I’m happy to say that Smile 2 is the rare sequel that’s as good as the original. And I have total faith that writer/director Parker Finn is already figuring out how to go even further above and beyond. I can’t wait to see what’s next.
Written and Directed by: Parker Finn
Release date: Oct.18, 2024
Rating: R
Run time: 2hr, 7min
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
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