The smile curse is passed onto an overwhelmed pop star with substance abuse issues and personal baggage in this terrifying sequel to 2022’s Smile.
Parker Finn’s debut feature film Smile was one of the best cinematic success stories in 2022, not only for being a frightening horror film in its own right, but also for going above and beyond in its portrayal of psychological trauma and criticizing the stigma that surrounds mental health in our society and in medical fields. Audiences were left wondering if there was enough ingenuity in its conceit to warrant a follow-up, and sure enough, Smile 2 serves as a scary and compelling horror film that’s almost on par with the first film thanks to stylish setpieces, clever direction and an engrossing character arc made fascinating by Naomi Scott’s captivating performance.
In Smile 2, Scott plays pop star Skye Riley, who after a year-long recovery from drug addiction and injuries sustained in a car accident that killed her then-boyfriend Paul Huston (Ray Nicholson), is back on the music scene with a new album, a plethora of media and press events scheduled by her demanding manager and mother Elizabeth (Rosemarie Dewitt), and a world tour that requires all her time and attention, bringing on physical strain on top of rehearsals made exhausting by complicated dance choreography, in addition to taxing mental stress.
But little does anyone know that Skye hasn’t entirely kicked her drug habit, only taking Vicodin for painkillers brought on by a lower back injury. However, when she goes to meet her supplier Lewis (Lukas Gage) and finds him more than merely tweaked out of his mind, the pop star soon finds herself afflicted with the ‘Smile Curse’ that Rose Cotter received in the precursory movie. This makes her hallucinate that the people around her daily life are spontaneously glaring at her with an ominous, creepy smile in an attempt to hijack her mind and drive her insane, and it’s up to Skye to come to terms with the guilt she suffers for her role in the wreck that changed her life, and take back ownership of her own existence before the curse takes everything away from her.
Smile 2 aims to separate itself from the first film, and succeeds in doing so, especially in the writing department. Right from the opening scene that picks up a few days after the events of the initial movie, the mythos of the Smile curse is evolved in a way which establishes that whatever form in which the metaphysical monstrosity takes place is ultimately dependent on how its current carrier saw its previous victim die.
This sets the stage for the monster Skye inevitably confronts to be something entirely different from what haunted Rose before her, and allows for every future entry in this series to be unique and personal for each character. Smile 2 also succeeds in being different from its predecessor through an intentionally funny sense of humor, from an instance where Skye breaks down into a rant full of swear words while speaking at a charity event, to the many confused reactions from her best friend Gemma (Dylan Gelula) after the pop star proposes a bizarre request.
Smile 2 even looks and feels like an entirely different movie than the original, which prioritized creating a bleak atmosphere and ominous dread via sound design. However, writer/director Parker Finn tells his new story with long tracking shots, whip pans, slow push-ins and even camera rigs that follow Skye when she’s rotated in a stylist’s chair to convey all the pressures and lack of privacy she faces as a celebrity. Meanwhile, stylish setpieces add places for more inventive scares, like a subliminal instance where Skye briefly envisions a dead body threatening her during an on-stage rehearsal as LED screens flash threatening red lighting.
Even the score is more melodic this time around compared to the disembodied voices from Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s efforts in the prior film, but that’s rectified by an effective use of diegetic silence that renders Skye’s self-destructive character quirks and desperate gasping for breath after a meltdown uniquely monstrous. And on that note, Naomi Scott turns in a riveting lead performance that fills Skye Riley with powerful depth. She evokes the young celebrity’s deflection of self-blame toward everyone around her with an intense fire that morphs her into an unsettling presence in her own right, only to recapture sympathy from the viewers by evoking sheer terror as her inner fears of letting everyone down take shape before her eyes.
If there are any complaints to be had with Smile 2, it’s that it takes a lot of time for Skye to realize the true nature of the malediction she’s inherited, resulting in a bit of a slow pace for the narrative’s first half. It’s also worth mentioning that this second film doesn’t have the prescience of the first one. Rather than delving further into a timely criticism of how the mental health of others is misunderstood in all aspects of society, this sequel settles in telling an all too familiar tale about the horrors of life as a celebrity and the consequences of substance abuse.
But everything around the thematic material, from the aesthetics to the character-driven approach to the story, is brand new to the concept of this burgeoning franchise, and Smile 2 evolves it into a fresh, exciting and importantly terrifying direction. Audiences will wince in pain every time Skye’s bad habits cause self-harm, feel shock and awe over the new ways the smile curse manifests itself in her daily life, and be enraptured by Naomi Scott’s performance into longing for Skye to free herself from the curse all the way to the end. Smile 2 does everything a horror sequel should achieve, and that’s why it’s one of the best horror films of the year.