Two years ago, Smile (2022) entered the ring as another yearly entry in the “B-horror flick built on a seemingly goofy premise and designed to make buckets of money” category. In this case, that goofy premise was a demonic curse that terrorizes its victims with hallucinations of people sporting hauntingly sinister smiles. Despite bouts of initial criticism, an impressive guerilla marketing campaign featuring creepily smiling actors planted at sporting events piqued enough people’s interest, leading to a commercially successful run at the box office and the justified production of a sequel.
Smile 2 (2024) is writer and director Parker Finn’s newest addition to the franchise, now focused on the life of mega pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), who becomes the curse’s newest victim after witnessing her drug dealer’s gruesome death. As she prepares to make her grand return to the stage for a show stopping tour, visions of people donning sickening smiles torment her and magnify her stress. With Skye’s show approaching, her grip on reality begins to fray, plunging her into a fight for survival.
Running off the original’s momentum, this film turns up the dial on almost every aspect of its predecessor, taking much bigger swings in style and substance. Though it enjoys its fair share of criticisms, Smile 2 surprisingly triumphs as an entertaining sequel to a modern B-horror hit.
While the first film didn’t win any points on originality with the idea of demonic possession, critics and general audiences alike seemed to agree on applauding Finn’s cinematographic direction. True to type, Smile 2 deserves its own moment in the spotlight for being surprisingly scary, albeit sometimes predictable and often cliché.
But cliché doesn’t always mean boring. The jumpscares are well placed and well timed, and culminated moments of horror which raised the hairs on the back of our necks. Unlike many a tacky thriller, the scares stay fresh past a few seconds of screen time due to Finn’s tasteful employment of horror tactics. From Dutch angles to dolly zooms akin to Hitchcock’s 1958 film Vertigo, Smile 2 makes use of an assortment of artistic techniques. By variegating the camera work, sound design, and lighting, Smile 2 keeps audiences on their toes for most of its 132-minute run time.
More than anything, horror fans will appreciate that the film doesn’t rely on uncanny smiling alone to try and frighten its viewers. The smiling does play a part in the movie’s scare tactics, but it seems to be part of tension-building rather than the climax of the scares themselves.
What the film does emphasize, however, is explicit, bloody violence that carries from the first few minutes to the last shot. Not only are scenes often long, graphic, and drawn out, the sound design that accompanies these scenes is incredibly well developed, bringing some palpability to sometimes utterly unimaginable scenes. The sound of dripping flesh, blood, or breaking bones is enough to make you cringe in disgust.
Less gory, more realistic elements of horror are just as effective in Smile 2—repeated portrayals of Skye’s trichotillomania (compulsive hair ripping) and an up-close shot of her removing a shard of glass from the sole of her foot are just some examples.
Another highlight of this film is Naomi Scott, who, in her portrayal of Skye, has to balance the dueling roles of pop star with a troubled past and terrified victim of a supernatural monster. Scott was an excellent choice for the part—she has enough star power to authentically portray Skye without having too much notoriety to the point of tainting the viewer’s suspension of disbelief. As a result, scenes where Skye embraces a stereotypical, over-the-top diva persona feel all-too-real, making it all the more tragic that Skye’s petulance is, in reality, the result of demonic psychological manipulation.
At its heart, though, Smile 2 is still a B-flick, and that means the movie is chock-full of directorial decisions that occasionally push scenes away from the horror genre and into comedy. In other words, there are plenty of times when Finn wants you to cower and instead you will likely find yourself chuckling because what you are seeing is just too absurd.
For example, there’s a scene where Skye is speaking at a charity event in the midst of her demonic visions. The suspense builds and builds over the course of her speech, only for it to come to an abruptly comical end as Skye pushes—no, throws—an older woman off the stage. The moments after are shocking and sobering, as was no doubt intended. But instead of leaving your heart racing in relief from escaping a scare, it leaves you chuckling in disbelief at the image of a glammed up pop star shoving a sweet bystander into a table below.
Speaking of the more ridiculous parts of this film—Smile 2’s producers better have gotten a huge pay day from Voss Water, because those bougie-ass glass water bottles pop up in a truly unbelievable amount of scenes. Granted, these types of films are cash cows by nature; it’s not uncommon that conspicuous product placement becomes the laughingstock of an otherwise decent movie. But Voss Water is worked into the actual plot of Smile 2. In one particular scene, one of the blatantly marked bottles is used as a way to signal the ostensible presence of something or someone in Skye’s apartment as it falls to the ground seemingly on its own and shatters. These bottles are given so much screen time that it begins to diffuse the tense tone of the film. Oh, is Skye having a deeply traumatic hallucination? Get her a Voss Water to violently chug in ten seconds flat!
Smile 2 is certainly not winning any awards any time soon, but it does stand out as a thrilling entry in the slog of horror flicks that routinely accompany Halloween’s swift approach. The scares are startling. The gore is unsettling. And even if you still aren’t buying it, there’s plenty to laugh at to keep you engaged. Horror movie fans, if you’re thinking of going out to theaters this Halloween, Smile 2 is a decent contender to keep on your radar.
