Holy cow, I did not expect such a solid movie from a sequel of a middling horror film. SMILE 2 is terrific horror.
Full disclosure, I thought the first movie was, well, I didn’t think much of it. A fellow horror author advised me to check out the sequel, and he wasn’t wrong that it’s night and day with the two films. The sequel has a strong emotional anchor, strong themes, excellent horror, great acting, an entertaining inside look at what it’s like to be a pop star, and a killer ending.
The first film is basically about a curse where you and only you can see demonically smiling people who terrorize you until you die or witness a death, and then the curse passes on. In the second movie, it finds its way to a drug dealer who in turn passes it on to Skye Riley, a pop star (played to the hilt by actress/singer Naomi Scott), who finds herself in an escalating nightmare.
Skye has her own inner demons to contend with. She just got out of rehab and is trying to rebuild her career with a new tour. She decided to stop using after a car crash that killed her boyfriend, which still haunts her. This provides a strong emotional core for the film and a theme of wrestling with addiction, as the smiling curse similarly tries to break down her will and control.
SMILE 2 is a bit long for a horror movie at over 2 hours, but I enjoyed how it let itself breathe instead of throwing one horror setpiece jump scare (the jump scares are actually rare and used for maximum effect) after another at me. We get a lot of time seeing Skye doing her job–dealing with fans, practicing with backup dancers, and so on.
My main criticism is something the film actually overcame. I hate socially embarrassing ghosts, the kind of spirits that make you hallucinate so you freak out in front of a crowd or wind up doing something harmful. It delivers more anxiety than fun, and it doesn’t seem like a fair fight. But SMILE 2 overcame that usual objection, and I ran with it and enjoyed the ride until the killer ending.
Overall, I loved SMILE 2, it was a real surprise. Recommended.
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