Early morning, she wakes up. Knock, knock, knock on the door.
It’s time for make-up, perfect smile.
It’s you they’re all waiting for. They go “Isn’t she lovely, this Hollywood girl?”
And they say: “She’s so lucky, she’s a star.”
But she cry, cry, cries in her lonely heart.
Britney Spears, Lucky (2000)
Director Parker Finn has big ambitions for the sequel to his 2022 supernatural horror film. Where Smile’s relatively low-stakes story followed a nervy therapist as she attempted to navigate a malignant curse and her own childhood trauma, this follow-up shows that the rich and famous get sad sometimes, too.
Catching up with afflicted host Joel (Kyle Gallner) in the days since the previous film ended, this sequel travels further down the chain to global pop sensation Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), who picks up her sinister follower while trying to score from a seedy dealer (Lukas Gage).
You know the drill – you see the smile, you die. Riley is now cursed and will be forced to spend the next few days bearing witness to the entity’s various manifestations before being doomed to kill herself too.
Like predecessor Rose, Skye is already going through some shit. The first film wasn’t exactly subtle – a thinly veiled, vaguely unkind allegory for how poor mental health and trauma are passed down to survivors – and this sequel is just as ungraceful in its metaphors. Skye’s pain is both mental and physical, with the star having barely recovered from a serious road accident which left her partner dead and her body riddled with scars.
It’s not exactly the ideal time for a world tour, but showbiz never sleeps. Mom (Rosemarie DeWitt) is determined to get Skye back on the train, mental health be damned. Where the first film explored childhood trauma and guilt, this sequel delves into the unhappiness of the rich and famous, slyly mirroring the pain, exploitation and public humiliation of such famously troubles stars as Britney, Lindsay and Amanda.
Beyond the glitzy packaging, Smile 2 is more of the same – the same curse, the same jump scares – even the same twists. However, it’s a marked improvement over what came before, upping the ante on what was already a perfectly respectable supernatural thriller. Scott is phenomenal in the lead, and the film rings true where many failed before, making her actually feel like this universe’s Taylor Swift or Lady Gaga.
The film’s jump scares are effective but largely unnecessary – as shoehorned in as the Voss water product placement. The story is solid enough without, furthering the first film’s lore (thanks to an info-dumping Peter Jacobson) while keeping it just vague enough to brush its semantics under the rug.
Finn has honed his eye for frightening imagery in the years since Smile, and this sequel is full of it, perverting the visual language of Skye’s dance routines for its own sinister purpose. Elsewhere, a greasy fanboy gets too close for comfort, and a man smashes his own face in with a lifting weight. Images of Skye screaming in agony in the aftermath of a horrific accident are among the film’s most troubling, no smiles in sight here.
As Skye begins to unravel publicly, a morbid sense of humour comes to the fore, utilising Skye’s showbiz trappings to further her torment and humiliation. Its final destination may be somewhat obvious, but the surrounding pageantry keeps things feeling fresh and propulsive to the last.
Smile 2 is a confident version of the horror sequel, repackaging everything that worked from its predecessor while offering a unique perspective in the glamorous yet unrelentingly grim world of Skye Riley.
SMILE 2 is out now in UK cinemas.
