After the surprise success of 2022’s breakout hit ‘Smile’ a sequel was quickly greenlit and after the way the first film finished we now have a new cast in Smile 2 led by Naomi Scott as pop poppet Skye Riley making a comeback after a drink and drugs addled past saw her go into rehab after the death of her boyfriend in a car crash they were both involved.
On the comeback trail she appears on Drew Barrymore’s chat show to announce her new single, world tour and the usual accompanying overpriced merchandise tat that goes with it. It’s only after the show where she goes to visit her friend that all of this begins to be in jeopardy. Fuelled up with more coke than a Port Talbot blast furnace her friend’s behaviour sees him off his face and moments later he really is as he smashes his own rictus grinning face into a pulp. It’s one of several grisly and shocking moments that writer–director Parker Finn has scattered throughout the film to often disturbing effect. That smile is one that Ray Nicholson as Skye’s late boyfriend is ideally cast as he is the son of Jack Nicholson whose own demonic smile was such a feature of his role as Joker in Tim Burton’s ‘Batman’ and also in Kubrick’s troubled caretaker in ’The Shining’.
But Skye soon finds her own behaviour affected, she sees things that are not there and experiences moments of terror. To this she suffers injuries which are later seen to be imaginary so quite why she’s not hired as a drama coach for many of the World Cup football teams is unclear. Her own close team of assistants includes her mother, a camp PA and an alienated friend she makes up with and all are on her side but cannot understand her increasingly irrational behaviour. Added to this are a series of mystery messages from an unknown source who seems to know exactly what is going on. But with her previous well publicised dalliances with drugs its little surprise that many start to think she’s suffering a relapse when the truth is that she too is at the mercy of the demonic force that drives each person’s to destruction.
Smile had an intriguing premise with the victims consumed by an inane vacuous grin modelled mostly by daytime TV presenters but its unnervingly played out here by the cast. Parker has put together a decent follow up with a pile of mostly effective shock scares accompanied by a discordant and unsettling score. There’s a number of well constructed jump scares and several effective set pieces too – a fan meet greet rings true, an ominous prologue ( though wholly unrelated) works well and a scene where Skye is pursued through her apartment by a horde of malevolent dancers will have you reassess how you look at the endless dance troupes on BGT.
Scott’s slightly androgynous look gives her an off kilter look as the pop star spiralling into madness traumatized by what she thinks she’s sees and maintains a sustained level of hysteria that by the third act that is exhausting. And Smile 2 builds to a climax that’s competes with that of The Substance as the most bonkers mad moment in a 2024 horror film. Fans of the original are sure to like this often extremely gory follow up although there are a few moments which are perhaps unintentionally funny enough to make you as least smile which should be enough to worry anyone you’re sat with in the audience.
related feature ; ‘Smile’ – the first film reviewed
related feature : Mickey Mouse gets murderous in horror film, ‘The Mouse Trap’ – director Jamie Bailey & star Simon Phillips takes us BTS plus the Disney copyright nightmare
Here’s the Smile 2 trailer……
