Smile 2 (2024)

3 Stars (out of 4)

Grin or Lose

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

A tiny improvement over its low-budget predecessor, Parker Finn's gory sequel Smile 2 features surprisingly confident cinematography and sound design, and a vigorous, exhaustive lead performance by Naomi Scott.

It's six days after the end of Smile. Police officer Joel (Kyle Gallner) attempts a desperate plan to prevent the Smile Entity from being passed on. Then, famous pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) is about to embark upon a huge tour, a comeback after battling substance abuse that resulted in a tragic car crash, killing Skye's partner and gravely injuring her.

Plagued with pain from a back wound and desperate for help, she turns to her old drug dealer Lewis (Lukas Gage), for some Vicodin. She finds him acting very strangely, and he eventually begins smiling maniacally and bashing his face in with a barbell weight.

Following that event, Skye begins seeing smiling people and experiencing terrifying incidents that seem to be happening mostly in her head. Before long it becomes difficult to tell what's real and what isn't. After one particularly horrifying turn involving her manager mother (Rosemarie DeWitt), Skye goes to the very edge to try and stop the demon and save her sanity.

Smile 2 still falls back on jump-scares, but writer/director Finn has also learned how to create tension around them so that they're not just cheap effects. While Smile ran a long 115 minutes and felt flabby, the sequel is even longer, but feels just about right, using that extra time for building rather than padding.

The movie imagines what it might be like to face off with this monster in the public eye, in front of hundreds of employees and millions of fans. But the surprising thing is that, even a star like Skye is alone much of the time, and — as she accidentally confesses in an onstage speech — is not happy with herself. She has only one true friend, and even that friend, Gemma (Dylan Gelula), is the source of some trouble. It's a fascinating way to look at a famous character, making her strangely relatable.

Scott goes full-force in her performance, expressing terror in every bone in her body, every fiber of her being, and the camera is along for the ride with her, fluid and sleek, dodging and swooping along with her nightmares. Ultimately, however, there's not a lot here, as the monster is just that — a monster — and not a mysterious force as in the similar movies The Ring, Final Destination, and It Follows. It's a little too literal, and with nothing really discovered or learned. Yet, if horror hounds are looking for something spooky to watch during Halloween season, Smile 2 definitely delivers the jolts.