There's a been a habit this year of sequels that have been accused of being little more than "rinse and repeat" of their predecessor in films like "Inside Out 2" and "Terrifier 3." (Bet that's the first time Art and Joy have been compared. You're welcome.) One of several things that works about Parker Finn's "Smile 2" is that it feels like an effort to expand on the ideas of the hit first movie instead of just repeating them. Whereas that film joined a subgenre of horror flicks that use mental illness as a supernatural force, Finn pivots to include things like self-hatred, addiction, and even the commodification of pop stars in his sharp follow-up. One thing it definitely has in common is a stellar central performance. Sosie Bacon was the MVP of the first "Smile" and Naomi Scott is just phenomenal in the superior follow-up, put through the emotional and physical wringer for two hours for your entertainment. Kinda like a pop star.
Much like its most obvious inspiration, "It Follows," "Smile 2" once again explores the idea of a person being haunted instead of a place. Finn's film opens with the fate of a character from the first film, Kyle Gallner's Joel, who has to pass along his curse to someone else and has chosen a drug dealer to be the victim in a well-shot scene of violent chaos. An unplanned visitor named Lewis (Lukas Gage) ends up witnessing the carnage, becoming the one afflicted with what can only be called a parasite, something that feeds on your insecurity and trauma to present you with increasingly terrifying visions, often of people you know and love doing absolutely horrible things with a smile on their face.
It's not long before Lewis smashes his face to bloody bits with a heavy weight in front of troubled pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), who is planning a comeback after a year of recovery from a car accident that killed her boyfriend Paul. In flashbacks and hauntings, Paul is played by none other than Ray Nicholson, who got the head down malevolent smile thing that his dad Jack made so famous, and that reportedly inspired this flick. You know the look.
Skye has put her addiction and grief behind her, but the "Smile Creature" uses all of her insecurities and weaknesses against her to drive her slowly insane. Her mother/manager Elizabeth (Rosemarie DeWitt), assistant Josh (Miles Gutierrez-Riley), and record company head Darius (Raul Castillo) are ready for Skye's comeback, but her increasingly fragile mental state makes that impossible. Skye tries to reunite with an old friend named Gemma (Dylan Gelula), someone who she thinks she can trust, but "Smile 2" isn't just about a haunting, it's about cruelty. It's about being pushed to the mental edge in ways that are physically and emotionally unimaginable. Whether it's thinking she sees a homicidal, naked fan is in her apartment or a vision of the dead Paul in the audience at a fundraising event, Skye is watching reality fracture in front of her eyes.
It's a hell of a demanding part for an actress and Scott is legitimately great, selling the horror and fear that has overtaken Skye's life. Finn asks a lot of his lead performer, putting her through physical and emotional gauntlets, and it matters a great deal that Scott commits to every single beat. We believe what's happening around her because we believe her horrified reaction to it. The excellent sound design is close, but she's really the key to this film's success.
To be fair, "Smile 2" does lose control of some of its many thematic threads, particularly the ones about how fans feel like they own pop stars and how so many of them are asked to bury their trauma and just smile, but enough remain in the foundation of the piece to get it across the finish line. On that note, there's no reason for a horror sequel to be over two hours long, but it's more because Finn has so many avenues that he wants to explore with his concept than a sense of narrative bloat or sag or padding. I was never bored, and there are some truly stellar sequences here, especially one that could be called "Smile Dancers" that's one of the best in concept and execution in the genre this year.
I have a general aversion to films that use mental illness as a cheap horror device (hated "Lights Out," for example), and so what impresses me most about these films is how Finn avoids those exploitative traps by focusing so intently on the emotional truth of his heroines. Yes, there are a few too many jump scares and at least one too many twists, but it's all forgivable when you think of the true terror in Naomi Scott's eyes. Finn loves faces, the ones twisted by evil, and the ones shattered by fright. Even more than after the first film, I'm interested to see what he does next, and more confident that it won't just be more of the same.
