Parker Finn’s Smile 2 is one of the rare sequels that improves upon the original, and ranks as one of the better horror movies of the year.
PLOT: Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), one of the world’s biggest pop stars, becomes haunted by a familiar curse on the eve of her new world tour, sending her life spiralling out of control.
REVIEW: 2022’s Smile was quietly one of the most profitable studio movies of the last few years. Originally designed as a low-budget movie for Paramount Plus, a round of excellent test screenings resulted in Paramount Pictures opting to give it a theatrical release. The result was a movie that grossed over $217 million worldwide on a $17 million budget. It immediately established writer/director Parker Finn, who adapted the movie from his own short (Laura Hasn’t Slept) as a horror phenom, and the release of his ambitious sequel is one of the bigger horror events of the year.
So, how does Smile 2 stack up to its sleeper-hit predecessor? Amazingly well, it turns out. Boasting a bigger budget, Parker Finn’s taken what could have been a run-of-the-mill sequel and elevated it to truly dazzling heights. I liked the first movie well enough, but I wasn’t prepared for how much fun the sequel was right off the bat.
Smile 2 begins with a full-on action sequence. Kyle Gallner’s Joel, who ended the first film cursed, tries to pass on his affliction in the most altruistic way, which ends up climaxing in a surprisingly potent shoot-out. Things don’t go as planned, with him unwittingly passing the curse on to someone who doesn’t deserve it. From there, Finn can use his bigger platform in a way that truly pushes the envelope from what we expect from a movie like this. It’s the rare A-level studio horror film, and Finn uses the pop aspect to stage some bravura quasi-musical sequences. This is perhaps the only movie you’ll see that feels equally inspired by Hideo Nakata and Bob Fosse.
He also has an amazing lead in Naomi Scott, who gives the performance of her life as Riley. Riley was already badly unmoored before even being cursed following drug addiction and a nearly life-ending accident. Scott embraces the camp aspect, playing Riley to the hilt as she becomes increasingly demented as the film goes on. It’s the kind of performance you’d expect from someone like Nicolas Cage, in that it’s unapologetically maximalist… and delicious.
She’s ably supported by Rosemarie DeWitt, who grounds things a bit as her opportunistic mother, and Dylan Gelula as her ride-or-die BFF. Lukas Gage also pops up and has a knockout sequence early on in the film, where he gets to chew some scenery. Jack Nicholson’s lookalike son, Ray Nicholson, also shows up as a character in Riley’s orbit and purposely channels his father in his big moment.
My only question about Smile 2 is what its reception by horror fans will be like- the film is so unapologetically camp that I wonder if some fans of the lower-key original might be put off. For me, it was the opposite, as Smile 2 dwarfed its predecessor, but it could rub people the wrong way with its heavy doses of pitch-black comedy. However, Finn also doesn’t skimp on the gore, with it being more gruesome than the original and having a big payoff, which is an all-timer for me as far as these things go. Indeed, I was shocked at how much I loved Smile 2. For me, it’s one of the more entertaining films I’ve seen this year, with the two-hour-plus running time racing by. It’s an all-out gore-soaked blast.
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