In Hollywood, whenever a movie is successful, a sequel is almost surely on the cards. (There are exceptions to that rule, when films that don’t really deserve a continuation get one purely as a cash grab, but that’s beside the point.) Sequels are practically the norm in Tinseltown these days, and with the positive outpouring for the 2022 horror film Smile, it came as no surprise that a sequel was swiftly put into production. Going into it, I couldn’t help but wonder if Smile 2 would tarnish the reputation of its predecessor, or improve on it. The answer was, strangely enough, a bit of both.
Smile 2 focuses on a brand new character, pop singer Skye Riley who, after suffering a massive bout of drug abuse resulting in the death of her boyfriend, picks herself back up again and reboots her career. Her past, however, slowly comes back to haunt her as she is hunted down by the familiar smiling entity we met in the last movie.
While most horror sequels tend to bring back its (surviving) stars, Smile 2 takes a different turn by deciding to not include a single cast member from the first movie. (Except maybe for one, but it doesn’t really count as he is in it for no longer than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo.) Instead, creator Parker Finn has taken this opportunity to explore a new story within this universe which, for the most part, kind of works.
Right from the opening scroll of the film, we are thrown head first back into this world, wasting no time in letting us know how everything is going to play out. This one isn’t going to ease us into the gore. Finn does it within the first three minutes. And while that firmly sets the tone for what is to come, I was still unprepared for just how disturbing this sequel was going to be.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Finn knew what formula worked well before and decides to stick to that. Revisiting my previous review of Smile, I noticed that there were a lot of similarities with what I loved about the first film and what didn’t quite work. It was nearly identical to the notes I had taken for Smile 2. The only difference between the two is that for his latest outing, Finn doesn’t hold back at all. If anything, he took the entire concept, tone, and atmosphere, and dialed it up to a million. If the first Smile wasn’t terrifying enough, he made damn sure that it will be this time round.
Making full use of open spaces and next to no soundtrack for most of the scenes, Finn makes the audience feel incredibly uncomfortable and disturbed. You will find yourself inching further and further back into your seat, trying to get away from what’s happening on screen. And yet you can’t look away because you’re desperately trying to see if you can preempt any scares by focusing on all those empty spaces that he’s playing with in every shot.
Parker Finn doesn’t give you any time to breathe throughout this 127-minute runtime. Jump scares are going to come at you a mile a minute, flashing subliminal images are going to come out of nowhere, and the silences are going to leave you restless. It’s an experience that is not for the faint hearted or the casual horror fan.
Smile 2 is good, but there are still a few rough patches that keep this from being truly fantastic outing. Much like its predecessor, there is an issue of pacing that still remains. This could have been a lot tighter and might even have worked better if it was about 30 minutes shorter. We could have gotten to the root of the plot a lot faster instead of spending an interminable amount of time just sitting there and watching poor Skye get terrorized by the smiling entity over, and over, and over again, without any real progression. While it does get there in the end, the journey took a lot longer than was necessary. Especially since we’ve already been here before.
And then there is the issue of whether to classify this as a sequel. While there is some continuity with regards to the same demonic spirit terrorizing yet more innocent people, there doesn’t seem to be anything else connecting the first and second movie, making it seem like Smile didn’t even happen at all. Everything is explained as if it was the first time, making it seem like Finn had a bigger idea for the first outing that he didn’t get to fulfill. If anything, this feels more like a remake rather than a sequel. This feels like what the first film should have been like rather than a follow up movie.
As the film begins to ramp up its insanity and outlandishness, I began to think, perhaps bigger is not necessarily better. What made Smile work so well was its air of independence. It felt like an independent film that was given a bigger budget, but made sure that it kept things simple, utilizing its story and eeriness to really leave an impact on its audience rather than rely on massive scares, set pieces, and copious amounts of gore.
With Smile 2, they knew they now had the capability to go further, and most certainly did, leaning into some truly insane filmmaking decisions. Things get so crazy that by the time we reach the massive finale that it almost descends into B-grade territory. And while that might work for some, for me, things could have been scaled back so that our imaginations were allowed to fill in the blanks.
Follow Us