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| Images courtesy Paramount Pictures |
In a year that's seen another serious revitalization of horror through the lens of several lower budget indie films like Terrifier 3, The Substance, and Long Legs, Paramount Pictures delivers a studio sequel that does exactly what it should.
Their release of the awaited Smile 2 is an intensified, panic inducing part two that builds on the foundation blocks of the existing mythology and continues to expand on the lore of an unseen force that causes psychological damage to its victims prior to destroying them physically, then passes on to another unwilling host. The movie is a near perfect specimen of how all franchises don't need to suck creatively.
Smile 2 picks up just days after the original film and throws its audience right into a terrifying and brutal situation that sets up for the next two hours of tension laced suspense and bloodshed. This is an altogether better movie than the original. It continually ups the ante with new and interesting twists and turns that rely heavily on Naomi Scott's attention to creating a believable pop princess that's rebuilding her music career after a horrible accident.
This is Scott's first time carrying an entire film in the lead role. Honestly, she's incredible here giving a performance worthy of any dramatic film. While she's been in other big budget films like Power Rangers, Aladdin, and the maligned Charlie's Angels (2019), this is truly her shining moment. Her role as Skye Riley, a Lady Gaga-esque stage goddess, is the best of her career and one that may catapult her beyond the confines of her current standing as a support player. Backed up by the always amazing Rosemarie Dewitt, a surprise to see in a horror film, the acting here never falters which really pushes the dramatic boundaries of what most audiences expect when walking into this type of pre-Halloween release.
Personally, the first Smile didn't do much for me. It felt like an overhyped studio flick that copied movies like The Ring or It Follows and did nothing original for the genre despite its huge box office successes. Smile 2 changes that. Director Parker Finn goes hard with his second chapter in this story. You can tell that he one hundred percent understood his homework. He couldn't just repeat himself. Instead, he goes for the gusto with a deep dig into the world he's created and cranks the dial to 10. The screenwriting is tighter, the characters are much more fleshed out, the scares are well planned, the acting is better, the few gore scenes are twisted, the kills more creative and the themes of failed redemption are superbly timed. And tropes be damned, the jump scares are without fault.
In a world where we're going to get another chapter in the overdone Scream franchise and still no proper return to the Nightmare on Elm Street series, we're handed one of the best horror movies of 2024 in a second entry that may not reinvent the wheel, but definitely proves that sometimes directors can improve on their ideas when given a chance to revisit their creation. Smile 2 moves at a fever pitch, never relenting in Finn's telling of a modern fable.
Ultimately, this movie is a total mind fuck. And it's the one we deserve right now.
-CG