Smile 2 came out this month, but, will it be as good as the first one? It was released on October 18th, 2024, and of course, I went to see it. Smile was about a psychiatrist named Rose Cotter, who witnessed a traumatic moment with one of her patients when she began to experience unexplainable, supernatural events. The movie did pretty well but it had some mixed reactions from the audience ranging from, “The worst thing since unsliced bread” (No really. This is from a review on Rotten Tomatoes’ Popcornmeter.) to “The scariest horror film in decades.”
The promotion for both movies caused an uproar with the planted actors at NFL, MLB, and NLCS games, and even the VMA’s, that were broadcasted on TV. Another stunt was Tik-Toker, Arianna Hailey having multiple unsettling videos including a “Smile you’re on camera” sign, a picture frame holding someone smiling creepily, and even saying she’s quitting because “She can’t smile anymore,” I think the creativity in the promos are off the charts and the genuine confusion and fear it causes to the bystanders that get to witness the promotion is genius. Since I’ve seen Smile 2, I thought I’d tell you about some of the scenes that I loved.
The Beginning
Personally, I really enjoyed it. Even if it was a bit predictable at times, name me five horror movies that aren’t. Some people criticize movies like it’s their job, so from a less harsh point of view, let me tell you what I thought about Smile 2. The plot is this; A pop sensation, Skye Riley, who’s about to go on a world tour, begins experiencing terrifying and inexplicable events. Overwhelmed, she is forced to face her past. In the first movie, our main protagonist Rose Cotter dies from the entity, which was witnessed by Joel, a detective, and Rose’s ex-boyfriend, who then has the entity passed on to him. Joel gets desperate as he’s approaching a week of living with the entity and he tracks down 2 murderers with a plan to kill himself in front of one of the murderers and pass the entity onto him, however, his plan fails when he accidentally kills both men and an innocent man named Lewis ends up getting the entity. Lewis is a drug addict and dealer who deals to Skye Riley. Skye was recently in an accident, and she was dealing with drug abuse, so she isn’t allowed hard drugs, which is where Lewis comes in. Skye, who ran out of painkillers, decided to go to Lewis’s house for more.
When she arrives, Lewis is acting odd, to say the least. He’s paranoid and greets Skye with a sword to her neck. He eventually calms down into a little less kooky state, going into the back room to grab the painkillers for Skye. He later runs out, scaring Skye and to her, he just looks like he’s going crazy. Skye thought he was overdosing until he sat up and started smiling creepily. He stands up, grabs a weight plate, and smashes his head multiple times with it. And his smile never falters. During this scene I honestly got chills. The staring with that gigantic smile and a bloody, bashed face is incredibly unsettling. And that’s the first scene that really made me interested in the movie. Since Skye was a witness to his death, she ended up with the entity.
The Longest Week
During the week Skye begins to hallucinate. She’s seeing a battered and bloody Lewis, fans creepily smiling at her, and hearing things. She receives a text from an unknown number saying they know she is at Lewis’s house and that she’s in danger, which she ignores for a while. She then texted her friend, Gemma, who she was close with but no longer is, to reconcile and tell her about how she’s been feeling, and they are back to being friends. At an important charity event, she had a hallucination that the teleprompter stopped working and left her rambling and embarrassing herself. She then hallucinates her boyfriend who died in the crash they were in, and he is, of course, smiling. She eventually freaks out and accidentally injures a lady who was up on stage with her. After, she decides to reach out to the anonymous texter and meets with him. Morris, we discover his name, lost his brother to the entity and has been tracking it ever since. He tells Skye the only way to defeat the entity is to kill herself without it being by the entity’s will. He says he can bring her back with the help of his medical training, but Skye gets scared and leaves.
The Ending
He pops back up later when Skye decides she does need help. She and Gemma rush to go meet Morris but on the way there Skye gets a call from Gemma… who she’s in the car with. Skye answers the call to Gemma being completely confused about the texts she’s been getting from Skye and even about why Skye is talking to her, considering they haven’t in a long time. This just reveals that Gemma was never Gemma from the start and Skye turns to look at Gemma to see her smiling and she realizes she is alone and continues to go to Morris. She meets him at an abandoned Pizza Hut to use the walk-in freezer to prevent brain damage when her heart is stopped. Skye doesn’t get the chance to use the syringe to stop her heart before the entity takes the form of her past self and they fight before Skye grabs the syringe and injects herself. But of course, it’s not that easy because it turned out to be a hallucination, and the entity locked her in a closet and told her to break a leg. She then appeared on stage in front of thousands. The entity saw a chance to be greater than ever imagined, so it broke open her mouth and crawled inside of her but of course, this isn’t seen by the rest of the crowd. She collapses then the entity inside of Skye stands up, smiles, and stabs herself in the eye with the microphone. Once I noticed what the entity was going to do on stage, I was genuinely shocked. The words the entity said before putting Skye on stage were echoing in my head it said “I’ve been waiting for you for such a long time” letting us know its intention was always to spread as much as it possibly could.
This was a fantastic ending some people always want the protagonist to win but that’s unrealistic and such a constant in horror movies. This way, things are much more interesting. Not only did the entity win by conquering its victim, it won by spreading to a huge audience which means there’s no choice but to continue to spread.
This movie was superior to the first one. Despite the multiple scenes VOSS water got like it was a main character, I really do think the hate that transpired was dramatic. The movie is now sitting at an 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 82% from the audience, beating its first movie that had 79% Tomatoes and 77% from the audience.
