Hit me baby one more time with those evil smiles.
“Smile” was a horror film that plays like “The Ring” and “Nightmare on Elm Street,” as a demon spreads its horror from one person to the next with a smile. Let me clarify a bit. It poisons its victims’ minds for a week, and at the end, it possesses them, makes its way inside their bodies, and makes them kill themselves with a smile on their face. And when a person witnesses the murder, the fear passes on to him/her.
I wasn’t a fan of the first film, because even though I thought it had potential, it still made the main heroine/victim (played by Sosie Bacon) look like a crazy person who obviously doesn’t watch horror movies of its kind. But now that we have the sequel “Smile 2,” its basically in the same realm as the first, but told through the perspectives of a recovering junkie pop star, who is stressed out about her tragic past and her upcoming world tour. So, it would make sense that these evil smiles would catch up with her. That’s what makes this sequel better than the first.
Naomi Scott plays that pop star named Skye Riley, who needs to regain her fans’ trust following her addictions which lead to a car accident that kills her actor boyfriend (Ray Nicholson, son of Jack Nicholson). Now that she has back problems as a result, she turns to drugs on the black market (something stronger than Tylenol). Her dealer Lewis (Lukas Gage), however, kills himself with a smile, and now he passes the fear on to her.
This girl already has enough on her plate as it is. Her mother (Rosemarie Dewitt) is also her manager who tells her to get a good sleep schedule in order to keep things on track. And she’s also persistent in having her girl go through with the rehearsals, guest appearances, and meet and greets. Ergo, she’s more like a manager than a mother.
But whatever entity this is doesn’t care about Skye’s problems; it cares about destroying her, which is why we get some creeps at her meet and greet and why she eventually tries to fight back.
For months I’ve been predicting the ending and it maybe it needs a little less jump scares, but “Smile 2,” made one again by Parker Finn, improves on the formulas in the first movie and merges with the challenges of fame and bad choices. Some of them affect Skye’s friend Gemma (Dylan Gelula from “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” and “Dream Scenario”), whom she tries to make amends with. And the mind games this entity plays on the singer loves to drive her crazy and the audience crazy. Sometimes the results can be funny, other times it can be a bit much, and other times, it can be pretty scary.
Scott, who is also a singer, delivers on the main heroine through her pathos, stress, and horror (if Skye keeps pulling her hair, she’ll be like Principal McVicker on “Beavis & Butthead”). It would make sense that the life of a pop star with a previous drug addiction and a lot of heavy baggage would find herself terrified by whatever smiling demon is after her. Or it may sound silly. I don’t know. But I like the way the sequel handles it.
“Smile 2” is basically the same as the first “Smile” (and I’m not gonna call it “Smile 1,” which was an interesting conversation in Kevin Smith’s “The 4:30 Movie”), but takes a different approach to the genre. And plus, it has better intentions than how M. Night Shyamalan presented the twists in “Trap,” which had Josh Harnett playing a serial killer trying to escape from a music concert. This pop star needs to escape from the evil smiles, and I’m like: “good luck.”