Smile 2

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I'm gonna start this review off by saying you shouldn't continue reading anything beyond this first paragraph if you haven't seen the first 'Smile' yet. This picks up six days after the events of its predecessor, and really hits the ground running, assuming that the viewer has seen the first movie, and knows exactly what's going on. I will keep things relatively spoiler-free, but I'm gonna have to spoil a lot of the first film in order to explain this one. Also, 'Smile' ends in such an awesome and unexpected way, so I still highly recommend checking it out first.

So, with known spoilers ahead, let's just quickly break down the "smile curse," itself. Basically, a demonic entity, which can take on other forms (think 'The Thing'), terrorizes one person at a time, causing them to commit grizzly acts of suicide in front of a witness, who will then inherit the curse for about a week before things repeat themselves (think 'The Ring'). The only way to shake the curse is to take a life, again, in front of a witness, as the entity seems to need a host at any given time. Lastly, upon taking on other forms or possessing its victim, the entity will show off a ghastly, haunting smile.

This time around, the focus is on a pop star named Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), who makes a comeback appearance on the Drew Barrymore show in which we learn about a dark past with drug abuse, and a horrible car crash she was in, along with her actor boyfriend, Paul Hudson (Ray Nicholson), who died in the crash. She's taken care of by her mother/manager, Elizabeth (Rosemarie DeWitt), and her assistant Joshua (Miles Gutierrez-Riley), even if they are a little overbearing at times, adding to piling up stress before her comeback tour.

During rehearsals one night, Skye throws her back out, and sneaks away to her old dealer, Lewis (Lukas Gage) for some Vicodin. While there, Lewis begins acting erratic and panicky, and seemingly chokes to death on the ground. This is where we realize he's possessed by the Smile demon, and without giving away so many details, this is also where the Smile demon gets transferred to Skye, and before she knows it, she's terrorized by crazy, smiley people, and visions of her accident, as the entity seems to feed off its victim reliving past trauma.

The rest of the film unfolds more or less basically as one would expect, but there are little additions here and there to make it more interesting. For example the concept of potentially stopping Skye's heart to make the entity think she's dead before she's revived - using a freezer, by the way, and lifting the entire concept (and I honestly think even some of the dialogue, reworded just slightly) from 'The Frighteners,' which is irksome, but the idea admittedly does make sense for trying to beat this thing.

I like the idea here that even though a lot of things unfold similarly to the first 'Smile' movie, the leads are very different people with very different occupations. I liked how the first one had a professional therapist questioning her own reality, and here, I liked how they used the stress of being a pop star to its advantage, along with a drug problem that makes others think shes using again when in reality, she's perfectly clean. So much of what makes these movies scary is the way this demon plays with your worst trauma, much like Freddy Krueger.

All in all, this is a very worthy sequel to its predecessor, and I'm gonna go ahead and say this series is two for two now. It even manages to add a twist to its ending that a lot of people will probably see coming, but it's an intriguing twist nonetheless. I have to say, I feel like more was taken from other properties here, and it doesn't have the same "oomph" as the first one with its out-of-the-blue reveals near the end. But if one gives these a back-to-back viewing it'll flow nicely. I'm hoping to see more!

4/5

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