Back when the first Smile movie was ramping up promotion, they managed to grab a lot of attention (including my own) with some easy but effective marketing stunts. People with creepy, unmoving, smiling faces started popping up at various public events, staring directly at the camera. It was fun and unnerving at the same time, a testament to just how much the simple scary idea of a sinisterly happy face can work and generate interest.

I’m embarrassed to admit that in the months leading up to the first Smile movie, I initially dismissed it. I thought it looked dumb and the premise was too simple to be anything but silly. I remember the trailers for Blumhouse’s 2018 movie Truth or Dare looking similarly creepy but then landing with a dull thud. Nevertheless, I was there for Smile’s opening night back in 2022, and I was more than just pleasantly surprised to be wrong about the film - I was downright blown away by it.

I was most impressed by the masterful steering of the ship by writer and director Parker Finn, who turns a simplistic setup into a terrifying psychological spiral. So when it was announced that a sequel was on the way with Finn at the helm once again, Smile 2 quickly became one of my most anticipated movies of 2024, horror or otherwise. And boy, does it deliver. Smile 2 is a masterwork of terror, a sequel that doesn’t just go bigger but better in all the right ways.

Global pop superstar Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) is just about to launch her massive comeback tour after some unplanned time away from the spotlight. A devastating car crash and a stint in rehab have Skye living on a razor’s edge, determined but overwhelmed by all of the demands and responsibilities of her career. Despite it all, the struggling star might’ve just been able to pull it off, if only it weren’t for the sudden traumatic event of her friend Lewis (Lukas Gage) killing himself in front of her one fateful night.

Skye’s already fragile mental state rapidly deteriorates as she starts hallucinating strange smiling people staring at her, as well as the mutilated corpse of Lewis, everywhere she goes. Trauma, depression, anxiety, self-loathing, and the pressures of stardom all collide in a cacophony of madness as her mind is torn asunder by the demonic smiling entity. It’s bleak stuff, much like the first film, but amplified tenfold. If Smile is about how trauma will ruin you and drive you insane, with nowhere to turn and no one to help you, then Smile 2 is about all of that but also how it’s all your fault. An uplifting story, this is not.

Finn’s style is very noticeable. He fills his movies with so many intentional camera moves and placements, uses overbearing and unsettling sound design, and utilizes clever editing to help fully immerse the audience into each and every scare sequence that he crafts. It’s incredibly stylistic but never overtly showy to the point of distraction, and it’s all in service of getting into the scrambled head of Skye as she falls apart. Major credit for just how effectively scary this movie is has to go to Finn’s returning partners of cinematographer Charlie Sarroff and editor Elliot Greenberg.

You’re never able to be sure if what’s happening onscreen is what’s actually going on with the characters or not. Is any of it real? Is some of it? What could actually be happening? The first film played with this kind of dream sequence trickery, but this sequel doubles down on it in increasingly surprising and entertaining ways. Anchored by a stunning central performance from Scott, who should immediately take the crown for this year’s one true Scream Queen after this, Smile 2 is a superior sequel that’s mean, lean and about as gruesome as a major studio film can get.

Make sure this one is a priority this Halloween. 

‘Smile 2’ is currently playing in theaters.