In international release 'Smile 2', the sequel to the 2022 horror hit. About how Parker Finn made an excellent sequel and thereby broke his own franchise — in our review. Warning: the text contains spoilers for the original film.

As we remember from the finale of the first part, the Smile curse was passed to police officer Joel (Kyle Gallner) from the previous victim-carrier (Sosie Bacon). The plot of 'Smile 2' starts a week after those events. Possessed by the entity and gradually losing his mind, Joel breaks into the house of dangerous dealers. But everything doesn't go according to plan, and he accidentally infects not them, but a hapless drug dealer Lewis (Lukas Gage), who in turn infects pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott).

The girl underwent a long rehabilitation after a car accident that killed her boyfriend (Ray Nicholson). Now she is preparing for her triumphant return to the stage with a world tour, but the entity has completely different plans for her. Who would doubt it.

'Smile 2' is a rare case for modern horror when the film is packed with jump scares but is not a mindless attraction with banal boo-moments. Parker Finn's film is so insidious towards the viewer that even the most avid horror fan will hardly feel comfortable after a couple of such scares. But it's not limited to just scares. That would be too simple.

Creating the sequel, Finn apparently realized what a trump card he had up his sleeve: the concept of an antagonist-parasite living in the head of the central character is an ideal approach to various script machinations. The second part maximizes the potential of this idea: one hallucination replaces another, turning everything shown earlier upside down. As soon as the viewer manages to accept the rules of the game, the film makes a 180-degree turn, showing that nothing is what it seems.

The main question is whether this joke, repeated a dozen times, gets old? For example, in 'Daaaaaali!' by Quentin Dupieux, the pyramid of plot constructions, like 'film within a film' and 'dream within a dream', perfectly conveyed the atmosphere of madness, but at the same time made viewing sometimes simply unbearable.

In 'Smile 2', the situation is different. Parker Finn manages to maintain a balance between the viewer's trust, which obviously cannot be abused, and the paranoid skepticism that arises in the viewer as the story progresses. However, it's worth adding a fly in the ointment: most of the plot twists in the film are still the notorious 'deus ex machina'.

On the other hand, it is thanks to this script trick that the film ends on a very high note. The ending is a spectacular cliffhanger with a setup for the future. However, it is unlikely that the director will be able to create a third part that is a direct continuation of the second.

'Smile 2' also presents other surprises. We know Naomi Scott from roles in such 'masterpieces' as the reboot of 'Charlie's Angels' and the feature film 'Power Rangers'. So it's no exaggeration to call her performance in the reviewed horror novelty a 'career peak'.

Skye Riley (a pop singer suspiciously reminiscent of Miley Cyrus from the video Wrecking Ball) is a rather multifaceted character with a whole collection of skeletons in the closet. Unlike the heroine of the first film, it is much harder to empathize with her, but nevertheless, it somehow works. The film interestingly plays on the fear of a media personality towards the fan community (parasocial relationships) and production companies. Another question is that for 99% of the film's viewers, all these are 'first world problems'.

And perhaps the main discovery of the 'Smile' sequel (at least for me personally) was Charlie Sarroff, who was behind the camera. And this is not only about the opening scene shot without editing cuts. His cinematography provides a stunning effect of immersion in the action on screen, which, for obvious reasons, is best manifested in horror moments.

'Smile 2' sets such a high bar for horror films that it inadvertently crosses out the future even for its own franchise (I will be glad to be wrong!). Nevertheless, it would not be entirely fair to award this film the title of 'main horror of the year'. It is still a simple genre attraction, but made in such a way that by its very existence it sends all competitors in the field to the 'B' category.

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