Smile 2, Parker Finn’s follow-up to his own 2022 horror film Smile, is already being hailed as one of the most prominent horror films of the year. The sequel has managed to gather the attention of horror fans who saw in the movie a worthy expansion of the original premise. After just one week of playing in theaters, the film has made more than $50 million, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down.
Starring Naomi Scott in the lead role as Skye Riley, Smile 2 follows a world-famous pop star who has decided to leave her traumatic past behind. After being involved in a car crash where her boyfriend died, Skye is revealed to be an addict, but fortunately, she has been able to overcome this. Now, as she’s about to start her world tour, Skye is forced to admit that the physical pain is unbearable.
About to embark on a new world tour, global pop sensation Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) begins experiencing increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events. Overwhelmed by the escalating horrors and the pressures of fame, Skye is forced to face her dark past to regain control of her life before it spirals out of control.
- Release Date
- October 18, 2024
- Director
- Parker Finn
- Main Genre
- Horror
She attempts to buy illegal painkillers from a classmate who’s now a dealer, but Lewis is behaving strangely. It seems his recent encounter with an apparently insane detective and some criminals has “marked” him. Skye witnesses his suicide and instantly becomes infected with the entity that manifests through smiles.
Even though the body count is low, Smile 2 raises the stakes of its own game. It’s a very, very violent film, but it isn’t outrageous in terms of the execution. All the kills are “relevant” and they’re still memorable enough to feature the movie in best-of-horror lists of the year. Naturally, we went through the film and made a list of the gnarliest moments and kills in the movie.
Be advised: The following article contains graphic depictions of violence and self-harm, as well as heavy spoilers for Smile 2.
5 The Second Car Accident Reveal
Technically, this happens before everything in the film, even before the first car accident. Nevertheless, the gruesome details are progressively revealed as Skye revisits the moment until one scene shows how it all happened. The second car accident depicts the car crash that ended Paul Hudson’s life and caused Skye’s painful injuries.
Nightmare sequences show Skye suffering right after the crash. Paul is clearly dead, with part of his head missing and his face with a calm, open-eyed expression. Skye is equally hurt, but alive and screaming for help.
However, the graphic aspect of this moment is best seen in the scene when Skye and Paul argue before the car crash. They’re clearly intoxicated, but the director spends a lot of time going back and forth with the camera, playing with the viewer’s anxiety as we all know what will happen, but we don’t know when. Eventually, Paul loses control, and the truck goes over the road and dives straight into disaster, a moment made scarier by a terrifying sound effect.
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4 The Opening Car Crash Sequence
The film’s opening sequence shows Joel, the police detective who survived Smile‘s first entry, trying to pass the curse to someone else. He devises a plan to pass it to shady criminals who could actually deserve it. But his plans don’t exactly go right.
Shots are fired, and Joel’s plan backfires. A young man shows up (pay attention to his name, for it is important), and Joel is forced to run as more criminals arrive and empty their rifles on him. Luckily, he leaves the house, but suddenly, a truck strikes him. It’s at this moment when we realize the director hasn’t cut, and it’s a continuous shot.
As the camera pans back, we see the carnage. We hope Joel is alive, but the more blood we see, the more we lose hope. It’s not until the camera is fully positioned above the road that we see Joel’s mangled remains. It’s an early death that’s hard to recover from.
3 The Death of Skye’s Mother
Skye has apparently been found in her apartment, and everyone suspects she’s using drugs. We saw her being surrounded by a dozen smiling strangers who were trying to dismember her. But could it all have been a fever dream?
Skye’s mother, Elizabeth, insists that Skye must go on the road for her tour. Skye is sure that she’s going through something otherworldly, but no one believes her. This moment is a bit predictable, but there was no reason for the entity not to manifest through Elizabeth. When it happens, one of the film’s goriest scenes ensues.
Elizabeth smashes a mirror, grabs a shard and begins viciously stabbing herself. Her neck and her face are the targets of an uncontrollable monster who aims to cause trauma to the main victim. As Skye watches in shock, she attempts to run, but then she realizes she’s holding the shard. She was the one who killed her mother, who now lies lifeless in a pool of blood with her upper torso disfigured.
2 Skye’s Death
When the singer is fighting the evil version of herself inside a freezer room where she is supposed to go through some experiments, she suddenly wakes up in the middle of a concert. Her mother cheers from a VIP seat, and Skye stares in shock as she doesn’t know what to do. Everything that has happened before has been a hallucination.
Well, apparently. The entity with the outlandish smile is only seen by Skye, who understands it’s her time. It enters Skye’s body by breaking her face apart and finding its way through the singer’s mouth. The audience just listens as she chokes to death.
But then Skye recovers herself. She stands in front of thousands and smiles maniacally, and we in the audience are now sure of what will happen next. We only see the reaction of the concert audience wincing at every blow as the sounds of Skye doing something are heard all over the place. In the end, we see Skye has stabbed herself in the head through her eye, and her body lies still, her face showing the most eerie smile in the film.
1 Lewis Fregoli’s Death
The film’s most memorable scene is also its gnarliest. Of course, we mean Lewis Fregoli’s death and the singer’s fateful witnessing of the event. It involves weight plates, and it will make you think before heading out to the gym the next day.
Skye arrives at Lewis’ apartment and she asks him for painkillers. Lewis is distraught, but she can’t figure out why. He disappears into the next room, and Skye decides to stay and wait for the drugs.
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Lewis shows up again with a huge smile on his face. Again, we in the audience know what is about to happen, but Skye is confused. As Lewis grabs the weight plate, we wince at the possibility that he will drop it on his face. But something far worse happens. Lewis begins hitting his face with the plate with monstrous strength. Every blow is more violent, and it shows in what remains of Lewis’ face after each hit. The only thing left of him, and the last thing Skye sees before running in panic, is what used to be a face, and it’s now a flesh and muscle salad.
Smile 2
is now playing in theaters across the United States.