Reviews
‘Smile 2’ Review – Parker Finn’s Confident Sequel Goes Bigger and Scarier
Parker Finn refuses to take the safest, most obvious path in Smile 2, the follow-up to his 2022 hit film. Adhering to the time-honored tradition of going bigger and harder for the horror sequel, Smile 2 declares itself a far more ruthless and intense journey from its opening sequence, a shockingly violent re-introduction into this bleak world. It’s not just the sequel’s razor-sharp and inventive, gory scares that surpass its predecessor, but a profoundly complicated heroine shaping the edgier style of horror.
Smile 2 picks up days after the first film’s events, tracking the curse’s path to world-famous pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) just as she’s preparing to launch her new global tour. Two things become immediately clear: the entity seems much more savage this round, and Skye is a deeply flawed and fragile character. This tour has a lot riding on it, not just for the jobs and money dependent upon its success, but also in that it’s supposed to be Skye’s major comeback one year after a traumatic car crash that prompted Skye’s trip to rehab and left her boyfriend dead. That she’s still healing from the event, physically and mentally, only compounds the immense pressure she’s under. Then she witnesses the brutal suicide of her former drug dealer (Lukas Gage), whose creepy smile moments before bashing his own face signals the start of a whole new set of nightmarish problems for the pop star.
Naomi Scott stars in Paramount Pictures Presents A Temple Hill Production A Parker Finn FIlm “SMILE 2”
Not that Finn ever shied away from violence in Smile, but the gloves are off in this sequel. The inciting event that passes the curse to Skye is unflinching and graphic, a mass of flesh and bone and squelchy sounds. It’s not even the first burst of violence in the sequel to get the blood pumping. While it makes for satisfying, cringe-worthy horror sequences, what impresses most is the way Finn organically escalates the violence and the nail-biting scares through his lead character.
The entity’s more ruthless method of psychological warfare here is tied to Skye’s psychological state, worming its way further into her brain to use her insecurities, anxieties, and deepest fears against her. Unlike Smile‘s Rose Cotter, a therapist with distant trauma and tools to navigate her mental state, Skye is ill-equipped to fight back. Worse, her cool pop star exterior masks a deeply flawed, tumultuous interior coping with years of deep-seated issues. It’s not just the car crash that informs her trauma, but the fractured relationship with her overbearing mom-turned-manager (Rosemarie DeWitt).
Skye is prone to making rash mistakes, and her checkered past leaves her with a few dark skeletons she’d rather leave buried. Finn’s complex writing of her and Scott’s fearless yet vulnerable portrayal of her is what makes Skye so compelling. Scott throws herself into the deep end of the role’s physical demands, which is a Herculean undertaking in a Smile movie. Skye toggles between grueling dance rehearsals by day while evading vicious attacks at night that leave her in snot-nosed hysterics. It’s a non-stop marathon before the horror anguish takes root.
Finn is much a more confident and assured filmmaker here, injecting a more pronounced sense of humor and personality when not scaring the pants off his audience. It’s in the thought and care he’s given to his pop star protagonist and in the impressive production design that expands the film’s scale in visually arresting and immersive ways. It turns out an affluent, world-renowned pop star comes armed with bold, dramatic penthouse suites and gorgeous arena stages to mine new fear tactics from.
It’s only when beholden to some of Smile‘s rules that this sequel falters. It makes it easier to predict certain story elements, even if thematically fitting. It’s offset by Finn’s dedicated ambition to going bigger, bolder, and scarier right down to a showstopper finale. Special effects legend Alec Gillis and his crew are back to bring especially inspired new twists to the entity’s machinations, culminating in a jaw-dropping climax that’s every bit as ambitious as it looks.
As someone who found the first film solid yet ultimately familiar in its influences, Smile 2 makes for one of the year’s biggest horror surprises. Scott delivers a career-defining performance, tackling so many layers to her character and with seemingly effortless ease. The scale is grander, and the scares are far more visceral and violent. But Finn’s mounting confidence and ingenuity are what’s most exciting; this filmmaker has only honed his scare-crafting chops to the sharpest of edges and is having a blast doing it. It makes for a satisfying thrill ride of jaw-dropping horror and unrelenting dread; a perfect Halloween treat for those in need of a good scare — or twenty.
Smile 2 opens wide in theaters on October 18, 2024.
Your enjoyment of Strung will depend on your tolerance of clichés, contrivances, and overused plot devices. There are plenty to go around in Malcolm D. Lee’s new thriller—and each one lands with a conspicuous thud. Yet this is also a movie where the formulaicness leads to amusement.
Strung is already off to a tropey start when the protagonist, a bereft violinist named Laila (Chloe Bailey), is vividly hallucinating during one of her recitals. Who does she see in that ghastly vision on stage? The sister whose death she blames herself for, of course. That’s when Laila wakes up from what’s actually a hallucination within a dream.
After a one-night stand with a handsome rando, another too-good-to-be-true opportunity soon falls into Laila’s lap. Because she’s broke, couch-surfing and forced to practice the violin inside her best friend’s closet, she jumps on it without much forethought. That opportunity is indeed suspicious, though; a wealthy grandmother (Lynn Whitfield) hires the main character to be her granddaughter’s live-in music teacher. The pay and accommodations are definitely good, but what about the client? Or clients, as it turns out.
Strung: Anna Diop as Imani, Lucien Laviscount as Marcus. (Photo by: Ilze Kitshoff/Blumhouse)
First, there’s pianist-in-training Zuri (Romy Woods), the walking definition of “precocious child in a horror movie”. She hides behind the bizarre mask once belonging to her late father, and her preferred form of communication is sharing obscure facts. Eventually, though, Zuri is the least of Laila’s problems; it’s her neglectful, demanding, and temperamental mother (Anna Diop) who proves to be the greatest obstacle at each turn. Diop just about snatches every scene with her zealous performance as the expectant Imani. Yet as amusing as that moody matriarch can be, her behavior brings up a good question: Is this cartoonishly devious character the legit villain here, or is she simply a red herring?
The kid’s creepy mask, along with Blumhouse’s involvement, might suggest a different kind of horror movie is at work here. Strung, however, is more like a smutty modernization of classic domestic thrillers that feature big houses, imperiled women, and heaps of paranoia. Keep in mind, this is not a bait-and-switch situation; Alan B. McElroy’s screenplay never leads the viewer down a different path, only to then send them another way.
Strung feels stitched together from other (and better) movies, and your sussing out the suspects is never a hard task. But on the plus side, this movie is often bright and even a little colorful; it’s not too riddled with scenes of flat darkness or washed-out palettes. The music is also another area of interest; certain choices corroborate that comparison to old Hollywood thrillers.
Chloe Bailey as Laila. (Photo by: Ilze Kitshoff/Blumhouse)
So while Strung does string out a number of overplayed twists—with some being less foreseeable than others—it’s a bit comforting to see how some ideas never cease to be used, no matter how familiar they’ve become. The cast’s eagerness also compensates for the general been-there-done-that quality. So often, their commitment to the story is integral to the movie’s best hand-over-mouth moments (and there are quite a few).
Joe Bob Briggs once said the best source of exploitation movies today is the Lifetime network. If you agree, as well as love Tubi’s own efforts in similar filmmaking, then Strung is made for you. This movie taps that same vein of suspense schlock, all while adding a few flourishes of its own.
Strung streams on Peacock starting on June 26.
Strung (photo: Peacock)
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