2.5/5 stars
Back in 2022, Parker Finn’s Smile was a quietly unnerving horror film that involved a demon jumping between victims like a parasite, causing hideous hallucinations before the infected lost their minds and took their own lives.
Finn’s sequel, Smile 2, keeps the demon but does not add much to the concept beyond focusing on a new host, who happens to be a Taylor Swift-like pop star who is succumbing to the pressures of fame and endless global touring.
Naomi Scott plays Skye Riley, who is just about to embark on a series of concerts following a nightmare year that included alcohol and substance abuse and a brutal car accident that saw her actor boyfriend killed.
Now she spends all day gulping down Voss water and Vicodin pills for her injured back. “Every good thing in my life ends up broken because of me,” she wails, berating her manager-mother (Rosemarie DeWitt) and assistant (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) at regular intervals.
But it is on a visit to a drug dealer, Lewis (Lukas Gage), that she witnesses true horror, when the demon entices Lewis to smash his own face in with a weight plate.
