It’s safe to say, from my perspective, that Smile 2 is horror movie of the year! I can’t remember much about the first Smile movie, but a simple search revealed that not knowledge of the previous movie was required to enjoy the sequel. While I can’t recall all the intricate details of Smile, I do remember bits and pieces of it were basically the disease or demonic possession of the host is passed down from person to person after the original host loses final control of themselves and commits the act of suicide in front of a witness. Or something like that, I think? Anyway, what I absolutely do remember is that I did not enjoy the movie like I did here in the sequel. Smile 2 is absolutely the best psychological elevated horror movie I’ve seen so far this year. I can’t say anything comes close? I’m still waiting to stream Heretic once it becomes available as well as needing to watch Terrifier 3 and Nosferatu, but for now, Smile 2 is the winner.

I’m seriously hoping that Skye Riley, played by Naomi Scott, wins some type of award for her wonderful performance in Smile 2. Heck, at the very least, get nominated for something big. It may not often be the case that a horror movie actor and actress gets nominated to win the big award nowadays (I don’t follow those closely, so I’m just assuming here) but exceptions can always be made? There is so much to unpack in Smile 2. It’s definitely trippy experience. While it builds on the first Smile universe a bit, it doesn’t necessarily expand it enough. Except for the beginning 10 minutes or so of the movie, Smile 2 literally can be considered a standalone. Whether that’s good or not depends on your preferences. I’m personally not sure where they will be going with this in the third movie based on how Smile 2 ended. What I would prefer is for them to continue to build on Smile 2 (more on this later), finish up the series and maybe release a final movie in the future, something like a prequel, to explain how this evil demonic presence got started to finish up the franchise.

What obviously makes the Smile franchise so creepy to watch is of course due to the psychotic smiles of the possessed. They’ve taken such a simple human expression and somehow turned it into something to be creeped out about. And no, smiling clowns, no matter how creepy, don’t count. But the psychological horror of Smile 2 is also what makes the movie so enjoyable. Although it’s the usual case of whether what the protagonist is going through real or imaginary, it somehow gets blended so perfectly well that I don’t mind. The added pressure of Skye Riley being a mega teen pop star with so much responsibility to uphold only adds to the boiling pot which is ready to explode at any moment. What absolutely got me is how they’ve injected humor, at least as to how I saw it, in the final act. Clocking in at just a bit over two hours, I found myself enjoying almost every minute of it. It’s so weird because I didn’t think it would be so. However, watching Skye slowly implode, bit by bit, was so satisfying and tense due to her awesome performance.

Now, let’s talk about the ending because it can’t be avoided. After having read through some Reddit discussions on it, it is my conclusion that Skye is not dead as the ending would have us believe. Her killing herself on stage is the demon messing with her. The scene where the demon showed Skye her leg being broken to the bone on stage supports this theory. In addition, Skye clearly stated that she was not going to wear that outfit on her tour because it showed the scar on her stomach. Because the demon likely feeds on the fears of the host, it made Skye wear that outfit during her suicide, which leads me again that it is imagined in Skye’s head. That’s not to say that everything Skye experienced in the later half of the movie was all real, either. For example, we discovered that her interactions with Gemma at her apartment was not real. I concur that the scene in which Gemma says hello to Skye’s mother, with the way the scene was shot where Elizabeth was not in the shot along with her not acknowledging Gemma was a giveaway. This is not too hard to fathom as Skye at this point was already getting toyed with by the demon. The water bottle falling scene along with her imagining the crazy fan in her apartment were evidence that she was slowly but surely succumbing to the pressure. It is also my belief that everything that happened while she was in the hospital, along with killing her mother, was real. Meeting up with Morris and trying to stop her heart was all real. It’s possible and easy to believe the other side of the story in that the demon is just simply toying with Skye and torturing her by giving her false hope and that the majority of the events was only perceived to be real and that she really did kill herself in front of hundreds of thousands of concert viewers. Up to this point, we really don’t know how the demon behaves other than torturing its victim so badly that they eventually end up killing themselves in the end in front of a witness in order to jump to a new host.

One part that supports the idea that Skye is still alive is the ending credits, where we actually hear Skye banging on something and repeatedly screaming in agony as the credits continue to roll. Maybe the demon knows that Skye is trying to kill herself without any witness present and is attempting a last ditch attempt to mess with her? In addition, if Morris had no intention of actually saving Skye, why did he continue to leave the door propped open when he suddenly had to “leave and get something”? He stated that the freezer door only opens from the outside and not within. All he had to do was shut it closed, and that would have sealed Skye’s fate. Some believed that the demon was actually in full possession of her in the scene where the dancers opened her mouth in her apartment. However, Skye was fucked the minute she saw her drug dealer friend kill himself in the beginning at his apartment. So, why the need to “get inside” her again? This is where, once again, not knowing many details about how the demon operates has everyone making guesses and assumptions. It’s definitely fun to discuss, but hopefully something can be cleared up in the next movie.

I can now hardly wait for Smile 3. I sincerely hope that the directors know what they are doing and not planning things out as they go along or waiting to see how fans react. What I don’t want is a continuation of this franchise to continue on and on with each new movie as a standalone where we see a new host each time. If the ending concert scene was real, the demon now has a thousand upon thousands of new hosts to choose from. Morris implied that the demon only infects one host a time I believe but who knows, maybe Morris is not real, and it was the demon himself messing with Skye again? It would be interesting to see where this goes from here, but it is my hope that they continue with the Skye arc in the next film and maybe finishing it there. I can’t see them doing the same trick in every single new Smile movie.