The world’s a stage in ‘Smile 2’
Who would’ve thought you could craft a whole horror franchise inspired by the famous “Kubrick Stare”? The oft-used shot of legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, which has a character staring dead straight into camera (and thus, right at audiences), unblinking, often with a creepy smile working its way out of thin lips, must have stirred something in writer/director Parker Finn, because here we are with the second “Smile” film after the first surprised audiences and horror fans in 2022.
“Smile 2” begins with an auspicious introduction, a one-take literal cold open featuring a surviving character from the first movie, trying to execute a plan that will get rid of the dreaded curse while also making sure it does away with someone deserving (i.e. a very bad person). Things go awry, the curse transfers and makes its devious way to pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott [“Charlie’s Angels,” “The Outlaws”]), who is about to restart a world tour that got interrupted for a year after a car crash put her out of commission.
It’s been a struggle for Skye; her substance abuse problems came to a head with the crash, and while she’s sober now, she still needs painkillers for the lingering pain from her injuries, which flare up especially when doing intense choreography in preparation for said upcoming tour. Added to that, the scrutiny from the media and press, a demanding fandom and the nitpicking of her mother/manager Elizabeth (“Severance”’s Rosemarie DeWitt) … Well, a curse that drives you insane before it kills you is definitely something Skye does not need right now.
When she starts seeing visions of people smiling rictus grins at her, she starts to panic and distrusts everything as she tries to grapple desperately for some kind of help, whether it’s from her friend Gemma (Dylan Gelula) or a stranger who claims he knows what’s going on (Peter Jacobson).
Best performance yet
Finn continues the style from the first “Smile” that served him well. Shots rotating from upside-down to right-side-up and vice versa, long takes that establish spatial awareness before putting things that weren’t there previously—it’s an effective toolbox that also utilizes jump scares and quick cuts.
Scott gives her best performance yet, though she shines most when at the extremes of her experience, either scared out of her wits or angry and fed up or mortified and embarrassed. Her pop star Skye Riley visually seems inspired most by Lady Gaga, though one of the scarier sequences in her apartment looks like it took a cue from Madonna’s oeuvre.
Finn has been able to tap into the “Kubrick Stare”’s most potent feature: being stared at is already unnerving by itself, and much more so with the demonic context presented here. It’s a subtle breaking of the fourth wall that spreads Skye’s rising tension and dread to the audience. An added coup is the casting of Jack Nicholson’s son Ray as Skye’s ex-boyfriend Paul Hudson; dad Jack’s “Kubrick Stare” in “The Shining” is one of the more iconic images in horror cinema.
Though this is the second horror film this year to prominently feature a pop star (M. Night Shyamalan’s “Trap” came out this summer), it has the more obvious finale. While perhaps not surprising, that shouldn’t really matter. A finale needn’t shock but be satisfying, and “Smile 2”’s ending is inevitable, and gonzo in its own fashion, and flips the viewpoint to make sure we understand what we are seeing. It expands the world of the story considerably, and presents fertile possibilities for the likely third installment.
