The latest installment to the Smile universe hit theaters and with a significantly greater budget and brand new marketing tactics. Even before Smile 2 was announced, they started their marketing campaign. The first film had actors appearing in different sporting events smiling creepily into the cameras, but Smile 2 has taken it further. The second film is centered around a pop star named Skye Riley and while she doesn’t exist in real life, she exists on Instagram. Skye Riley posts started popping up all over social media, with people praising her music and teasers for an upcoming album in the works. 

So many posts were circulating leaving people confused as to who this mysterious Skye Riley was. Eventually it was revealed that this was a promotion for the movie, but that doesn’t make the effort any less impressive. 

Along with creating an album of music under the fake Skye Riley, Smile 2 also created fake music videos to go along with the album.

The marketing hasn’t stopped since the film’s release. As of last week, Paramount made the first 7 minutes of Smile 2 available to watch for free. Of course there is a catch though, you have to smile the entire time. The camera is on and once you stop smiling, the video stops too.

The effort that was put into the marketing continued into the actual film itself. The movie had a noticeably greater budget than the previous film with multiple scenes in various concert venues and luxury buildings.

Now to the actual review of the movie. The movie was great but definitely not for the weak of stomach. The first film was primarily jumpscares with a few gory bits here and there but was psychologically disturbing more than anything else. The second film threw that out the window. Not only did it get rid of the jumpscares, except for a few well placed ones, it upped the gore exponentially. Blood was dowsing the characters and spewing every which way. Although it wasn’t placed out of careless necessity for gore, the blood had a plot purpose and I appreciated that. Many modern horror films fail to have a consistent plot but this is not any modern horror movie. 

The acting was incredible, Naomi Scott was perfect as Skye Riley, delivering a powerful horrifying portrayal of fear and hysteria. The entire cast did a fantastic job making the whole movie feel very eerie and unsettling even when nothing was happening to the characters directly. 

The one strange part of this movie that I must talk about is the sheer amount of Voss water bottles. Voss is an “artisan” water company from Norway that is fairly expensive as still water goes. 

This water was showing up in almost every scene. Skye would chug these water bottles constantly after waking up from her horrific dreams and the water played a decently large role for being just a luxury water brand. 

You may be thinking that I’m exaggerating the amount this water shows up but I assure you I’m not. When she is at home or at the studio or even in the hospital she has this water fully stocked. 

I found it such an interesting detail to include in a horror movie because it really didn’t have any horror implications. 

So as for the movie as a whole, the writers and directors definitely took inspiration from real pop stars for the outfits and choreography and I think it made it feel more realistic.

The side characters added a lot to the movie and I think that without the outstanding performances by Lukas Gage, Ray Nicholson, Dylan Gelula, and Rosemarie DeWitt, I don’t think the movie would be half as good as it is. 

The entire movie messed with your perception of reality. Afterwards I felt like I had to question everything that had happened over the past 2 hours. That is not to say the movie was hard to understand, the plot was cleverly put together, switching between flashbacks and hallucinations, and left the viewer perplexed to no end. 

I enjoy films that challenge me so I thought that this film was very enjoyable but for those who would like a simpler plot in their horror films I would wholeheartedly not recommend this. This is a great film to discuss with others because of the hidden complexities in it. Overall I would recommend this to fans of the first movie and I would say that Smile 2 surpasses the original by a large margin. The first movie didn’t have the complexities and stakes that are present in Smile 2. 

The first movie was important in setting up what the monster/curse is and the background for the beginning of the movie but after that the second movie takes the original Smile idea and runs laps around it.

For fans of intense blood, gore, psychological hysteria, and fancy glass water bottles, I would recommend you check out Smile 2.