Review: ‘Smile 2’ ups the horror stakes (and the volume) with a pop star haunted by demons

Say cheese! This October, there’s something to beam about, which is a horror sequel that eclipses its predecessor. That’s right, “Smile 2,” the follow-up to the surprising 2022 hit “Smile,” is bigger, gorier and even more bonkers than the first film, and it even has something interesting to say through those gritted-teeth grins.

After writer-director Parker Finn skewered the horror-movie trauma trend in “Smile,” he’s moved on to bigger and better metaphors in his sequel. He also takes the devilishly stupid/smart “smile demon” device and blows it up to a much bigger scale. Instead of a therapist catching an infectious strain of PTSD from a patient, here a mega-famous pop star, Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), struggling with her own personal issues, catches the bug from her drug dealer, Lewis (Lukas Gage), the unhappy recipient from the last film’s final host, transferred in a bravura one-take opening sequence.

Transplanting this device to a hypervisible celebrity affords Finn the chance to play on a bigger stage, producing stylized musical numbers, backstage antics, public meltdowns, fan frenzy and private anguish in Skye’s luxury gilded cage. He reunites his creative team from “Smile,” including cinematographer Charlie Sarroff, editor Elliot Greenberg and composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer, and with the success of the last film under their belts, they’re unleashed to make something even crazier.

Ray Nicholson, standing, in the movie “Smile 2.”

(Barbara Nitke / Paramount Pictures)

Finn and Sarroff stage several sequences in long takes, the camera swinging back and forth, side to side, to capture cause and effect, terror and reaction. This requires a hell of a performance from Scott, who more than delivers as the troubled Skye. This is a turn completely without vanity, verging on hysteria for the duration of the two-hour-plus running time, requiring Scott to dive into Skye’s past as an out-of-control addict as well as convey her crumbling current reality, under attack from the horrifying intrusive visions she’s picked up from this smile monster.

Much of the film is Scott reacting as Skye to what she’s seeing as she’s beset by visions that mirror her utmost fears: stalker fans, the violent car accident in which her boyfriend (Ray Nicholson) was killed, her trusted inner circle turning on her. All conveyed with a smile: chin down, eyes up, teeth bared. She’s in public almost every time one of these dark fantasy incidents occurs — on a stage rehearsing, presenting an award, in a meet-and-greet — constantly snapped by camera phones wherever she goes. This also makes for an ultimately more dangerous demonic passing. If the “parasite” needs its new host to witness the demise of the first after a week of possession, well, Skye certainly has a lot of eyes on her.

We’re all in on the joke in “Smile 2,” but Finn takes his horror metaphor seriously, using Skye’s addiction and mental health issues as a way to position the smile demon as a representation of addiction, causing destruction to everyone around her. Skye is determined to gain control over this thing, willing to sacrifice herself as long as she can save others.

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However, this heavy theme doesn’t get in the way of the campy thrills of “Smile 2,” capably carried with both sincerity and just enough winking humor by Scott, who is in every scene of the film shredding her soul — and vocal cords. While Scott has appeared in high-profile reboots like “Aladdin,” “Charlie’s Angels” and “Power Rangers,” this feels like a true breakout for her, demonstrating a far greater range as a woman possessed. (Is it sacrilege to suggest she sometimes has the slightest whiff of Isabelle Adjani’s unhinged “Possession” performance?)

Finn supplies bigger, even more effective jump-scares than the last time, which will keep the popcorn flying. The sound design booms and rattles, the delusions are even more elaborate and the body horror is even bloodier and more disturbing. While the third act gets a little phantasmagorically carried away and slightly out of control, Finn does manage to bring it all back on track, delivering the only appropriate ending for one of the wildest horror rides of the year.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.