When Smile, an original low-budget horror movie, became a surprise smash hit in 2022, it was a success story that was easier to admire than it was a film to rally behind. Originally intended for a streaming premiere, the $17m movie was elevated to a theatrical release after enthused test screenings, going on to make $217m worldwide, a huge win for Paramount and the genre at large. It was a slick, stylishly made attempt to update a familiar supernatural curse formula with the modern addition of a trauma narrative, a parasitic demon acting as a metaphor for the horror of inherited mental illness.
The film’s creator, Parker Finn, showed flair as a director but flaws as a writer, unable to push his tonally awkward film far enough out of the shadow of both The Ring and It Follows and struggling with subtext that required a little more subtlety to cut as deep as his more effectively visceral use of gore. A sequel was inevitable but also hard to imagine how it could be in any way justifiable, trotting out the same hellish endurance test for another unlucky victim.
