Smile 2 is a game-changing sequel story, which sets up an even bigger franchise twist for Smile 3. If nothing else can be said about it, Smile 2 refines writer/director Parker Finn’s formula and metaphor for how human trauma often begets more human trauma when those suffering can’t cure their minds. That concept takes on a whole different dimension when the smile entity curse gets passed to one of the world’s biggest pop stars and tabloid celebrities (Naomi Scott’s Skye Riley), and creates a whole new level of danger.
WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW!
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How Smile 2 Setups Up A Very Different Smile 3
Skye Riley’s mega-star lifestyle ultimately proves to be her undoing. Skye has to expose herself to constant public scrutiny due to the media and promotional junkets she’s doing leading up to her world tour kickoff; the rest of the time, she’s isolated in private, where the entity can toy with her mind in horrible ways. By the end of the film, Skye loses touch with reality and is fully possessed by the entity, which puppets her onto the stage on the opening night of the tour, and has her shove her microphone through her eye, killing herself in front of the entire crowd.
Smile (2022) and Smile 2 explored the concept of the demonic grinning entity as an ‘infection’ that’s passed person to person on a 1-to-1 basis; however, Skye Riley’s death in front of a packed stadium crowd suggests that the smile curse could become the equivalent of a mass pandemic, with the entity infecting dozens (if not hundreds) of minds at once.
Smile 3 (or “Smiles” perhaps) could be a big departure from the formula of the first two films – for better or worse. Parker Finn has a lot of leeway to change up the format of the film, telling multiple short stories that interconnect in some way – or, he could borrow from the Alien movie franchise and coat the threequel in entirely new genre tropes. If the smile curse goes wide, the entity could arguably possess masses of people hive mind-style, potentially creating a sort of action-horror Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Dawn of the Dead type of horror movie, that still pepper in the franchise’s signature psycho-horror reality fakeouts.
It’s clear that Smile 2 was all about refining the concept of the first film, but Smile 3 almost has no choice but to be a massive expansion of the concept. But if the sequel is any indication, Parker Finn can pull of that expansion, beautifully.
“I think there are so many different, interesting directions the world of Smile can take, different roads it can go down,” Parker Finn recently teased to GamesRadar. “Right now I’m very excited to see how audiences respond to Smile 2 and if we are lucky with how audiences can connect with and embrace the film, I think the sky’s the limit.”
Smile 2 is now in theaters.