Smile 2 is a great horror movie, in fact, in our review, we here at ComicBook.com noted that it is one of the best horror films of 2024. Writer/Director Parker Finn found a way to make Smile’s sequel bigger, meaner, and scarier by focusing on the world of a pop star who finds herself cursed with the spooky “smile curse.” While the movie has plenty of high-octane tension and jump scares that make for some of the best of the year, there is one major issue that is plaguing the nearly flawless sequel. Not only is the movie’s ending one that might cause some cracks in the overall story but it’s also one that might make future sequels a bit harder to believe.
Warning. If you have yet to watch Smile 2, be forewarned that we’ll be diving into major spoilers for the horror sequel. Many horror fans have rightfully guessed what the ending is to Smile 2 without having seen the movie. Since the curse spreads thanks to someone witnessing an infected person taking their own life, Naomi Scott’s Skye Riley seems like the scariest character to pass the torch onto others. Skye’s status as a major pop star gets plenty of eyes on her and thus, the curse spreads to quite a few people in the film’s final moments.
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The Smile Universe
As those who bore witness to Skye Riley taking her own life in the final moments of the movie, grotesquely beating herself with her own microphone, viewers knew that the pop star was living a very different reality. The Smile Curse is one that causes the inflicted to not perceive reality correctly, instead, the supernatural entity is able to make someone like Skye see whatever it wants them to see. This means that a large swath of Smile 2’s story all took place in Riley’s mind and therein lies the problem.
While some may feel cheated that a good percentage of the movie wasn’t real, the big issue for the ending and the potential Smile sequels is that the curse seems unbeatable. While in Skye’s mind, she was given the chance to stop her own heart to dodge the curse but the beast that loomed in her mind never allowed her to actually come close to doing so. How on Earth is it possible to fight something that is able to effectively control your reality from the inside and is this a problem that can be tackled in future films?
The Smile Infection
Thousands of people bear witness to Skye’s death during the grand finale of the sequel, meaning that the potential for the curse to spread even further into the world is one that will help the franchise potentially build more sequels. With the curse seemingly nigh-invincible, Parker Finn might need to start thinking of giving victims some sort of advantage in fighting the curse or there is the possibility that future movies might fall into a cycle of repetition. If an audience knows going into the movie that a protagonist cannot win, can a horror movie still strike fear into the hearts of its audiences?
The future sequel heroes need some legs-up in fighting the smile curse and here’s hoping that Paramount will figure out a way to make it so that the reality-warping villain has a crack in its armor. If everyone who is infected is doomed, is it worth going to the theater to see their descent into madness knowing that their fates are sealed?
Want to see what the future holds for the Smile franchise? Follow along with Team Horror on ComicBook.com and hit me up directly @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and all things spooky.