Smile 2

  I liked Smile well enough. It didn't leave a huge impression, and it really felt like a short only partially successfully expanded to feature length, but it was a well-crafted slice of horror filmmaking and a promising debut for writer/director Parker Finn.

 Well, consider that promise fulfilled: Smile 2 sheds its predecessor's buzzkill, dour tone and improves on almost everything else. Despite boasting one of the worst trailers I've seen this year (I almost missed this on the big screen because of it) this is a boisterous, gloriously ridiculous and great-looking horror banger.

Put an image as memorably shit as this on your trailer, don't complain when everyone uses it.

 The basic premise is the same: There's a demonic entity which possesses someone and torments them with visions until they kill themselves in front of someone else, sporting a huge, shit-eating grin. At which point the witness turns into the demon's next host. Things kicks off with a stunning, one-take scene where the survivor from the first movie (Kyle Gallner), now carrying the demon, storms a remote cabin in an ill-advised plan to fob off the curse into a deserving recipient.
 It all goes tits-up, of course, but in a tense and highly entertaining way which includes grievous body harm. Like most one-takes, it's intensely showy, with excellent blocking and precise camera movements; And while it does feel like a technical flex for the crew, it also lends the shootout and ensuing carnage a great sense of immediacy and intensity. A jarring smash cut to a bizarre title card seals the deal.

 That's just about the only link to the first movie. From there we jump into the life of Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), a famous Lady Gaga-like pop star preparing for a comeback tour after a drug-fuelled bender got her into a car accident which caused painful wounds she's still recovering from and the death of her actor boyfriend.
 Riley is now on the wagon... mostly. But because she's a substance abuser, she can't get adequate medication for her crippling back pain. That leads her to a drug dealer (Lukas Gage) to score some vicodin - and unfortunately, to her possession by the Smiler (as the possessing demon is unofficially known): the drug dealer was a survivor from the shootout in the first scene. And then it's off to the races as Riley starts getting haunted by hallucinations of creepily smiling ghouls.

 Riley's life was already nightmarish - the film does a good job depicting the grueling physical and mental toll required from a star of Riley's magnitude - and the visions... well, they don't help. As in the first film, there's a heavy psychological horror element, as the demon feeds upon anguish and distorts Riley's reality in ways calculated to hit her where it hurts. The conceit works better thematically than on the first movie, as the smile motif meshes very well with the facade everyone expects her to put on at all times, no matter her internal turmoil.
 And Riley is just a better, much more interesting protagonist than Smile the first's victim; A convincingly broken, self-destructive soul who's nonetheless easy to root for. There are a few good characters and performances here (particularly the ever-likeable Rosemarie DeWitt as Riley's smothering mother/manager), but Smile 2 is essentially a one-woman show - and Naomi Scott absolutely nails it in her depiction of an artist that's at once likeable, vulnerable, and deeply fucked up. She also pulls off a couple of elaborate choreographies and sings a few convincing modern pop songs (most of them from the producer duo Take a Day Trip). This role should make her a star.

 I can't say I find the popstar milieu particularly compelling, but it's an original setting for a horror movie, it heavily informs the protagonist's trajectory in the story, and more importantly, it provides a hilariously over-the-top scene where Riley is chased around by a mob of choreographed backup dancers (for bonus points, it's also informed by Dr. Who's weeping angels).

 Not everything works. Finn pours a lot of energy in the film's tiniest details, and while that makes it very endearing, it also results in some big misses. I mean... I can't not love a movie where the sound effect of flesh peeling from a face is recurringly used to haunt the protagonist. But that mirror scene from the trailer? Never mind how stupid it looks, just the way it's exaggerated by the editing sound design and editing, it's just as fucking tacky and terrible as it was on the trailer.

 The movie's overreliance on jump scares and creepy smiles grated on me. The smiles in particular were good as a novelty in the first film, but they've now lost their luster, and the drive to provide ever-spookier smiles gets old quickly (this is another reason why skipping the first film and diving directly into this one might be a good idea, if it's an option at all).
 Finally, there's a delicate balance to telling any story where you don't know what's real and what's not  it in a way that still feels meaningful and satisfying. I don't think Smile 2 walks that line particularly well, but it's made up by an ending that's daring both conceptually and in its out-there imagery.

 So yeah, it's nowhere near perfect, but the spirit of excess and an impish, evil sense of humour goes a long way in making up for any shortcomings. The bloodshed is magnificent, a mix of practical effects and CGI that for once feels perfectly pitched. It feels tame in a post-Terrifier 3 world, but by any other metric the gore is copious, creative and disgusting. Certifiably good shit.
 Finn and cinematographer Charlie Sarroff also pay a lot of attention to style, with some interesting transitions and flowing camerawork that aren't afraid to come off sometimes as silly and crass. I have a lot of time for that. The same director is slated to do a remake of 1981's batshit Possession, and despite all my qualms with modern remakes in general, especially something as personal and unique as that film, I'm definitely interested.

 This is a great movie, folks, don't let those shitty trailers convince you otherwise.