Spoilers for “Smile” and “Smile 2” follow.
Horror sequels are often unlike other sequels. Since the nature of horror movies often dictates that a lot of people end up dead by the time the end credits roll, sequels often have to resort to going off in new directions with brand new characters. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t some connective tissue linking them together. “Smile 2” (read our review for the sequel here) does indeed introduce us to a brand new main character — tormented pop starr Skye Riley, played by Naomi Scott. And that makes sense, since the main character the first movie, Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), ended up dying during the movie’s big climax.
To recap: the “Smile” movies are about a demonic force that infects people like a disease. To “catch” this infection, a victim fist witnesses someone dying by suicide (the suicide is actually caused by the demon/monster/whatever you want to call it). The witness then spends about a week slowly going insane, experiencing horrifying visions and frequently seeing people with big creepy grins on their faces. After a week is up, the smile monster crawls its way inside the tormented person and forces them to die by suicide in front of someone else, thus spreading the infection/curse to a new host.
In the first film, Rose was a therapist who became cursed after one of her patients slit her own throat in front of her. Rose then spent the bulk of the movie going out of her mind, tormented by both the scary visions and also her own traumatic past (it’s eventually revealed that she let her abusive mother die of a drug overdose). At the very end of the movie, the smile monster makes its presence known, possesses Rose by crawling into her mouth (gross!), and then forces Rose to set herself on fire. Ah, but remember: in order for this to work for the smile monster, there has to be another witness to pass the curse to. That unlucky person was Joel (Kyle Gallner), a cop and Rose’s ex-boyfriend, who showed up at the last moment just to watch Rose burn to death. And while “Smile 2” ends up being the story of Skye Riley, the movie doesn’t forget about Joel.
The beginning of Smile 2 wraps up a loose end from the first film
Rather than just move on to the new main character right away, writer-director Parker Finn opens “Smile 2” with the seemingly inevitable end of Joel’s story. I suppose the entire sequel could have been all about Joel, but instead of going that route, Finn instead decides to kill Joel off before the film’s title cart fills the screen. As the movie begins, we see that Joel has arrived at the house of a pair of drug dealers. He’s clearly mentally disturbed and spiraling, and we even see him witness a scary vision of someone on fire (is it Rose? Maybe, although it looks like a child to me). Wearing a ski mask and brandishing a gun, Joel first confronts one of the drug dealers outside and then forces him inside, where the other dealer awaits.
Joel makes it clear that these are bad guys — they’re both killers as well as dealers — and it’s obvious what he’s planning to do. Since the smile curse is passed via violence, Joel plans on killing one of the dealers and making the other watch, thus hoping to pass the infliction on to the survivor. Unfortunately for Joel, things don’t turn out that way. He ends up shooting both of these guys. He desperately tries to keep one of them alive, but it doesn’t work out: they both die.
As luck (?) would have it, there’s another witness in the house — a guy named Lewis (Lukas Gage), who was there to buy drugs. Joel seems relieved at this and tries to make his escape, leaving Lewis traumatized and confused. Unfortunately for Joel, more drug dealers arrive at the house, and they shoot at Joel and chase him. Joel escapes through a window and runs into the street — only to then be hit by a car and killed. It’s really bad news for Joel, because as it turns out, his plan worked: Lewis has become inflicted with the smile curse, and ends up passing it along to Skye, setting the events of “Smile 2” into motion. The implication is that if Joel hadn’t be hit by the damn car, he probably would’ve been free of the curse. Sorry, Joel. I’d say “Better luck next time,” but, uh, you’re dead.
“Smile 2” is now playing in theaters.
