In an early scene in “Smile 2,” the fictional pop superstar Skye Riley is in her drug dealer's apartment. “Do you believe in weird stuff?” he asks her, between doing lines of coke.
You certainly will after this horror romp — writer-director Parker Finn's second movie that suddenly opens up the franchise with the promises of multiple directions in the future. Not for that drug dealer, though: He soon smiles at her demonically as he repeatedly slams a 35-pound gym weight into his head, making it hamburger.
“Smile 2” lands as unsettling grins are plastered on pumpkins and politicians alike as we approach Halloween and Election Day, and the psychotic, overly made-up leads of “Joker: Folie à Deux” have been putting up a brave face at their terrible box-office numbers.
So it's the perfect time for a sequel to 2020's “Smile,” which bridged the gap between elevated art horror and straight-out, unapologetic slasher. Finn this time takes on fame, a better tonal fit than the generational trauma of the first. It's a meditation on breakdowns in the public eye, with a side dish of body horror.
We start six days after the last movie but they are barely connected — a single character for a few minutes — as we watch a demon that forces its victims to smile before meeting a gruesome end working its way into the low-level drug game.
The evil entity will eventually glom onto our heroine, Skye, a fictional Grammy-winning pop superstar akin to if Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus had a baby. We meet her a year after a horrific car crash she was in that killed her famous boyfriend and left her with a Vicodin addiction and rumors about whether she had anything to do with it. That drug dealer has now infected Skye, but she has no idea what's in store (or in score, the terrific work of Cristobal Tapia de Veer).
On thing to really beam about is leading lady Naomi Scott going for it all-out, all snot, smeared blood and wide-eyed, full on-fear. Scott manages to pour her humanity into the part — diva, whimpering, defiant, strung out, panicked. She even sings on the soundtrack — songs that are credible hits.
The smile demon collides with Skye as she's about to launch a comeback tour and the pressure is on. Finn is at his best here, mocking confessional TV interviews — a Drew Barrymore cameo, a nice touch — full of self-work and apologies: “I let you down and I promise this will never happen again.” Her management demands that she show up “smile and read from the teleprompter.” Skye's mom — on the payroll — is little help: “You need to stay hydrated,” she tells her after Skye is clearly in torment.
Finn has become a much more assured filmmaker and uses humor so well here, from nasty gangsters enjoying pumpkin Frappuccinos to our heroine Googling “Does vomit have DNA?” He's still fond of jump-scares and blood spurting and gross-out tricks, like a body dragged by a truck until it's just a smear with entrails. One delightful moment has Skye chased by demonic backup dancers, a Bob Fosse-meets-"Thriller" sequence.
Finn also has a ball putting his heroines into cringe-worthy situations. In the first movie, a murdered cat got bundled into a kid’s birthday present. In this one, it's a impromptu speech in front of music industry types that goes horrifically off the rails. He's got a deeper target: How do we quiet those voices in our heads that say we're no good?
Finn's script sometime lags as he searches for an ending for “Smile 2,” seemingly in two minds, before basically delivering both, kicking up dream sequences and alternate timelines like a squid pumping out ink to cover its tracks. Over two hours ends up being too long.
But he has found a great satirical target, given life to a third film easily and showcased another rising star to watch. That's a reason to, well, smile about.
“Smile 2,” a Paramount Pictures release that lands in movie theaters on Friday, is rated R for “strong bloody violent content, grisly images, language throughout and drug use.” Running time: 127 minutes. Three stars out of four.
Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press
