I am not sure if I said this before on The Legionnaire, but I’ll repeat it just in case. You know how when you see a movie trailer that interests you, but you don’t go to the theaters that often and you say to yourself, “Oh I’ll catch it on DVD or I’ll stream it”? That’s almost the opposite case for me. Because I watch several films in theaters a month, and I partake in other activities, there are some I don’t get a chance to watch and more often will forget about them when they hit Redbox or a streaming site. This is mostly true, unless it’s something I really want to see and/or has been nominated for a big award. If only I had all the time in the world. One horror film that I should’ve gotten the chance to see in theaters at the time it premiered was the 2022’s Smile because if I had known it was going to be a major horror film of that year, I definitely would’ve seen it then. It is a major regret not seeing it then and I still haven’t despite there being a sequel titled Smile 2. 

Now, you’re probably asking yourself how can you properly review a sequel for a film where you didn’t see the first one? First off, valid point. However, I did look up Smile and based on from what I read and the trailer itself, this now franchise appears to be anthology due to the fact that this has a completely new cast, give or take a few returning small characters.  This made it easy to watch coming into it cold. So, for those who don’t know about this franchise, from what I read, it’s about a demon called the Smile Entity that preys on those who see a death, causing the victims start hallucinating. They see people with frightful smiles wherever they go, which messes with their heads, producing anxiety ridden person and thoughts of suicide. Creepy, I know. In all honesty, given the premise of Smile 2, the filmmakers took the right step to make it into an anthology to where we have a new cast of people for which to feel afraid. Was I creeped out with this sequel like many were with the first one? As usual, let’s find out.

Set almost a week after the events of the first film, Smile 2 starts with police officer Joel (Kyle Gallner) from the previous film, who now has the smile entity curse on him. He attempts to pass it along to two criminals, however, they both get killed when he tries to do it. Next, a drug dealer, Lewis (Lukas Gage), witnesses the events and flees the scene. While Joel tries to go after him, he gets run over by a truck. Days later, a famous pop artist by the name of Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) prepares a comeback tour from getting clean from drugs and alcohol, and after a horrific car crash a year prior that killed her boyfriend Paul (Ray Nicholson) that left her in a bad physical shape. While preparing for the tour, Skye is still experiencing pain from the accident and sneaks out one night to get Vicodin, which she can’t get normally due to her prior substance abuse. She goes to see Lewis, though when she goes to his apartment, he is in a bad mental state, suddenly smiling at her and beginning to smash his own face with a weight plate, resulting in his death. Traumatized, Skye flees the scene and is too afraid to call the police as it would look bad for herself and her agency. Despite witnessing a death and feeling shaken up from it, Skye proceeds with her busy schedule and prepares for the tour. However, things take a turn when she starts experiencing hallucinations that not only hurt her mentally, but also physically, which increases her anxiety. She also begins seeing the odd smiles wherever she goes to the point where people are questioning her sanity. Throughout this ordeal, she starts getting unknown texts from someone that knows she was at the scene of Lewis’s death. Desperate, Skye meets up with a mysterious person who turns out to be an emergency room (ER) nurse named Morris (Peter Jacobson). He happens to be researching this entity as it was responsible for the death of his brother. He believes that the only way for the curse to be broken without Skye dying is for her to stop her heart as if she was dead and for him to revive her back to life. Shocked by this plan, Skye is extremely hesitant, though she does have second thoughts as not only is this demon disrupting her comeback tour, but her life itself.

After watching Smile 2, there was one word that came to mind when I was leaving the theater and driving home. That word, however, probably isn’t an appropriate thing to say on The Legionnaire, so I’ll just say that this film was mind-bending from beginning to end. From the unknown motives of the demon itself and the imagery, Smile 2 was something I was not prepared for in the slightest.

From the get go, I already knew that Smile 2 was going to be something that was going to disturb me. Just before the title of the film appeared on screen, there was one gruesome death that remind me that this is a rated R, horror film. From there, it doesn’t get too graphic, but the dread is prevalent. What helps keep the momentum of it is Skye. Given that she was in a terrible accident along with abusing drugs and alcohol, Skye is one year clean and trying to redeem herself via the comeback tour. This gains a lot of sympathy from myself. Due to her being in a sober state, you know that when she starts seeing these hallucinations, it’s not due to substance-abuse but rather the curse that is upon her, and it is not a fun trip whatsoever. The only fortunate part, is that we don’t have to suffer what she goes through. It is set in an urban environment, (i.e. New York City) that does make the film a bit creepier given the fact that she’s barely alone due to her celebrity status. 

Because she is a popstar, she’s practically alone, given the fact that she has an extremely busy schedule. She is being told what to do with little to no freedom except for at night when the demon mostly preys on her. She does, however, reach out to one person who she considered a best friend, Gemma (Dylan Gelula). They had a falling out, but out of desperation, Skye reaches contacts her, apologizing for everything and reconciling. It was a nice moment in the film, however, not to go into spoiler territory, there is a sinister ending to that subplot which caught me off guard in the best way possible.

As a Catholic, there’s usually something that sticks out to me whenever I see a film about demons or possessions, or in Smile 2’s case, curses. This is the presence of a Catholic and/or Christian figure. It might be a tired, horror trope, one might call it cliché, but as a Catholic man, it’s usually my visual safe haven whenever I watch a film about demons, or more specifically, victims of demons. Smile 2, unfortunately, didn’t have any religious figures nor settings that I could cling onto. In a way, it was a Catch-22 situation. On the one hand, Skye’s lack of associating with any one of faith added more dread and terror to the narrative and avoided clichés that we’ve seen over and over again. However, her helplessness gave her a bit of a damsel in distress persona at the moment she was cursed where she had little to no information on how to stop the demon. The only other film that I could think at the moment where there were no religious figures present in a demon setting is Sinister (2012), which I think is a better film. For me, Sinister is slightly better because you had someone who was somewhat in control of the situation, whereas our protagonist in Smile 2 felt victimized throughout the film. One could say, that Morris was the surrogate religious figure in the film that we needed, but his time in it is short and I felt like I wanted to see more of him. I can understand folks enjoying that as it is something different and dreadful, but for over two hours, it was a bit much for me.

As I mentioned before, I was fortunate that I didn’t have to see this the first Smile film to fully understand Smile 2 given the fact that it is now considered an anthology series with a new cast and lead. Would I still recommend seeing the first film before seeing the second? Most definitely if you have the time but, worst-case scenario, I feel like you’ll still get a good amount of dread from the sequel if you went into it cold like I did. While it does have the traditional jump scares, and it feels a bit long as the running time was two hours and twelve minutes, it is an extremely creepy film that didn’t feel gimmicky (minus the jump scares, however). And if you’re looking for a solid horror film to watch on Halloween or afterwards, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Days after watching this film, I decided to see the ending of the first film on YouTube to compare that one to Smile 2’s conclusion. It’s pretty clear that the filmmakers of this franchise have something bigger planned for a third installment, which I can’t wait for when that time comes.