“The sequel goes bigger, it goes bolder,” promises Parker Finn, the writer, director, and producer of Smile 2, the follow-up to the breakout psychological horror hit Smile. “It’s way more off the rails, it’s nastier, it’s bloodier. Everything you loved about the first film, we do that ten times bigger.”
In the Smile universe, the entity or curse transfers from one victim to another by taking control of the current host and compelling them to end their own life in front of a witness – while sporting a frighteningly creepy smile, an unsettling image that has now become iconic in the world of horror movies. That witness then becomes the next victim and once inside them, the entity infiltrates the crevices of the victim’s mind, weaponizing their thoughts against them and gradually exerting greater control over their reality, manipulating their perceptions and actions.
“We watched that happen in the first film, and I wanted to find new ways to trick both Skye and the audience,” says Finn.
The gore and the scares are not the only things bigger about the sequel. Smile 2 tells the story of Skye Riley, a global pop sensation about to embark on a world tour. The stage (literally) is bigger, the stakes are higher. And as Skye begins experiencing increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events, the pressures of fame and her upcoming tour intensify.
For the role of Skye, Finn and his team needed someone with an incredible amount of range – someone who could embody a megawatt public persona while simultaneously exposing their private, vulnerable self, and also have the chops to sing and dance like an artist who can sell out stadiums. And they found their perfect Skye in Naomi Scott (Aladdin, Charlie’s Angels). “She can do everything,” says Finn.
“What I love about Parker was how confident the filmmaking was,” says Scott. “It really does run the gamut of a more internal movie to just being completely unhinged.”
