The horror sequel Smile 2 makes it very clear from minute one that it will take no prisoners. The long-awaited follow-up to writer-director Parker Finn's 2022 smash hit, Smile, kicks off events with a bang, beginning with a surprising and brutal single scene. Of course, we're not going to delve into spoilers here; You'll have to see the film for yourself, but what we can tell you is that it makes an immediate impression.
Which is exactly what Finn, who returns to direct this second installment, hoped to achieve. Speaking to GamesRadar+, he reveals that with the opening he wanted to do something he hadn't done before, while throwing the audience straight into the action. Finn explains: “When the first movie ended, I knew I wanted to have some connective tissue, a kind of dividing line between them, so it seemed like a natural place to start.
“But I also knew that the opening scene wasn't going to be like anything we'd done in the first movie, it was going to be something totally surprising in a Smile movie. In the script itself, I had written that it was going to be a single shot. uninterrupted because I knew that was really going to create this incredibly tense, suffocating feeling when you're thrown into the opening. It was a big challenge to prepare and film, but I'm very pleased with how it came out.
Finn also wanted to do something different story-wise, meaning Smile 2 doesn't focus on Kyle Gallner's police detective Joel, who, as you may remember, had the curse passed on to him at the end of the 2022 original. Instead, we follow Naomi Scott's Skye Riley, a troubled pop star on the dawn of a world tour.
But was there ever an idea that this sequel could have Joel at the helm? For Finn, there wasn't, as he tells us: “I love Kyle Gallner, he's an incredible actor and I want to include him in everything. But I knew that if I approached a sequel I didn't want to do it.” do the obvious, or a simple continuation, or a retread of the original. “If I asked the audience to come back, I wanted to offer something really unexpected, fresh and different.”
Of course, 2022's Smile was originally designed to be a standalone film, but the fact that the film became a box office sensation meant that a sequel was quickly commissioned. Finn admits that he can be “pretty cynical sometimes about sequels,” so he wanted to make sure that if he was going to make Smile 2 he had to do it right.
The filmmaker then agreed to make the film when he came up with the character of Riley, who Finn said “unlocked everything” for him. As he concludes, that idea meant that the sequel was justified: “Sometimes I'm quite cynical about sequels. I think there are incredible sequels, but they have to be carefully made with all the care of the original.
“And then, I knew that if I was going to do it, it had to be something worth coming back to. Discovering this character, this huge pop star Skye Riley, opened everything up for me. That made me really excited. I wanted to be more bigger, bolder, much more out of the ordinary and crazy. There's a big climb from first to second, which I wanted to lean into.”
Smile 2 hits UK cinemas on October 17, before opening in US cinemas on October 18.
For more, check out our picks for the best horror movies and upcoming horror movies to watch out for.