Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers for the end of Smile 2
Summary
For anyone who saw the first installment when the trailers forSmile 2first hit, it wasn’t hard to guess how the movie might end. At the very least, it wasn’t hard to imagine what the point of the smile demon wanted with the film’s new main character. As a general rule, when someone can guess the ending of the movie based off the very first trailer, it’s not a good thing. However, what sets Smile 2 apart is that the film is about the journey. In that regard, director Parker Finn found a compelling way to get to the ending that makes fans want to see how things unfold.
Some of the greatest horror movies in history do this kind of thing.Smile 2is the latest that doesn’t worry about people realizing how the story wraps up in a nice little bow. This horror story is all about seeing how the “good guy” does battle with the “bad guy.” There is alsothe fact that while viewers might have an idea how thefilm is supposed to end, there’s a question whether that’s how it willpan out.
The Predictability Of Smile 2’s Ending
Anyone who watched the firstSmileknows how the smile demon works. It wants to spread. It wants to keep claiming victims and while it is perfectly happy to take one person at a time, to wait a week in order to totally take over a person, kill them and then move onto its next meal, like all great monsters, it certainly wouldn’t mind a better system. And when Skye Riley stumbles into its path it gets the perfect system. It’sable to latch ontoa real celebrity. A celebrity with plenty of messed up stuff in her head and of course, if not for her desire for an easy fix to a problem, she wouldn’t have seen the thing at all.
Spoilers for the end of Smile 2 are below.
Thefirst trailers forSmile 2don’t hide the fact that Skye is some sort of singer, and a popular one at that. Based on that small fact alone, it’s not hard to deduce that the smile demon wants to latch onto Skye to reach an even bigger audience. It’s not hard to imagine that the movie will end with Skye killing herself in front of an audience, maybe even on television, thereby reaching thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people. While the film’s audience doesn’t know if the monster can work that way, they most likely went to the theater wondering if that was precisely how the story would come to a close.
Smile 2
Starring
Naomi Scott, Rosemarie DeWitt, Lukas Gage, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Peter Jacobson, Raúl Castillo, Dylan Gelula, Ray Nicholson and Kyle Gallner
Directed By
Parker Finn
The smile demon does get its wish. It manages to get Skye in front of all of her fans before finally taking her over and making her kill herself. And in the end, the audience is to believe that everyone who watched her do it is now infected with that smile demon. And now that it’s in so many people, it can keep fanning out,killing more and more. And despite the ending being entirely predictable based on nothing else but the original trailer, the movie makes itself a classic by offering a unique path to get there.
Smile 2’s Biggest Misdirect Works Perfectly
The ending of Smile 2 itself isn’t much different from the ending of the original film. The protagonist believes she’s found a way to beat the demon once and for all. She believes that even if she has to die in the process, she’s doing something right and good. And then the rug is pulled out from under her and she realizes she never had any kind of shot at beating the monster. It’s a similar butdifferent ending toSmile. But the path getting there is different enough that it stands out.
For one thing, the idea that it takes seven days for the monster to take full control is turned on its head in Smile 2, which, admittedly,could lead to questionsabout the movie going against its own proven lore. But since the monster controls people’s minds, it’s possible the lore about how long it takes to gain control is just another trick.
When the end ofSmile 2hits andSkye Riley comes face to facewith the smile demon, the audience learns that most of what the pop star thought had happened was in fact, part of the “long con” that the demon was running on her. Her rekindled friendship, her hallucinations in her apartment, even most of what happened in her apartment were all part of the trick. The rather odd ally she finds when she’s trying to sort out truth from fiction is not even real either. Everything the audience thought it knew about where the movie was going gets thrown on its head.
The theater sees that the demon took control much earlier than anyone had any reason to believe it had. And while most “it was all a dream” stories tend to be rather annoying,Smile 2’s ending is original enough and surprising enough that the journey is worth it. Some of that is because the journey gets absolutely insane towards the very end. And there’s something to be said for how completelyFinn manages to pull the wind outof the sails of everyone who thought perhaps Sky was going to win.
The ending might have been totally predictable. But the talented director finds a way to make a movie that’s still plenty of an entertaining ride, even if the final stop was there from the very first trailer.
Cast
Directed and written by Parker Finn, Smile 2 follows up 2022’s Smile, with Naomi Scott starring as a singer who is put through hell while on tour.
