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SMILE 2

Starring: Naomi Scott, Rosemarie DeWitt, Lukas Gage, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Dylan Gelula, and Peter Jacobson
Director: Parker Finn

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KATIE

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Smile 2 was one of my most anticipated films of the year after the first one terrified me with its incredibly creepy concept, and I walked out of the cinema even more impressed and scared than expected with its ambitious sequel. Smile 2 is even bigger, better, and bloodier, full of disturbingly well-executed gore and frequent, but not cheap, jump scares that left me in excruciating suspense right from the powerful opening. Naomi Scott’s performance is spectacular and likely one of my new favourites of the year, and I was glued to her expressive face the entire runtime, which flew by.

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AMARÚ

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I watched Smile 2 strictly off word-of-mouth, and I’m glad I did, because now I want to see the first one you KNOW I haven’t seen. An intense opening catapults this chilling thriller into its creepy and heart-pounding story, elevated by writer/director Parker Finn’s crazy good camera work, a forceful score and sound design, and Naomi Scott’s star-making performance. The slow evisceration of her psyche kept me locked in, even through some commonplace horror tropes. I just wish it was shorter, because to spend that long just to leave the theater with the type of questions that make me avoid horror… oooh, slightly frustrating.

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QUENTIN

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If you recall, I didn’t care for Smile, generally referring to it as a rip-off of It Follows and Fallen while maintaining a modicum of hope for the teased sequel starring Kyle Gallner. However, the sequel teased isn’t the sequel delivered, which was a brilliant adjustment on writer-director Parker Finn’s part. Smile 2 expands on the themes of personal trauma to include takes on celebrity and addiction, and it does so with effective jump scares, nerve-rattling sound design, white-knuckle tension, buckets of visceral gore, and a star-making turn from Naomi Scott. It’s an unrelenting horror thrill-ride that has made me surprisingly reverse course on this franchise.

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