it 2 movie review

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

• For Parents
• For Educators
• Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

• Movie Reviews
• Best Movie Lists
• Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

• Best TV Lists
• Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
• Common Sense Selections for TV
• Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

• Book Reviews
• Best Book Lists
• Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

• Game Reviews
• Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

• Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

• Podcast Reviews
• Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

• App Reviews
• Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

• YouTube Channel Reviews
• YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

• Preschoolers (2-4)
• Little Kids (5-7)
• Big Kids (8-9)
• Pre-Teens (10-12)
• Teens (13+)
• Screen Time
• Social Media
• Online Safety
• Identity and Community

Are You Ready to Talk with Your Child About Social Media?

• Family Tech Planners
• Digital Skills
• All Articles
• Latino Culture
• Black Voices
• Asian Stories
• Native Narratives
• LGBTQ+ Pride
• Jewish Experiences
• Best of Diverse Representation List

Multicultural Books

YouTube Channels with Diverse Representations

Podcasts with Diverse Characters and Stories

Parents' guide to, it chapter two.

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 115 Reviews
• Kids Say 274 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Fewer scares, plenty of blood in long but fun sequel.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that It Chapter Two is the follow-up to the hugely successful It (2017); both films are based on Stephen King's novel. This one -- which is more centered on adults than kids -- is very long and less scary than the first, but it's definitely entertaining, with great characters and…

Why Age 15+?

Scary clown attacks, biting and chomping children with huge, oversized teeth. Ma

Very strong, frequent language, with many uses of "f--k" and "s--t," plus "mothe

Both opposite- and same-sex kissing; a woman kisses two men, the first after a m

Adult characters drink together socially; mild drunkenness. Cigarette smoking, i

Mention of Facebook; Ford Mustang and Chevy Tahoe are featured.

Any Positive Content?

Though it takes a while to get everyone convinced and on board with what has to

Though the characters are generally lovable and tend to show bravery when the mo

Violence & Scariness

Scary clown attacks, biting and chomping children with huge, oversized teeth. Many scary creatures attacking. Lots of blood. In a hate crime, bullies beat and kick a gay character, smashing his face (lots of blood) and throwing him over a bridge. An abusive husband slaps/punches his wife, hits her with belt; she hits back, smashing his head with a blunt object. Character dies via suicide; shown in bathtub with bloody wrists. Characters stabbed in the face and the chest. Decomposed bodies. Extracted and squished heart. Flashback to abusive father. A character uses a gun to "shoot" a younger version of himself in a scary fantasy sequence.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Very strong, frequent language, with many uses of "f--k" and "s--t," plus "motherf----r," "a--hole," "p---y," "bitch," "hell," "d--k," "f--got," "prick," "vagina," "beaver," "you suck," "goddamn," "oh my God," and "Jesus Christ" (as exclamations).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Both opposite- and same-sex kissing; a woman kisses two men, the first after a mistaken assumption. Brief sex-related talk. Non-sexual nudity includes a man's back and butt as he gets into a bath and a giant, naked CGI woman attacking a character.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Adult characters drink together socially; mild drunkenness. Cigarette smoking, including by a teen. Mention of characters being crackheads. Drug trip sequence in which a character is given hallucinogenic root and has a "vision."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Positive messages.

Though it takes a while to get everyone convinced and on board with what has to be done, it turns out that teamwork is essential for the characters to survive. Only when they stick together do they have the power to face the clown's attacks.

Positive Role Models

Though the characters are generally lovable and tend to show bravery when the moment truly counts, they're also deeply flawed, rather messed-up adults, and not exactly role models.

Parents need to know that It Chapter Two is the follow-up to the hugely successful It (2017); both films are based on Stephen King 's novel. This one -- which is more centered on adults than kids -- is very long and less scary than the first, but it's definitely entertaining, with great characters and true teamwork. Violence/horror is very strong, with a shocking hate crime (bullies beat up a gay couple), a man abusing his wife (she hits back), and a character dying via suicide, as well as large amounts of blood and terrifying monster attacks. Children are skewered by oversized teeth, characters are stabbed with knives, and a gun is used in a scary fantasy scene. Language is also heavy, with multiple uses of "f--k," "s--t," and more. Characters kiss, and there's some sex-related talk. Adult characters drink socially, and smoking (including by a teen) is shown. A brief "drug trip" sequence involves a hallucinogenic root. Bill Skarsgård returns as Pennywise; Isaiah Mustafa , James McAvoy , Jessica Chastain , and Bill Hader co-star. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (115)
• Kids say (274)

Based on 115 parent reviews

It chapter 2!

I think its the best movie, what's the story.

Twenty-seven years have passed since the events of It , and there's evidence of Pennywise's return. So in IT CHAPTER TWO, Mike ( Isaiah Mustafa ), who has stayed in Derry, Maine, calls his old friends to make good on their pact. Five of them -- Bill ( James McAvoy ), Bev ( Jessica Chastain ), Richie ( Bill Hader ), Eddie ( James Ransone ), and Ben ( Jay Ryan ) -- show up, though they don't remember much of what happened back in 1989 and aren't thrilled to discover that they're meant to risk their lives again. Mike tells them that they must find "tokens" from that summer, important objects to be used in a ritual to send Pennywise ( Bill Skarsgård ) away forever. As memories come flooding back, and as the evil clown's attacks become fiercer, it begins to look as if they might not make it -- unless they can stick together.

Is It Any Good?

This nearly three-hour sequel has well-rounded, appealing characters and even some laughs, but it lacks the nerve-rattling scares and appealing simplicity of its 2017 predecessor. It Chapter Two stumbles a bit at the start; it doesn't draw clear lines connecting the younger actors and the older ones, and aside from the spot-on casting of Hader and Ransone and the fact that Chastain is the only woman, it takes a little time to get everyone straight. But then the long sequences of reuniting, balking at danger, and experiencing flashbacks and Pennywise attacks actually succeed at making our lovable Losers come together more like a family.

Teamwork is important here: Every time the group splits up, they grow weaker against Pennywise's scares. And even though Hader steals nearly every scene he's in (just as his younger counterpart, Finn Wolfhard , did in It ), and his juvenile bickering with Ransone is hilarious, each member of the group becomes equally important. The horrors here seem more likely to cause shocked laughter than screams, perhaps because of the more complex adult targets, and It Chapter Two is viscerally a teeny bit less satisfying than its predecessor. But in the end, the characters win the day, and they most certainly turn into folks you'd want on your side when the clowns come creeping in the dark.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about It Chapter Two 's violence . Which scenes were shocking, and which were entertaining? What was the difference? What's the impact of media violence on kids?

Is the movie scary ? How does it compare to the first one in that respect? What's the appeal of scary movies?

How does teamwork help the characters to survive? How do they learn about the benefits of teamwork?

How does this movie compare to the book? To the miniseries ?

What makes friends sometimes drift apart from each other as they grow up? Has that ever happened to you?

Movie Details

• In theaters : September 6, 2019
• On DVD or streaming : December 10, 2019
• Cast : James McAvoy , Jessica Chastain , Bill Skarsgård , Bill Hader
• Director : Andres Muschietti
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : New Line Cinema
• Genre : Horror
• Topics : Book Characters , Monsters, Ghosts, and Vampires
• Run time : 169 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : disturbing content and bloody images throughout, pervasive language, some crude sexual material
• Last updated : October 6, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

What to watch next.

Stranger Things

Supernatural

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

The World's End

Best horror movies, scary movies for kids, related topics.

• Book Characters
• Monsters, Ghosts, and Vampires

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

It Chapter Two review: an ambitious horror blockbuster

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the sewers… Pennywise returns in this bombastic Stephen King sequel

• Share on Facebook (opens in a new tab)
• Share on Twitter (opens in a new tab)
• Share on Linkedin (opens in a new tab)
• Share on email (opens in a new tab)

An A-list cast. A 2 hour 45 minute runtime. The follow up to the highest-grossing horror movie of all time, based on a beloved bestseller. It Chapter Two isn’t just any scary movie. In fact, in genre terms, it’s the closest we’ve had to a top-tier tentpole ever, so there was always going to be a lot riding on it. 

In terms of scale, ambition and scope, It Chapter Two goes all out, with increasingly gross and spectacular set pieces, arcs, trials and torments for each of its main characters and plenty of flashbacks featuring the young cast. It’s a pacey, if episodic, romp that never drags despite its epic runtime and feels true to the spirit of the book, while not sticking religiously to the letter of the text. Does it all work? Well no, not quite, but it’s an impressive cinematic horror event nonetheless.

Picking up 27 years after the events of Chapter One, each member of the now-grown-up Losers Club except Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa) has left Derry. The further away they are from the horrible events in the sewers all those years ago, the more their memories wane. It’s only when a horrific homophobic attack occurs that Mike realises the ancient evil has resurfaced – and it’s time for the Losers to make good on that blood pact they made when they were kids.

We’re swiftly and efficiently introduced to the grown-up cast through glimpses of their adult lives, all somewhat damaged by the effects of their childhood trauma. Reunited back in Derry, a meal at a Chinese restaurant (teased quite heavily in the trailers) quickly turns disturbing (and disgusting) as the group slowly begins to remember what went before, and what they must now do to defeat Pennywise (a returning Bill Skarsgard). 

Ad – content continues below

The grown-up casting in the second part is spot-on. Fan-cast well ahead of any announcements, it looks like director Andy Muschietti got his (and the internet’s) first choices pretty much across the board, and without exception they are never less than completely convincing as adult versions of the excellent young cast. Bill Hader as the mature Richie ‘trash-mouth’ Tozier is possibly the stand-out, though James Ransone’s performance as anxious Eddie Kaspbrak is full of pathos. Only Mike and Stan (Andy Bean) feel a bit short-changed, though in both cases this is somewhat down to the plot.

Cleaving close to the narrative of the novel, Muschietti makes some smart choices when it comes to moments he’s left out, and others he’s added in. Only the ending, which differs from the book, feels undercooked. While the conclusion to the novel is fairly widely accepted as a bit of a let-down, Muschietti tries a slightly different tack, which is no less unsatisfying and has logical problems to boot. It’s something of a whimper to conclude an otherwise epic adventure. 

It Chapter Two is heavy on the CGI and ramps up the spectacle of the first film, leaning hard into body horror and jump scare territory. It’s packed with effectively icky and frequently unsettling set pieces, as each Loser must confront a horror from the past in order to retrieve an artefact that will allow them to defeat the evil, shape-shifting Pennywise. 

Skarsgard has made the role his own, veering away from Tim Curry’s iconic take from the 1990 miniseries, but while his uncanny, giggling, broken-child interpretation worked well in Chapter One, here it veers too far towards cartoonish, at times venturing almost into Beetlejuice territory. Fortunately, other forms he takes to put the willies up the gang work better, with Beverley’s (Jessica Chastain) encounter with an old lady in her former home the highlight. Whether you find part two more or less scary than part one will likely depend on your relationship with clowns and how comfortable you are with CGI and with goop. 

While the runtime is undeniably long, it’s no less earned than any other bumper blockbuster – format-wise, it’s repetitive at times but never boring. In fact, It Chapter Two is just as colourful, bombastic and sprawling as anything you’ll see from the Marvel stable and its super-team is equally grounded in character and heart. Like its comic-book counterparts often do, It Chapter Two will be getting an extended director’s cut, adding back in some of the footage that was excised from the film’s original four-hour running time. For fans who can’t get enough of the Derryverse, there’ll be plenty more to pore over. 

Short, sharp shocks, then, this is not. But for a genre movie forging a new cinematic path, It Chapter Two is daring, entertaining and mainstream – but still unashamedly horror. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait 27 years for another one.

Rosie Fletcher

Rosie Fletcher is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Den Of Geek. She’s been an entertainment journalist for more than 15 years previously working at DVD & Blu-ray Review, Digital…

It Chapter Two Review

06 Sep 2019

It: Chapter Two

It Chapter One , or whatever we must call it since it made enough millions to birth a chapter two, had its crutches. This was an adaptation of (half of) a beloved book, following in the footsteps of a so-so yet affectionately remembered TV movie, leaning heavily into the never-ending wave of 1980s nostalgia. It all seemed a little safe, never completely its own entity.

Yet it overcame this. As Amblin-lite as it was, It starred a winning cast of kids and went to town with classic Stephen King explorations of domestic trauma. And while never totally terrifying, it boasted a boogeyman for the ages, Bill Skarsgård wearing Pennywise like a second skin. A horror with heart, It stormed the cinema gates, and the novel’s second timeline, featuring the Losers grown up and back on the clown-conquering beat, was aggressively greenlit. And now, director Andy Muschietti ’s shackles are off.

It Chapter Two is all about crutches. A quick recap of the first film’s epilogue is followed by some voiceover from the adult Mike ( Mustafa ). “Sometimes, we are what we wish we could forget,” he says. Mike has remained in Derry, but in the 27 years since, the rest of the Losers have split, none of them in touch with each other, all having moved on. In some ways, at least.

The adult Losers get great intros, Muschietti and screenwriter Gary Dauberman presenting distinct personalities in precise sequences: having been out of contact for three decades, Mike, obsessed with events throughout, telephones them all with grim news from Derry, resulting in puking, car-crashing and all-round panic. From Bill Hader ’s Richie, now professionally wisecracking on comedy stages, to Jessica Chastain ’s Beverly, still sadly suffering abuse, to James McAvoy ’s sensitive screenwriter Bill, the success of every re-casting is immediately apparent — all of these characters feel instantly lived-in, vibrant, authentic human beings who you buy from the off.

It is glorious to see this stuff envisioned on such a huge and self-assured scale, a joy to have a film of this size trading in this sort of genre carnage with such uncompromising and unapologetic style.

But there the comfort ends. Before we reunite with the Losers, the film itself begins in Derry with a brutal, bone-crunching homophobic attack. More disturbing than anything in chapter one, it announces at once that Muschietti is not playing it safe at all. It is decidedly adult territory, enormously troubling to witness, let alone when it’s married to an even more gruesome, otherworldly coda. This opening does everything horror should do, leaving you shaken mere minutes after the film has begun. Muschietti more-or-less keeps this going throughout its near three-hour runtime.

Genre-wise, Chapter Two delights in itself, just as the book did. King conceived It as a “final exam on horror”, throwing in all the monsters people were afraid of when he was growing up. Muschietti seems equally in debt to decades of cinematic horror, 1970s and 1980s films being particular influences. There are exquisitely executed scares with the various ghouls, from unsettling background spine-chillers to full-force frightmares. It is both classy and disgusting, the creature design wonderfully inventive, all in the service of scaring you. These, though, are the sideshows. Mere supporting acts for a horrendous headliner.

Pennywise is a real motherfucker in this film. An absolute horrible bastard of a clown. His first appearance is surprisingly nasty, and then so are all the others. Much of his heightened impact here is because more of Skarsgård has been allowed to shine through. This is Heath Ledger -levels of character ownership. A brilliant physical performer, he inhabits Pennywise to diabolical degrees, and the effects, both practical and computer-generated, are next-level — at one point one of his eyes is slightly off, and it’s creepy as hell. Yet in another sequence, he appears without any prosthetics at all, just Skarsgård in ghoulish whiteface, and it’s absurdly horrid. He’s just as scary laid bare.

This film is not a deep psychological excavation, but that’s fine — it’s as deep as it needs to be. It’s about dealing with your shit, about confronting the things you haven’t let go, the things you’ve suppressed, avoided, run from. Pennywise preys on these personal demons, in ways that are much more elemental than before. Muschietti explored childhood fears with the first film, but the sequel steps things up — there are now years of trauma for Pennywise to poke at. There is more meanness to his tapping into the Losers’ troubles, and their nightmarish excursions feel much more embedded in the story. There was a disconnect to the set-pieces in the first film, but here Pennywise is more integrated, more overtly involved in it all.

It all reminds you of how good Stephen King is at this stuff. As much as Muschietti comes into his own with this film, it is nevertheless constantly bubbling over with King’s DNA, and whilst Muschietti tightens the book’s focus, he doesn’t cut corners. That threatens to derail it as things progress. With seven Losers, and two versions of each over two timelines — there are flashbacks throughout — there is a lot to wrangle. King intentionally took a kitchen-sink approach with the book, hence its 1,138 pages. Muschietti makes it work — his flashbacks complement the present day, the two periods dancing with each other, illuminating each other, beefing up the emotional resonance — but at one point the film feels like it might wear itself out a smidge. And as it heads into a more fantastical arena, it feels in danger of buckling under the weight of its own silliness.

But. Then. Just as it seems it might be on the verge of losing itself, as the book dictates, it goes fabulously apeshit. What madness it brings. As the film builds towards a nutty climax, there is a whole heap of Grand Guignol insanity, with unashamedly grand, godlike images. It is glorious to see this stuff envisioned on such a huge and self-assured scale, a joy to have a film of this size trading in this sort of genre carnage with such uncompromising and unapologetic style.

Confidence runs through Chapter Two . The (almost) contemporary setting means it’s less burdened by superficial nostalgia, allowing Muschietti to more forcefully own it, and it’s tonally perfect. Comedy aside — humour often undercuts the horror, mostly successfully — there is little brightness here, the film shrouded in shadow. Everything conspires to creep you out. Nothing is spared with the set design, especially as things get weird: you can taste the dankness. It is unforgivingly tense, giving you both shivers and jumps. It is spooky on a gut level.

Yet for all the darkness, the sweetness survives. The film has much affection for these Losers, and as an ode to friendship — or at least to age-old bonds — it does fine work. With so many leads, the emotion is handled economically, but sincerely. Muschietti walks a constant tightrope. He never falls off.

Related Articles

Movies | 08 10 2020

TV Series | 17 10 2023

Movies | 10 07 2020

Movies | 05 12 2019

Movies | 20 10 2019

Movies | 14 10 2019

Movies | 13 10 2019

Movies | 06 10 2019

It Chapter Two Review

This highly anticipated sequel can’t top its predecessor but it’s still scary and well cast..

It Chapter Two Images

It Chapter Two: How Does the Sequel's Cast Compare to the Originals?

The heart of the first film is still there in It Chapter Two - it’s just buried under a layer of self-indulgent bloat. Director Andy Muschietti constructs a series of scary show-stoppers anchored by the compelling performances of his adult and teen actors. It’s just a shame that It Chapter Two never quite finds its footing, pacing-wise, and as a result can’t quite nail the conclusion of this engrossing saga.

More Reviews by Jim Vejvoda

Ign recommends.

We earn a commission for products purchased through some links in this article.

It Chapter Two review: Pennywise is back in brilliantly creepy horror sequel

We'll all float again.

Back in 2017, Warner Bros were confident enough in It to have the movie exist from the start as a first chapter.

Of course fans of Stephen King's classic horrifying coming-of-age novel (or the 1990 miniseries) knew that Andy Muschietti's movie was only half the story, smartly separating the novel's dual timelines and focusing on the young Losers' Club. Critical acclaim and a terrific $700 million box office haul followed, and It Chapter Two was born.

But could Muschietti repeat the terrifying magic again with a whole new cast? Without a doubt. Creepy, affecting and brilliantly crafted, It Chapter Two is a sequel that lives up to expectations.

Opening with the Losers' Club making their pact at the end of the first movie, It Chapter Two jumps ahead 27 years as Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) starts to terrorise the town of Derry once again.

After the traumatic events of their childhood, the Losers' Club have all moved out of Derry, except for Mike (Isaiah Mustafa) who's been preparing for Pennywise's return. With the children of Derry disappearing, Mike is left with no choice but to call his fellow Losers and get them to return home.

Together, they must confront Pennywise once again and conquer their darkest fears to defeat him for good...

Although the sequel starts with the young Losers' Club, the majority of It Chapter Two is focused on the grown-up Losers, and it's quite remarkable how well they've been cast. Not only do they look like believable adult versions of the Losers, but the performances manage to evoke the same mannerisms and spirit established in the first movie. You have no doubt you're watching the same characters.

James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain are as reliable as ever and there's not really a weak link among them, but special credit has to go to Bill Hader and James Ransone. Like Finn Wolfhard and Jack Dylan Grazer in the first movie, the two are faced with balancing humour with genuine terror, and they manage it with aplomb. Their relationship gives It Chapter Two an unexpected emotion to go with the scares.

But you're not really coming to It Chapter Two for its heart, even though you definitely care about every Loser. Like in the first movie, Muschietti has managed to craft a series of chilling set pieces designed to give everyone a touch of coulrophobia. Pennywise is both more vicious and creepier than before, with Bill Skarsgård absolutely captivating, as much as you might want to look away.

While there's nothing in the sequel that a die-hard horror fan won't have seen before, the set pieces are so effectively done that they'll have an impact regardless. From a terrific hall of mirrors sequence to the terrifying old lady seen in the first trailer , there are creepy delights to savour throughout, including some classic book moments that have been brilliantly realised.

As in the novel, the adult Losers have to revisit their childhoods in Derry to stop Pennywise. The flashbacks are seamlessly blended with the present day and you do get to see more of the talented young cast, but it's here where the scares get a bit repetitive. You're seeing the same 'mission' play out across each Loser, with the end result largely being a variation of a similar beat, diminishing their impact somewhat.

Fortunately this only really affects this section of the movie, which is otherwise smartly paced across its hefty 169-minute runtime . It really doesn't feel that long and, crucially, never feels overstuffed as Chapter One left a lot of King's novel still to explore. One notable subplot has been dismissed entirely for the better, and although some other adjustments may prove divisive for fans, It Chapter Two is a worthy adaptation.

Not only does It Chapter Two live up to that seminal novel but also to the standards set in the first movie. The cast might be different but the heart and horror remain as strong as before. Pennywise missed the Losers' Club – and we missed him too.

It Chapter Two is out now.

Director: Andy Muschietti ; Starring: James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, James Ransone, Bill Skarsgård, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Jack Dylan Grazer ; Running time: 169 minutes; Certificate: 15

Funko Pop! IT Pennywise with Wrought Iron EXC Pop! Vinyl Figure

Warner Bros IT [Blu-ray + Digital Download] [2017]

Funko Pop! IT Funko Pop! Keyring Gift Set

Funko Pop! IT Pennywise with Boat Pop! Vinyl Figure

Warner Bros Stephen King's It [Blu-ray] [2016] [Region Free]

Funko Pop! IT Bill with Flashlight Pop! Vinyl Figure

Funko Pop! IT Pennywise (Classic Black & White) EXC Pop! Vinyl Figure

Hodder Paperbacks It by Stephen King

Funko Pop! IT Beverly with Key Necklace Pop! Vinyl Figure

IT Richie with Bat Pop! Vinyl Figure

Funko Pop! It Chapter 2 Pennywise 10-Inch Pop! Vinyl Figure

Want up-to-the-minute entertainment news and features? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @digitalspy Instagram and Twitter account .

Movies Editor, Digital Spy  Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor.  Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies , attending genre festivals around the world.   After moving to Digital Spy , initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.  

Movie Reviews

Terrifier 3 review

It's What's Inside is a must-see Netflix thriller

Joker: Folie à Deux review

The Outrun review

Strange Darling is the best thriller of the year

Netflix's His Three Daughters review

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice review

And Mrs is unlike any British rom-com you've seen

The Radleys review: A fresh take on vampires

Timestalker is the year's most unique British film

Alien: Romulus review

Borderlands movie review - does it match the game?

Advertisement

Supported by

‘It Chapter Two ’ Review : Send in the Clown, Again

He’s already here.

• Share full article

‘It Chapter Two’ | Anatomy of a Scene

The director andy muschietti discusses a sequence from his film featuring james mcavoy..

“I’m Andy Muschietti, director of ‘It Chapter Two.’ So this is the moment where all the Losers separate unwillingly. And this is the scene where we find Bill Denbrough— James McAvoy plays Bill Denbrough— just as after he recovered his bicycle, Silver. This is a great scene, because we summarize a little bit in this escalation from not being able to ride his bicycle to actually getting a grip on it and riding it like a champion. We sort of illustrate how the adult turns into the child again.” “Hi-ho, Silver! Away!” “And very soon he arrives to the house where he used to live and another memory hits. And it’s the memory of that infamous day where he sent Georgie away with a boat. That’s a scene that we took from the first movie. So the scene changes mood a little bit. The mood is now a little darker. We know what happened after that. But it’s a memory that has been pushed down and pushed down. But the intention with the scene is to like slowly lure the audience into this memory at the same time that it’s happening on the mind of the character. There’s a transition that you can see when McAvoy first arrives to the storm drain and looks at the storm drain. He drops the bike, and the drop of the bike takes us to the past.” “Billy, don’t leave!” “Hello?” “The scene continues. We see McAvoy talking to a Georgie there. I say ‘a Georgie,’ because at this point, we know that Georgie isn’t Georgie anymore. Georgie has been gone for a long time. But because Pennywise is playing with his feelings, he lures him into the illusion that Georgie is still there. Everything that is shot from the outside is location. It’s shot on the street. Everything that is from the inside out, when the camera is inside the storm drain, was shot on stage.” “Take my hand.” “Billy, please.” “I’ve got you. Come on!” “He’s coming!” “Take my hand!” “Billy!” “Come on! Take my hand!” “I wanted specifically to make this a visual effects shot. As a reference, we had some hands of small performers that we used as a reference. The whole swarming is divided in three shots, and it’s pretty creepy.” [LAUGHING] “I hate you! I hate you.”

By A.O. Scott

The chatter from the Venice Film Festival last weekend was all about “The Joker.” Masterpiece or menace? You can decide for yourself after Oct. 4, when that movie opens, but if you need some killer-clown action in the meantime, you’re welcome to “It Chapter Two.”

Two years after the first “It” — and 27 years after the events depicted therein — the seven youngsters who faced down evil in the nightmare-ridden, postcard-pretty town of Derry, Me., reunite for another battle. Like a diabolical cicada, Pennywise the Clown — or rather the supernatural force whose principal avatar he is — has emerged from a period of dormancy, bringing his wheedling, lethal psychological manipulation to a new generation of victims.

The first horror we witness in “Chapter Two” — a murderous homophobic attack during a carnival — is something Pennywise ( Bill Skarsgard ) exploits rather than perpetrates, and it serves as a reminder that the otherworldly cruelty he represents is not the only kind. Pennywise, who sometimes takes the form of a giant spider-like monster, and whose pouty moue can suddenly sprout rows of sharp, brownish fangs, both feeds and feeds upon ordinary human viciousness.

That connection between the banal and the cosmic — the two-way metaphorical street that makes Derry a kind of World Heritage Site for terror — is central to the imagination of Stephen King, whose book is the source of both chapters of “It” (and the earlier made-for-television version). The director, Andy Muschietti , and the screenwriter, Gary Dauberman , have taken some narrative liberties, but they remain true to some of King’s major ideas: about how innocence can be corrupted and preserved by knowledge; about the hidden pathways between the unconscious and the natural world; about the ethical power of friendship. King’s brief on-screen appearance (playing the curmudgeonly proprietor of an antique store) can be taken as a seal of approval.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

‘It: Chapter 2’ Is Pennywise But Pace Foolish

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Is it weird to say that It: Chapter Two is almost as scary but not quite as grabby as Chapter One? Sorry, the truth hurts. The sequel to the 2017 horror smash faithfully follows Stephen King ’s epic, 1,100-page, 1986 bestseller by skipping ahead 27 years and tracking its protagonist kids into their messy, angst-ridden adulthood. Once called the Losers Club, these children of Derry, Maine, are having a reunion. Not by choice — by force. As young’uns, they vowed only to come home if Pennywise, the twisted and murderous clown who wreaked havoc in Derry back in the day, returned for another killing spree. Well, he’s back. And so is Bill Skarsgård, irreplaceable as the clown prince of infamy. Just the sight of him freezes the blood, flashing those yellow teeth and beckoning prey with that squeaky voice, making false promises that’ll end with him biting their arm off, or worse. Pennywise is only one manifestation of the shape-shifting It, but he’s surely the most horrifying, able to plant seeds of unrest in the subconscious for many sleepless nights to come.

‘It: Chapter Two’: In Praise of Stephen King’s Scariest Creation Ever, Pennywise

You’re hooked, right? And you’ll be pleased to know that the whole cast come up aces. Bill Hader takes Best in Show as Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier, the kid with glasses who is now an acid-tongued L.A. comic. Hader nails the laughs, of course, but his triumph comes in finding the well of loneliness that fuels Richie’s fear, not just of It but of the secret he keeps buried. James McAvoy also scores as Bill Denbrough, Richie’s childhood bestie who married a movie star (Jess Weixler) and is famous for writing books and screenplays with endings everyone hates (hold that thought; it might apply to this movie). Jay Ryan excels as Ben Hanscom, once bullied for being overweight but currently an architect who looks hotter than “a team of Brazilian soccer players,” a fact that does not go unnoticed by Beverly Marsh (Jessica Chastain), the only female in the Losers Club and once a source of romantic rivalry between Ben and Bill. Chastain brings genuine grit and grace to the role of a fashion designer once abused by her father and currently by her husband. Maybe facing It will enable her to make some essential life changes.

Editor’s picks

The 100 best tv episodes of all time, the 250 greatest guitarists of all time, the 500 greatest albums of all time, the 200 greatest singers of all time.

It’s Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa), the only African American in the gang and the only one of the Losers still living in Derry, who issues the distress call that brings home the old team, including Stanley Uris (Andy Bean), an accountant who’s not as nerdy as he looks, and Eddie Kaspbrak (James Ransone), a risk-averse hypochondriac till the end. It’s these seven who must search out and destroy It, an entity with the power to manifest the individual terror that haunts each of us. And they can only do it together. In these troubled times, that’s meant as uplift.

So what’s the problem? For starters, It: Chapter Two is an ass-numbing two hours and 50 minutes. That’s a good half-hour longer than Chapter One, proving the adage that less is definitely more. The dragging pace diminishes the film’s ability to hold us in its grip. There are endless flashbacks to the characters as kids, as if director Andy Muschietti and screenwriter Gary Dauberman didn’t trust the audience to have seen the first film and decided to squeeze the highlights into this one just in case.

Not among the miscalculations is the decision to include the hate crime that was wrongly eliminated in the 1990 miniseries production of King’s novel. In fact, Muschietti begins his film with the murder of Adrian Mellon, a gay man played by renegade queer Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan ( I Killed My Mother ). Based on the real-life 1984 drowning of Charlie Howard, a young gay man viciously attacked in Bangor, Maine, the sequence shows teens gay-bashing Adrian and then throwing him off a bridge into a canal. It’s then that Pennywise reappears, ready to finish the job. King was writing about the roots of evil in human behavior — sadly, a theme that hasn’t grown less timely or relevant. At its best dealing with the horrors of everyday life and our mutual responsibility to end them, It: Chapter Two challenges us to see the worst in ourselves. Now that is truly terrifying.

Andrew Garfield Grieves His Mom Lynn With Elmo: 'I Just Miss Her a Lot'

• By Tomás Mier

Ryan Murphy Might Make More 'Monsters' Episodes if the Menendez Brothers are Freed

• More Monsters
• By Jon Blistein

Andrew Garfield Lets Us Third Wheel His Flirty First Real Fake Date on 'Chicken Shop Date'

• Are We Interrupting
• By Larisha Paul

The ‘Real Housewives’ Wealth Divide Is Redefining What It Takes to Be a Housewife

• Money Talks
• By Louis Staples

Mikey Madison’s Cinderella Story Is Just Beginning

• By Rachel Brodsky

Most Popular

Tmz posts, then removes, liam payne death photos after backlash, paul schrader walked out of 'joker 2' after 15 minutes to go buy something, then returned and could only last 10 minutes: 'a really bad musical', serena williams’ daughters are beautiful in bows as they model for their mama in adorable new photos, diddy's former bodyguard claims jay-z hid from 2pac in las vegas hotel room before concert, you might also like, missing ‘hamilton’ dancer zelig williams’ family shares message amid search: ‘we will not stop looking for you until we bring you home’, ariana grande embraces retro inspiration in strapless polka dot balmain gown at 2024 academy museum gala, the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors, ‘green night’ review: fan bingbing returns in a moody queer revenge thriller, alonso’s power surge continues in nlcs as free agent clock ticks.

Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.

• Search Please fill out this field.
• Newsletters
• Sweepstakes
• Movie Reviews

It Chapter Two is down to clown, again — in a bloody, silly, overwrought sequel

More than once in It: Chapter Two , someone onscreen mutters “you gotta be f—in’ kidding me.” It’s hard, from the cheap seats, not to start to agree; the film spends so much of its two-hour-and-45-minute runtime shoving scares down the audience’s collective throat that they eventually crossed over to the other side (at least at this particular New York screening) and start giggling at the sheer bogey-man lunacy of it all.

To be fair, Chapter Two is mostly more (and more) of the same that made 2017’s It one of the highest-grossing horror films of all time : There be mad clowns, and bad drains, and gushing, Costco-size buckets of blood. Except the scrappy kids of the Losers’ Club have now grown past the Stranger Things follies of their ‘80s youth and become grown adults.

Or more accurately, grown movie stars: James McAvoy is Bill, a novelist and screenwriter still mourning the violent long-ago death of his little brother, Georgie; Jessica Chastain ‘s Beverly remains the sensitive redhead with supernatural visions, only now she’s married to a rich creep who casually beats her; Jay Ryan’s Ben has shed his baby fat and become a sleek real-estate mogul; Bill Hader ’s Richie has successfully graduated to stand-up comedy, and James Ransone’s nervous Eddie now does risk assessment, fittingly, for an insurance company.

Andy Bean’s nebbishy Stanley doesn’t get much new backstory, but he seems to be in a nice, stable marriage. Only Mike (Isaiah Mustafah) has chosen to remain in tiny Derry, Maine — a picturesque village that just happens to sit over some kind of cursed carnival hellmouth.

After an ugly incident there, it’s Mike who calls the gang back together to honor their long-ago blood oath, the one that pledged to finish the job if Pennywise (Bill Skarsgaard) ever returned to wreak his red-nose havoc again. It helps to have read Stephen King’s doorstop novel , or at least have seen the previous film, if you have any passing interest in the mythology of how and why Pennywise does what he do — which here, apparently, is mostly eat children by the handful like Skittles, and work chortling insult-comic material into his escaped preys’ nightmares.

Otherwise, you’ll have to trust Argentinian director Andy Muschietti to methodically woodchuck his way through 1,100-plus pages of terror, and toss nearly every horror trope into the maw as he does so. It’s as if the film can’t trust that something is scarier when it’s implied than when it’s constantly, literally personified by demonic old ladies, skittering man-faced spiders, and murderous, reanimated Paul Bunyans. They’re under the bed, in the basement, inside fortune cookies and bathroom stalls and, but of course, a nefarious, disorienting hall of mirrors .

Hader and Ransone do a lot to mitigate the long slog from one relentlessly ghoulish set piece to the next; their dry, side-mouthed humor brings much-needed levity in a movie that seems determined to reduce accomplished actors like McAvoy and Chastain to so much panicky meat-snack for Pennywise.

Some of Muschietti’s other filmmaking choices feel problematic too: the brutal gay-bashing incident that opens the movie (and to be fair, comes directly from the book ) seems to signal nothing, really, other than that it’s safer to tolerate a nasty bully than confront them; and the lone black character, Mustafah’s Mike, is also the only one who seems to have no discernible personality, other than Guy Who Stayed in Derry.

But really, the main problem with Chapter Two is that it goes on, and on, for so very long. If brevity is not necessarily the soul of a good scare, it would certainly serve a story that sends in the clowns, and then lets them just stay there — leering and lurking and chewing through scene after scene — until the there’s nothing left to do but laugh, or leave. C+

Related content:

• See the young and adult Losers’ Club stars together at the It Chapter Two premiere
• Kill your darlings: It Chapter Two director on slashing the film’s 4-hour first cut
• It Chapter Two director on adapting the book’s hate crime scene

Related Articles

There’s a been a habit this year of sequels that have been accused of being little more than “rinse and repeat” of their predecessor in films like “ Inside Out 2 ” and “ Terrifier 3 .” (Bet that’s the first time Art and Joy have been compared. You’re welcome.) One of several things that works about Parker Finn ’s “Smile 2” is that it feels like an effort to expand on the ideas of the hit first movie instead of just repeating them. Whereas that film joined a subgenre of horror flicks that use mental illness as a supernatural force, Finn pivots to include things like self-hatred, addiction, and even the commodification of pop stars in his sharp follow-up. One thing it definitely has in common is a stellar central performance. Sosie Bacon was the MVP of the first “ Smile ” and Naomi Scott is just phenomenal in the superior follow-up, put through the emotional and physical wringer for two hours for your entertainment. Kinda like a pop star.

Much like its most obvious inspiration, “ It Follows ,” “Smile 2” once again explores the idea of a person being haunted instead of a place. Finn’s film opens with the fate of a character from the first film, Kyle Gallner ’s Joel, who has to pass along his curse to someone else and has chosen a drug dealer to be the victim in a well-shot scene of violent chaos. An unplanned visitor named Lewis ( Lukas Gage ) ends up witnessing the carnage, becoming the one afflicted with what can only be called a parasite, something that feeds on your insecurity and trauma to present you with increasingly terrifying visions, often of people you know and love doing absolutely horrible things with a smile on their face.

It’s not long before Lewis smashes his face to bloody bits with a heavy weight in front of troubled pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), who is planning a comeback after a year of recovery from a car accident that killed her boyfriend Paul. In flashbacks and hauntings, Paul is played by none other than Ray Nicholson , who got the head down malevolent smile thing that his dad Jack made so famous, and that reportedly inspired this flick. You know the look.

Skye has put her addiction and grief behind her, but the “Smile Creature” uses all of her insecurities and weaknesses against her to drive her slowly insane. Her mother/manager Elizabeth ( Rosemarie DeWitt ), assistant Josh ( Miles Gutierrez-Riley ), and record company head Darius ( Raul Castillo ) are ready for Skye’s comeback, but her increasingly fragile mental state makes that impossible. Skye tries to reunite with an old friend named Gemma ( Dylan Gelula ), someone who she thinks she can trust, but “Smile 2” isn’t just about a haunting, it’s about cruelty. It’s about being pushed to the mental edge in ways that are physically and emotionally unimaginable. Whether it’s thinking she sees a homicidal, naked fan is in her apartment or a vision of the dead Paul in the audience at a fundraising event, Skye is watching reality fracture in front of her eyes.

It’s a hell of a demanding part for an actress and Scott is legitimately great, selling the horror and fear that has overtaken Skye’s life. Finn asks a lot of his lead performer, putting her through physical and emotional gauntlets, and it matters a great deal that Scott commits to every single beat. We believe what’s happening around her because we believe her horrified reaction to it. The excellent sound design is close, but she’s really the key to this film’s success.

To be fair, “Smile 2” does lose control of some of its many thematic threads, particularly the ones about how fans feel like they own pop stars and how so many of them are asked to bury their trauma and just smile, but enough remain in the foundation of the piece to get it across the finish line. On that note, there’s no reason for a horror sequel to be over two hours long, but it’s more because Finn has so many avenues that he wants to explore with his concept than a sense of narrative bloat or sag or padding. I was never bored, and there are some truly stellar sequences here, especially one that could be called “Smile Dancers” that’s one of the best in concept and execution in the genre this year.

I have a general aversion to films that use mental illness as a cheap horror device (hated “ Lights Out ,” for example), and so what impresses me most about these films is how Finn avoids those exploitative traps by focusing so intently on the emotional truth of his heroines. Yes, there are a few too many jump scares and at least one too many twists, but it’s all forgivable when you think of the true terror in Naomi Scott’s eyes. Finn loves faces, the ones twisted by evil, and the ones shattered by fright. Even more than after the first film, I’m interested to see what he does next, and more confident that it won’t just be more of the same.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

• Naomi Scott as Queen Parsons / Skye Riley
• Kyle Gallner as Joel
• Lukas Gage as Luis Frigoli
• Peter Jacobson as Morris
• Drew Barrymore as Drew Barrymore
• Parker Finn

Leave a comment

Now playing.

Woman of the Hour

Exhibiting Forgiveness

The Shadow Strays

Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara

Gracie & Pedro: Pets to the Rescue

Green Night

Latest articles

FX’s “What We Do in the Shadows” Loses Some Of Its Bite In Season Six

Hammy Acting and Stilted Pacing Dampen Peacock’s “Hysteria!”

The Steady, Inevitable Decline: Sideways at 20

Bright Wall/Dark Room October 2024: All Hail the Screwball Queen by Olympia Kiriakou

The best movie reviews, in your inbox.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

• About Rotten Tomatoes®
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening This Week
• Top Box Office
• Coming Soon to Theaters
• Certified Fresh Movies

Movies at Home

• Fandango at Home
• Prime Video
• Most Popular Streaming Movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• 83% Smile 2 Link to Smile 2
• 98% Anora Link to Anora
• 80% We Live in Time Link to We Live in Time

New TV Tonight

• 96% Shrinking: Season 2
• 94% Rivals: Season 1
• 86% Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage: Season 1
• 100% The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 3
• 83% Happy's Place: Season 1
• 67% Hysteria!: Season 1
• 80% The Office: Season 1
• -- American Horror Stories: Season 3
• -- The Devil's Hour: Season 2
• -- The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• 82% Agatha All Along: Season 1
• 94% The Penguin: Season 1
• 79% Disclaimer: Season 1
• 79% Teacup: Season 1
• 94% Nobody Wants This: Season 1
• 84% Sweetpea: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV

Certified fresh pick

• 96% Shrinking: Season 2 Link to Shrinking: Season 2
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

50 Newest Verified Hot Movies

78 Best Horror Movie Sequels

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

All the Trailers from New York Comic Con

Hugh Grant Breaks Down a Scene from Heretic

• Trending on RT
• Pulp Fiction vs. Shawshank
• Smile 2 Reviews
• Halloween Programming Guide
• Spooky Season

Where to Watch

Watch It with a subscription on Max, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

Well-acted and fiendishly frightening with an emotionally affecting story at its core, It amplifies the horror in Stephen King's classic story without losing touch with its heart.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Andy Muschietti

Jaeden Martell

Bill Denbrough

Jeremy Ray Taylor

Ben Hanscom

Sophia Lillis

Beverly Marsh

Finn Wolfhard

Richie Tozier

Chosen Jacobs

Mike Hanlon

Movie Clips

More like this, related movie news.

• Pop Culture
• In Theaters
• Blu-Ray Discs
• instagram [#167] Created with Sketch.

Follow the JOBLO MOVIE NETWORK

Follow us on youtube.

Follow ARROW IN THE HEAD

Follow aith on youtube.

Home » Horror News » Smile 2 Review: One of the year’s best horror movies

Smile 2 Review: One of the year’s best horror movies

Parker Finn’s Smile 2 is one of the rare sequels that improves upon the original, and ranks as one of the better horror movies of the year.

Last Updated on October 18, 2024

PLOT: Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), one of the world’s biggest pop stars, becomes haunted by a familiar curse on the eve of her new world tour, sending her life spiralling out of control.

REVIEW: 2022’s Smile was quietly one of the most profitable studio movies of the last few years. Originally designed as a low-budget movie for Paramount Plus, a round of excellent test screenings resulted in Paramount Pictures opting to give it a theatrical release. The result was a movie that grossed over $217 million worldwide on a $17 million budget. It immediately established writer/director Parker Finn, who adapted the movie from his own short ( Laura Hasn’t Slept ) as a horror phenom, and the release of his ambitious sequel is one of the bigger horror events of the year.

So, how does Smile 2 stack up to its sleeper-hit predecessor? Amazingly well, it turns out. Boasting a bigger budget, Parker Finn’s taken what could have been a run-of-the-mill sequel and elevated it to truly dazzling heights. I liked the first movie well enough, but I wasn’t prepared for how much fun the sequel was right off the bat.

Smile 2 begins with a full-on action sequence. Kyle Gallner ’s Joel, who ended the first film cursed, tries to pass on his affliction in the most altruistic way, which ends up climaxing in a surprisingly potent shoot-out. Things don’t go as planned, with him unwittingly passing the curse on to someone who doesn’t deserve it. From there, Finn can use his bigger platform in a way that truly pushes the envelope from what we expect from a movie like this. It’s the rare A-level studio horror film, and Finn uses the pop aspect to stage some bravura quasi-musical sequences. This is perhaps the only movie you’ll see that feels equally inspired by Hideo Nakata and Bob Fosse .

He also has an amazing lead in Naomi Scott, who gives the performance of her life as Riley. Riley was already badly unmoored before even being cursed following drug addiction and a nearly life-ending accident. Scott embraces the camp aspect, playing Riley to the hilt as she becomes increasingly demented as the film goes on. It’s the kind of performance you’d expect from someone like Nicolas Cage, in that it’s unapologetically maximalist… and delicious.

She’s ably supported by Rosemarie DeWitt, who grounds things a bit as her opportunistic mother, and Dylan Gelula as her ride-or-die BFF. Lukas Gage also pops up and has a knockout sequence early on in the film, where he gets to chew some scenery. Jack Nicholson’s lookalike son, Ray Nicholson, also shows up as a character in Riley’s orbit and purposely channels his father in his big moment.

My only question about Smile 2 is what its reception by horror fans will be like- the film is so unapologetically camp that I wonder if some fans of the lower-key original might be put off. For me, it was the opposite, as Smile 2 dwarfed its predecessor, but it could rub people the wrong way with its heavy doses of pitch-black comedy. However, Finn also doesn’t skimp on the gore, with it being more gruesome than the original and having a big payoff, which is an all-timer for me as far as these things go. Indeed, I was shocked at how much I loved Smile 2 . For me, it’s one of the more entertaining films I’ve seen this year, with the two-hour-plus running time racing by. It’s an all-out gore-soaked blast. 

Viewer Ratings (0 reviews)

Add your rating.

About the Author

Chris Bumbray began his career with JoBlo as the resident film critic (and James Bond expert) way back in 2007, and he has stuck around ever since, being named editor-in-chief in 2021. A voting member of the CCA and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, you can also catch Chris discussing pop culture regularly on CTV News Channel.

Latest Smile 2 News

Smile 2 scares up $22 million (or more) at the weekend box office

Interview: Naomi Scott and Parker Finn Talk Smile 2

Box Office Predictions: Smile 2 to own the weekend

Ray Nicholson drawing comparisons to dad Jack in Smile 2 promos

Latest horror news.

The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2 gets a teaser; release date

AMC shared a sneak peak teaser of The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2, which is coming in Spring of 2025

Wolf Man trailer: Leigh Whannell revives another classic Universal monster

A trailer has been unveiled for director Leigh Whannell’s take on the classic Universal Monsters property Wolf Man

Bones and All & Challengers filmmaker Luca Guadagnino is in final talks to direct a new American Psycho movie at Lionsgate

Challengers helmer Luca Guadagnino sharpens his axe for a new interpretation of Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho novel.

JoBlo TV roundup: Check out the free horror movies we shared this week! Mummy Reborn, The Last Laugh, and more

Celebrating JoBlotober, all of this month’s free movies on JoBlo TV are horror. This week’s releases included Mummy Reborn and The Last Laugh

The Strangers: Chapter 2 teaser trailer: the middle entry in Renny Harlin trilogy is coming soon

Renny Harlin directed a trilogy of Stranger movies, and a teaser trailer has been released for The Stranger: Chapter 2

Church of Chills: Full Moon event adds special guests Andrew Divoff and Dana DeLorenzo

Andrew Divoff of Wishmaster and Dana DeLorenzo of Ash vs. Evil Dead are joining the Full Moon event Church of Chills

Following up his surprise hit Smile, we talk with writer/director Parker Finn and star Naomi Scott about Smile 2

Black Cab trailer: Nick Frost stars in Shudder horror film

A trailer has been released for the supernatural horror film Black Cab, which stars Nick Frost and reaches Shudder next month

Evil Dead animated series is in development, but don’t expect to see it any time soon

Bruce Campbell has confirmed that an Evil Dead animated series, for which he will voice Ash, is in the works – but warns it’s a slow process

Stranger Things is looking to recast Hopper’s late daughter Sara

Jim Hopper’s late daughter Sara, previously seen in season 1, will appear in Stranger Things season 5 and the role needs to be recast

It's quick and easy to login and vote!

Review: ‘Smile 2’ ups the horror stakes (and the volume) with a pop star haunted by demons

• Copy Link URL Copied!

Say cheese! This October, there’s something to beam about, which is a horror sequel that eclipses its predecessor. That’s right, “Smile 2,” the follow-up to the surprising 2022 hit “Smile,” is bigger, gorier and even more bonkers than the first film, and it even has something interesting to say through those gritted-teeth grins.

After writer-director Parker Finn skewered the horror-movie trauma trend in “Smile,” he’s moved on to bigger and better metaphors in his sequel. He also takes the devilishly stupid/smart “smile demon” device and blows it up to a much bigger scale. Instead of a therapist catching an infectious strain of PTSD from a patient, here a mega-famous pop star, Skye Riley ( Naomi Scott ), struggling with her own personal issues, catches the bug from her drug dealer, Lewis (Lukas Gage), the unhappy recipient from the last film’s final host, transferred in a bravura one-take opening sequence.

Transplanting this device to a hypervisible celebrity affords Finn the chance to play on a bigger stage, producing stylized musical numbers, backstage antics, public meltdowns, fan frenzy and private anguish in Skye’s luxury gilded cage. He reunites his creative team from “Smile,” including cinematographer Charlie Sarroff, editor Elliot Greenberg and composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer, and with the success of the last film under their belts, they’re unleashed to make something even crazier.

Finn and Sarroff stage several sequences in long takes, the camera swinging back and forth, side to side, to capture cause and effect, terror and reaction. This requires a hell of a performance from Scott, who more than delivers as the troubled Skye. This is a turn completely without vanity, verging on hysteria for the duration of the two-hour-plus running time, requiring Scott to dive into Skye’s past as an out-of-control addict as well as convey her crumbling current reality, under attack from the horrifying intrusive visions she’s picked up from this smile monster.

Much of the film is Scott reacting as Skye to what she’s seeing as she’s beset by visions that mirror her utmost fears: stalker fans, the violent car accident in which her boyfriend (Ray Nicholson) was killed, her trusted inner circle turning on her. All conveyed with a smile: chin down, eyes up, teeth bared. She’s in public almost every time one of these dark fantasy incidents occurs — on a stage rehearsing, presenting an award, in a meet-and-greet — constantly snapped by camera phones wherever she goes. This also makes for an ultimately more dangerous demonic passing. If the “parasite” needs its new host to witness the demise of the first after a week of possession, well, Skye certainly has a lot of eyes on her.

We’re all in on the joke in “Smile 2,” but Finn takes his horror metaphor seriously, using Skye’s addiction and mental health issues as a way to position the smile demon as a representation of addiction, causing destruction to everyone around her. Skye is determined to gain control over this thing, willing to sacrifice herself as long as she can save others.

The 27 best movie theaters in Los Angeles

We’ve mapped out 27 of the best movie theaters in L.A., from the TCL Chinese and the New Beverly to the Alamo Drafthouse and which AMC reigns in Burbank.

Nov. 22, 2023

However, this heavy theme doesn’t get in the way of the campy thrills of “Smile 2,” capably carried with both sincerity and just enough winking humor by Scott, who is in every scene of the film shredding her soul — and vocal cords. While Scott has appeared in high-profile reboots like “Aladdin,” “Charlie’s Angels” and “Power Rangers,” this feels like a true breakout for her, demonstrating a far greater range as a woman possessed. (Is it sacrilege to suggest she sometimes has the slightest whiff of Isabelle Adjani’s unhinged “Possession” performance?)

Finn supplies bigger, even more effective jump-scares than the last time, which will keep the popcorn flying. The sound design booms and rattles, the delusions are even more elaborate and the body horror is even bloodier and more disturbing. While the third act gets a little phantasmagorically carried away and slightly out of control, Finn does manage to bring it all back on track, delivering the only appropriate ending for one of the wildest horror rides of the year.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

'Smile 2'

Rated: R, for strong bloody violent content, grisly images, language throughout and drug use Running time: 2 hours, 7 minutes Playing: In wide release Friday, Oct. 18

More to Read

Commentary: How the merry gore of ‘Terrifier 3’ won over horror fans — and the weekend box office

Oct. 14, 2024

5 unforgettably bad sequels to stream after you see ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’

Oct. 8, 2024

Commentary: What went wrong with ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’: A creative and box-office flop, explained

Oct. 7, 2024

Only good movies

Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Review: Diplomacy goes primal in the satiric ‘Rumours,’ set in a political wilderness

Oct. 18, 2024

Review: In the bruised ‘Exhibiting Forgiveness,’ a painter and his father reunite, uneasily

Entertainment & Arts

Fan-edited ‘Wicked’ poster removed Cynthia Erivo’s eyes, and now she’s seeing red

Oct. 17, 2024

Mitzi Gaynor, movie-musical star of ‘South Pacific’ and ‘Anything Goes,’ dies at 93

Most read in movies.

What was the first episode of ‘SNL’ really like? Fact vs. fiction in ‘Saturday Night’

Oct. 11, 2024

How ‘The Sixth Sense’ trapped M. Night Shyamalan in a twist ending forever

Aug. 6, 2024

‘Smile 2’ Review: A Skillfully Disquieting Sequel Turns the Life of a Pop Star Into a Horror Ride of Mental Breakdown

Naomi Scott's performance as a pop-star diva grappling with demons, including her own, gives Parker Finn's sequel a genuine emotional center.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

• ‘Woman of the Hour’ Review: Anna Kendrick Directs a Thriller About the ’70s Serial Killer Who Was a Contestant on ‘The Dating Game’ 21 hours ago
• ‘Smile 2’ Review: A Skillfully Disquieting Sequel Turns the Life of a Pop Star Into a Horror Ride of Mental Breakdown 4 days ago
• ‘Suburban Fury’ Review: Sara Jane Moore, Who Tried to Assassinate President Ford, Gets Her Own Self-Centered, Radical-Chic Documentary 5 days ago

Related Stories

Ubisoft Has Little Choice in Potential Tencent Acquisition

'Peaky Blinders' Movie First Look: Cillian Murphy Returns as Tommy Shelby as Filming Gets Underway

Popular on variety.

The film sticks close to Skye’s point-of-view and takes us through her life — the rehearsals and costume changes, the compulsive guzzling of designer bottles of Voss water, her bickering relationship with her doting but parasitic manager mother (Rosemarie DeWitt), her increasingly severe case of the hair-tearing impulse trichotillomania, and her parade of fans lining up for their turn to pose with her in “badass” selfies. Almost every scene of “Smile 2” is infused with the awareness that to be a pop star in the 21st century is to conduct oneself like an industry: a neverending exercise in corporate image management.  

At times, when you look at someone like Ariana Grande or Olivia Rodrigo, it’s not hard to see the vulnerable human behind the cultivated star façade. Naomi Scott, in “Smile 2,” shows you both. Since Skye is grappling with a demon that has invaded her, plus the memories of that nightmare car accident, not to mention all the destruction her selfishness has caused (this demon likes to have some built-in mental torment to work with), her life and career begin to come apart. But to everyone around her, who can’t see the demon, it just looks like she’s cracking up. And in a way, maybe she is. “Smile 2” is a flash-cut horror parable, but the story it’s telling is that pop fame makes you crazy. The movie is hardly subtle, yet Parker Finn has become a clever enough filmmaker to make reality feel like a hallucination and hallucinations feel like reality.  

The Smile, as before, can come from almost anywhere (like the tween girl in braces in the fan queue), but it often comes from someone who is close to Skye. And that can be as disquieting as a jump scare. The horror kicks off when she goes to visit Lewis (Lukas Gage), an old high-school chum who’s now a high-end drug dealer. Flying on cocaine, he’s become a jabbering head case who proceeds to kill himself by bashing his face with a circular 35-pound workout weight. All very garish, but then Skye gets in touch with Gemma (Dylan Gelula), the unpretentious bestie she blew off when she was at the height of her drug frenzy. Their reunion, in Skye’s apartment, draws us in, and so we’re hardly expecting Gemma to flash The Smile. One of the film’s shuddery highlights is when Skye gets visited by her backup dancers in a sequence that would make Bob Fosse smile from his grave.

Asked to be a presenter at a children’s benefit, Skye has to read a canned speech off a Teleprompter, which turns into a literal bad dream, which prompts her to go over the edge. The scene climaxes with her late boyfriend walking up to the stage flashing The Smile (that Ray Nicholson is the actor son of Jack Nicholson makes him genetically predisposed to do this well). When she lashes out at this mirage by shoving the very wrong person offstage, it’s a moment of the purest funny-cringe.

Yet by the time Skye finds herself in the freezer of an abandoned Pizza Hut to follow through on Morris’s plan, the film has become too fractious and extended for its own good. The ending is destined to leave the audience scratching its collective head, and that’s because Parker Finn, now in love with the “Smile” mythology he created, gets grandiose about it. The film climaxes with a body-horror maximalism coupled with a minimum of logic. Until then, though, it wrings honest jolts out of the unnerving hothouse of unreality that is pop stardom.

Reviewed at Regal Union Square, New York, Oct. 15, 2024. MPA rating: R. Running time: 127 MIN.

• Production: A Paramount Pictures release of a Temple Hill production, in association with Bad Feeling. Producers: Marty Bowen, Wyck Godfrey, Isaac Klausner, Parker Finn, Robert Salerno.
• Crew: Director, screenplay: Parker Finn. Camera: Charlie Sarroff. Editor: Elliot Greenberg. Music: Cristobal Tapia de Veer.
• With: Naomi Scott, Rosemarie DeWitt, Kyla Gallner, Lukas Gage, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Peter Jacobson, Raúl Castillo, Dylan Gelula, Ray Nicholson, Drew Barrymore.

More from Variety

‘Joker 2’ Tops International Box Office With $81.1 Million

New Live Music Data Suggests Cautious Optimism

Inside the ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ Debacle: Todd Phillips ‘Wanted Nothing to Do’ With DC on the $200 Million Misfire

Box Office: ‘Joker 2’ Makes $7 Million in Previews, Down From Original Movie

How YouTube and Netflix Copied Each Other’s Homework

‘Terrifier 4’ Confirmed by Creator Damien Leone

More from our brands, kelly clarkson, sammy hagar, slash, demi lovato honor foreigner at hall of fame induction.

Kate Hudson Opens New Concert Series From Mercedes-Benz and Auberge Resorts

Alonso’s Power Surge Continues in NLCS as Free Agent Clock Ticks

The Best Loofahs and Body Scrubbers, According to Dermatologists

NYCC Video: Ghosts Stars Tease Witch Trial ‘Betrayal,’ a First for 2 Characters, and Finally Meeting [Spoiler]

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

‘smile 2’ review: naomi scott gets put through hell in unsettling horror sequel that goes full freakout.

Parker Finn follows his surprise 2022 hit about a malevolent spirit that jumps hosts via a diabolical grin, this time infecting a troubled pop star with a ton of trauma to feed on.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

• Share on Facebook
• Share to Flipboard
• Send an Email
• Show additional share options
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Pinterest
• Share on Reddit
• Share on Tumblr
• Share on Whats App
• Print the Article
• Post a Comment

Related Stories

'smile 2' star naomi scott on referencing kristen stewart and receiving creepy smiles in public: "please don't", 'smile,' 'a quiet place' comic books in the works from idw (exclusive).

Audiences hooked the first time around will likely be back for more, which should give Paramount a head start on the Halloween box office. If Smile 2 is another hit, don’t be surprised to see the franchise continue, especially since this one ends with the promise of contagion on a considerably larger scale.  

Finn picks up the action just six days after the events of the first film, with nice-guy cop Joel (Kyle Gallner) sitting in his parked car trembling with dread, having paid the price for helping his rattled ex-girlfriend. Determined to dispose of the curse responsibly, he slips on a balaclava and moves in on the home of two murderous drug-dealer brothers, intending to kill one while making the other watch, before sealing the second guy’s fate when he puts on a happy face.

Meanwhile, Skye is preparing to come back from a year out of the spotlight following a near-fatal car crash in which her actor boyfriend Paul (Ray Nicholson) was killed. Photos of her strung out on alcohol and cocaine have been splashed all over the tabloids, but now she’s clean and ready to kick off a major tour, starting in New York City. She gives her first public interview since the accident on The Drew Barrymore Show , whose host seems only mildly self-conscious playing herself.

Pushed by her manager mother Elizabeth ( Rosemarie DeWitt ) and pampered by her adoring assistant Joshua (Miles Gutierrez-Riley), Skye throws herself into rehearsals. When the vigorous choreography aggravates her back injury from the crash, she keeps it to herself but contacts her former dealer to score some Vicodin. That of course would be Lewis, an old high school acquaintance, who’s coked to the gills and deep in the grip of paranoid delusions when Skye arrives. What she witnesses is truly disturbing, leaving her with no painkillers but plenty of pain.

The filmmaking craft is a considerable step up here from Smile , with returning DP Charlie Sarroff making clever use of disorienting angles and mirror shots, and again flipping the frame upside-down as Skye begins unraveling. There’s a hint of De Palma in the moody lighting and creepy accelerated zoom-ins when she starts seeing menacing visions of both strangers and people she knows, their faces transformed by the Joker grin.

Scott is terrific at showing the way Skye’s terror plays into her guilt over the people she hurt when her substance abuse issues were out of control. That conflict also makes her to want to keep fulfilling the professional obligations of photo shoots, sound checks, costume fittings and more rehearsals.

Despite her daughter’s escalating series of meltdowns, Elizabeth pushes Skye to stick to the schedule, reminding her that the record company, headed by Darius (Raúl Castillo), has invested millions in the tour. “You need to stay hydrated,” her mother keeps telling her, which yields an amusing running product-placement joke as Skye chugs down endless bottles of Voss water.

One standout early scene is a fan meet-and-greet, where Joshua manages a long line of gushing admirers, ushering them over one at a time for an autograph and photo. Skye is warm and patient with them at first, until an unhinged obsessive freaks her out. (It won’t be the last she sees of him, at least in her head.) No sooner has she regained her composure than a preteen girl in pigtails gets to the front of the line, baring her braces in that unmistakably maniacal grin that haunts Skye’s dreams and her waking hours.

The uncertain shuffling between what’s real and what’s a very visceral hallucination ultimately becomes a weakness as the story progresses, even if some of the latter sequences are virtuoso set pieces.

Another key sequence is a “Music Inspires Hope” fundraiser for underprivileged youth, at which Darius has persuaded Skye to be a presenter. Freshly traumatized but unable to back out of it, Skye unsettles the gala crowd by winging it when the teleprompter fails, her speech about the harrowing side of the music industry proving anything but hopeful. The awkwardly timed appearance of her dead boyfriend, smiling like a madman, doesn’t help.

Skye gets temporary comfort when she repairs the broken bond with her ride-or-die best friend Gemma (Dylan Gelula), whose droll reactions to horrific revelations (“Eww”) make you wish we saw more of her. Then there are the anonymous texts from someone who seems to know exactly what Skye is going through. He’s eventually revealed to be Morris (Peter Jacobson), who has intimate knowledge of the parasitic spirit and a theory about how to neutralize it.

As Skye resists and then agrees in desperation to try Morris’ dangerous removal method, Finn starts losing the narrative grip. The film lurches in and out of reality in ways clearly meant to mirror what Skye is experiencing. But as the shifts become more frequent, punctuated by interludes of increasingly gory violence, it also has a disengaging effect.

As the sequel ascends into Grand Guignol grotesquerie in Skye’s ultimate ordeal, it becomes less chilling than distancing. The elements that made Smile get under your skin are sacrificed in bloody spectacle and the relative simplicity of the conceit gets muddied as the movie pushes beyond the two-hour mark.

Smile 2 confirms Finn as a gifted visual stylist who has an assured hand with his actors. He perhaps just needs to back off a little from the misconception that more is more and maintain a greater focus on his story skills. Still, there’s much to be said for a director so unencumbered by timidity, and the sequel will leave plenty of horror fans grinning from ear to ear.

Full credits

Thr newsletters.

Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Andrew garfield says jessica chastain “rearranged” ‘eyes of tammy faye’ filming so he could see his mother before she died, james gunn unveils ‘creature commandos’ and shares updates on ‘superman,’ ‘supergirl’ and ‘lanterns’, ‘smile 2’ filmmaker parker finn talks ‘trap’ comparison, ‘smile 3’ and remaking ‘possession’, box office: ‘smile 2’ grinning with $23m opening, ‘anora’ jolts awards race awake, denzel washington on his ‘gladiator ii’ role: “i’m putting this dress on, these rings, and i’m going crazy”, ‘that christmas’ review: netflix’s richard curtis-scripted animation is poised to become a new holiday classic.

• Login / Sign Up

Smile 2 is smarter, scarier, and much better than the first movie

The rare sequel that improves on the original in every way

by Austen Goslin

The original Smile felt like a miracle when it was released in 2022: a well-crafted, decidedly solid horror movie plucked from the obscure hell of direct-to-streaming release and turned into a genuine box-office hit. But for all its commercial success, Smile could never escape the fact that it started life as an excellent short film that got stretched to feature length. The full-length movie has a few good scares, but it’s more a promise of something great than it is great on its own. For the sequel, writer-director Parker Finn makes good on every bit of that promise. Smile 2 is bigger, scarier, funnier, smarter, darker, and undeniably better than its predecessor.

Smile 2 opens with a masked gunman taking a drug dealer hostage, then desperately attempting to kill his captive while the hostage’s associate watches. It’s a clever reintroduction to the franchise’s homicidal virus, which manifests as a malicious ear-to-ear grin, but it’s also a tremendous display of confidence from Finn. The sequence — which is more action than horror — is mostly handled in just one shot, with the camera movements and action precisely choreographed to catch each minor detail and keep us tight on the action. By the time the title card drops, with a reminder that this will be a particularly gory ride, it’s already clear we’re in expert hands.

When we award the Polygon Recommends badge, it’s because we believe the recipient is uniquely thought-provoking, entertaining, inventive, or fun — and worth fitting into your schedule. If you want curated lists of our favorite media, check out What to Play and What to Watch .

The rest of the film stays tightly focused on international pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), who is preparing to mount a massive comeback tour one year after a horrible car accident, which marked the low point in her battle with addiction. Just days before the tour is set to kick off, she visits an old friend who acts erratically, then suddenly kills himself in front of her, infecting her with the Smile curse and setting off all the horrible, unraveling hallucinations that make this franchise tick.

Using the world of a pop superstar is a perfect step forward for Smile ’s creepy premise, but it also feels like a bit of metatextual playfulness from Finn. It’s an acknowledgement that his franchise has hit the big time, and he can upgrade from the first movie’s anonymous main character to someone who sells out (fictional) arenas. And Skye really is the selling point in Smile 2 . Finn’s script builds out a nuanced, interesting version of a pop star, someone far enough removed from real-life signifiers to feel like a fully realized character instead of a cheap shot at any particular real-life singer.

Finn admirably writes Skye as someone removed from the normal walks of life. She has concerns we can recognize, about her career and her friends, but Finn never tries to imbue her weariness of fame with synthetic relatability. She feels like a balancing act verging on a magic trick: We can sympathize with her because Scott gives an incredibly grounded and human performance, but Finn never asks us to relate too closely to her. We’re witnessing her story, not imprinting ourselves onto it.

Part of this is thanks to the details the film weaves in about Skye’s past. We learn all the ways she’s hurt the people around her long before the grinning apparitions appeared. We see the ways she tries to cope, and hear about tricks her therapist has given her. One particularly effective flashback even lets us know just how dark things got for Skye before the movie even began.

Letting us in on these finer points of Skye’s life also lets Finn create a more fully realized narrative around her. Where the first film felt like a few good ideas for scares with a ramshackle plot and blank characters merely designed to connect them, Smile 2 ’s focus on Skye and her story lets the horror flow naturally out of that pursuit. And boy, does it ever. The plot specificity doesn’t pin Finn into less interesting scares — instead, it fuels his creativity, letting him create more elaborate and creepier set pieces than anything in the original.

Smile 2 features a few fantastic moments of fright set in crowded arenas, but Finn finds all the movie’s best terror in Skye’s lavish apartment. He turns the gorgeous straight lines and the 90-degree angles of penthouse hallways into an endlessly shifting maze of corners for smiling visions to lurk behind, providing some of the most inventive and enjoyable jump scares of any movie this year. In the best of these apartment-set sequences, Skye finds her home invaded by smiling backup dancers who shift and morph into bizarre, contorted positions every time her back is turned. It’s the perfect embodiment of a balance between creepy and silly, a balance Finn manages to find again and again, to tremendous effect each time.

More importantly, though, occasional silliness aside, Smile 2 is also genuinely funny. Humor was sorely missed in the first movie, which is too often borderline stodgy by comparison with its grinning monsters. Smile 2 , on the other hand, recognizes that a certain degree of humor is essential to us buying into the bleak world of a haunted superstar. It’s yet another example of Finn letting his narrative and main character shape the movie’s vibe, rather than the other way around.

This character-first storytelling approach is present everywhere in the film, but it’s crucially effective in Smile 2 ’s hallucination sequences. As with the first film, once the Smile curse has infected a victim, it causes them to see a distorted version of reality. The original movie uses that dynamic to present one version of events, then pull the rug out to shock us with another, whether it’s a character with a threatening grin who was never really there, or our hero stabbing an attacker, only to realize they’ve accidentally attacked a friend. In the first film, this cinematic bait-and-switch made for a few good jumps, but more often than not, it felt cheap: We never really knew enough about protagonist Rose (Sosie Bacon) to know what it means to see things through her ey​​es, or to know what specific insecurities the curse was trying to feed in these visions. That decidedly isn’t the case in the sequel.

Each of Skye’s hallucinations centers tightly on a specific person or group she’s scared to let down. Because they all focus on different people in her life, each of these scenes has a unique build: Finn lets the tension mount organically until it tips over into horrifying unreality, like the late-movie confrontation that feels like a perfectly normal screaming match, until it suddenly goes a step too far. This gives every vision a distinct flavor, turning each one into a demented guessing game for the audience as they consider what’s real and what isn’t — all leading to a reveal that feels like the perfect culmination of the series’ premise.

Aside from simply creating much more effective scares and startling scenes, these hallucinations also make the movie’s thematic thrust more effective. The first movie is perhaps the worst example yet of modern horror movies shoehorning in overwrought trauma metaphors — in fact, the original Smile went so far as to literally have a character explain on screen that the real curse is trauma . The sequel ditches that comparison, along with any explanation of the curse. In the process, Finn creates a compelling metaphor for the ways addiction distances people from their loved ones and the world around them. It’s understated (until one particularly frustrating moment at the end of the film), and by virtue, far more effective than anything in the original movie.

Smile dodging the streaming abyss and finding box-office success felt like a miracle, but Smile 2 is something even rarer: a horror sequel that outdoes its predecessor in every way. Rather than simply rehashing the original, Parker Finn pushes his clever premise to its logical extreme and builds some incredibly scary scenes to match. In fact, Finn ends Smile 2 in a spot that feels like the perfect conclusion to the franchise — and the perfect jumping-off point for the career of one of the most exciting horror directors of his generation.

Smile 2 debuts in theaters on Oct. 18.

• Entertainment

Most Popular

• Vox Machina’s biggest season 3 change hits hard, even for the Critical Role cast
• First Marvel characters in Magic are Captain America, Iron Man, Black Panther, Wolverine, and Storm
• Anime legend Shinichirō Watanabe is back with Lazarus, and haunted by Cowboy Bebop
• The Wild Robot, Alien: Romulus, Netflix’s The Shadow Strays, and every movie new to streaming this week
• Fields of Mistria’s first big update — with romance! — coming in November

Patch Notes

The best of Polygon in your inbox, every Friday.

This is the title for the native ad

More in Reviews

The Latest ⚡️

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

About to embark on a world tour, global pop sensation Skye Riley begins experiencing increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events. Overwhelmed by the escalating horrors and the pressures ... Read all About to embark on a world tour, global pop sensation Skye Riley begins experiencing increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events. Overwhelmed by the escalating horrors and the pressures of fame, Skye is forced to face her past. About to embark on a world tour, global pop sensation Skye Riley begins experiencing increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events. Overwhelmed by the escalating horrors and the pressures of fame, Skye is forced to face her past.

• Parker Finn
• Naomi Scott
• Rosemarie DeWitt
• 128 User reviews
• 104 Critic reviews
• 67 Metascore

Top cast 33

• Elizabeth Riley

• Lewis Fregoli

• Paul Hudson

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

Did you know

• Trivia Kyle Gallner is the only actor to reprise his role from the first film so far.

Skye Riley : [to the Smile Entity] You're not in control, I am!

• Connections Featured in The Project: Episode dated 17 October 2024 (2024)

User reviews 128

• Oct 16, 2024
• October 18, 2024 (United States)
• United States
• Official Site
• Ellenville, New York, USA
• Paramount Pictures
• Paramount Players
• Temple Hill Entertainment
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 7 minutes

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• See more gaps
• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed.

‘Smile 2' Review: A Stellar Horror Sequel That Improves on the Terrifying Original

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Parker Finn's Smile made a major impact when it hit theaters in 2022 (originally slated for premiere on Paramount+ before wisely being pivoted to the big screen). That film starred a memorable Sosie Bacon as therapist Rose Cotter who witnesses a patient's violent suicide, setting in motion an increasingly tense set of encounters. These include run-ins with maliciously smiling people, surreal and dangerous situations, and a climatic showdown with a grotesque smiling entity that feeds on trauma and seeks its spread . The entity's visage is shocking, its effects personal and malevolent, and the film had some terrifying set pieces, creating a mysterious new supernatural creature to lose sleep over.

At the same time, the film wasn't perfect (despite its success). It's effective, sure, but also predictable . The entity is clever, creating solid scares and opportunities, but it always felt like it was under-explored , its relationship between smiles and trauma tenuous. Finn once again takes the writer-director reins in Smile 2 , with a bigger, bolder vision that maintains the central mysteries while showing much more of what the smile entity can actually do. It's an exceptional sequel that improves almost every aspect of the original. The result is easily one of the year's best horror films.

What Is 'Smile 2' About?

Superstar pop songstress Skye Riley ( Naomi Scott ) is coming off a tough year. A year ago, her career was bigger than ever, but substance abuse issues contributed to a haunting crash that killed her equally famous boyfriend, leaving Skye traumatized. One sober year later, Skye's working towards a career comeback while building towards a massive tour. The pressures of the tour are admittedly a bit much , both emotionally and physically, and on one fateful night, Skye seeks out old acquaintance and drug dealer Lewis ( Lukas Gage ) to acquire painkillers, as the crash left Skye with lingering scars and bouts of excruciating pain. Drugs he has aplenty, but Skye gets more than she bargained for when he comes out smiling , violently killing himself in front of her eyes. She's haunted by the death and by increasing encounters with eerily smiling people, heightening Skye's paranoia and decreasing her sanity in equal measure. What's a besieged pop star to do? And can she stop the haunting phenomena before it's too late and she loses her sanity, or worse?

'Smile 2' Doesn't Offer Many Answers About Its Lore

On a purely technical level, Smile 2 is a clear notch above its predecessor . The scale is much larger, giving ample opportunities for larger scenarios. DP Charlie Sarroff 's camera floats above the action, pivots upside down, and makes ample use of Dutch angles and other atypical shots. They're always motivated, smartly composed, and well-used to set the tone and deliver palpable unease. The script is also both terrifying and genuinely funnier than the first in a way that compliments the tension instead of watering it down. As Gage's Lewis informs Skye while in the throes of the entity's smiley assault, "I'm having the worst week," does more drugs, "THE WORST!" Understatement of the century from a paranoid besieged man pretending to be normal, delivered with excellent comedic flair and timing.

Giving all these aspects their due, it's Naomi Scott who steals the show here . Poor Skye Riley is routinely isolated, confused, scared half to death, judged, and made to question her sanity, and Scott handles all these challenges exceptionally. She delivers a protagonist who's sympathetic and problematic, complex, and strong-willed but near heart attack levels of terror for much of the film's runtime. She's genuinely incredible in a particular scene with a bevy of dancers, which also happens to be one of the year's best horror sequences , bar none. Rosemarie DeWitt is excellent as Skye's ever-watchful mother, while Kyle Gallner memorably returns as Joel from the first film and Ray Nicholson hauntingly adapts his father's famed Kubrick Stare into a Kubrick Smile . It's still a massive showcase for Scott, who cements herself as a scream queen to watch .

From 'Scream' to 'Smile,' Kyle Gallner Is Our Modern Scream King

He's been the hero, the villain, and everything in between.

Smile 2 builds a solid track of continual tension, as Scott's Skye Riley finds herself besieged by the entity. That said, there's a slight over-reliance on jump scares which, though effective, lose luster as the film progresses. The finale capably introduces a number of surprises that give the entity more intellect, power, and agency than the first film explored , but we don't know that much more about it by the film's conclusion. Certain pivots at the end also cast major moments of the film's happenings in a curious light that will take a lot of thinking to parse through. The final mean-spirited twist isn't necessarily the best choice if one wants to understand the Smile world better . Opaque though it may be, Smile 2 is a thrilling, often funny, engaging horror entry with a magnificent central performance.

A Smart Script and Naomi Scott Cement 'Smile 2' as One of the Year's Best

The classic, much-repeated lesson of Steven Spielberg 's Jaws is that one is that the monster shouldn't be seen too often. Jaws is a masterpiece, but the reasons for the limited creature visibility were practical, not normative . An unfortunate side effect of this misapplied lesson is that so many films under-explore their creature altogether , aiming for mystery but leaving much to be desired. At the end of Smile 2 , there's a distinct feeling that the entity's nature is disappointingly not investigated . Still, Naomi Scott cements herself as a scream queen to watch, the film boasts reliable tension and humor, and the third act may have too many twists, but it's still exciting, setting up for a finale that's fun to watch (though it may be predictable). It's a stellar horror entry and, slight faults aside, it's an exemplary horror sequel that hits home runs where the original landed base runs.

Smile 2 is an excellent horror sequel that exceeds the original, with humor, scares, and a stunning performance by Naomi Scott.

• Naomi Scott is a stellar Skye Riley, and lands complete terror amidst a complex set of emotions.
• The script overall packs ample humor and scares, and it's a breezy, frightening horror entry.
• Technically, Smile 2 boasts tight editing and gorgeous, clever cinematography.
• Smile 2 could be more revealing about its central entity, and consequently its themes.
• There's a slight overreliance on jump scares that doesn't always serve the narrative ideally.

Smile 2 premieres in theaters on October 18.

Get Tickets

• Movie Reviews

• Naomi Scott