The name Parker Finn may not be widely known outside of the entertainment industry, but he’s one of Hollywood’s biggest success stories in years.
Finn’s first film, 2022’s Smile, outperformed all expectations for a low-budget horror flick and became a breakout hit in theaters. That’s even more impressive considering that it was originally meant to be a direct-to-streaming film on Paramount+.
In 2024, Finn struck gold again with his second movie, Smile 2, which successfully raised its game with more scares and a fully satisfying experience for horror lovers.
It’s one of the new films that arrived on Amazon Prime Video in March, and also What to Watch’s pick for the one Amazon Prime movie that you have to watch this month. Keep reading, and you’ll find out why.
Naomi Scott Gives a Star-Making Performance
The biggest advantage that Smile 2 has over its predecessor is that Naomi Scott was already more established as an actress than Smile’s leading lady, Sosie Bacon. That comes into play in the film in part because Scott has to convincingly play Skye Riley — a Taylor Swift-adjacent music superstar — and give her a wide array of emotions.
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Scott — whose previous films include the 2017 Power Rangers reboot, the 2019 Charlie’s Angels reboot with Kristen Stewart, and Disney’s live-action Aladdin remake — shows off a level of talent in Smile 2 that wasn’t readily apparent before. As relayed in the movie, Skye’s road to the top of the music industry hasn’t been smooth, and she’s done some bad things in the past that come back to haunt her. If she didn’t feel that guilt, then Skye wouldn’t be sympathetic.
She can be a good person, but she’s also been a bad one, and the argument could be made that she deserved to be cursed by the Smile Entity. And yet somehow, Scott maintains the audience’s empathy for Skye’s plight as she’s slowly driven insane.
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Skye gets most of the screen time in this movie, but the audience also experiences the Smile Entity through her eyes. Every creepy smile turned her way, we see it first. The Smile Entity controls Skye’s senses, and in that sense, it controls ours too. When Skye starts losing touch with what’s real and what isn’t, Finn makes the audience guess how much of what they’re seeing is actually happening, and how much is in Skye’s mind.
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Skye can’t tell friend from foe when she’s under the Entity’s influence, and that makes it terrifying. In an even creepier twist, the Entity doesn’t always immediately reveal itself to Skye, and it can carry on a conversation with her before ruthlessly tormenting her again.
The Film Steadily Increases the Intensity
For such a relatively new director, Finn seems to know all of the tricks about how to scare his audience. Jump scares and camera movements are all part of his repertoire, and he does them well. But the film’s greatest special effect beyond Scott herself is the endless parade of creepy smiles that Skye sees everywhere. Those expressions are more than a little unsettling, and even vaguely inhuman.
Rose, the lead character in Smile, wasn’t a public figure and few got to witness her deterioration as the curse haunted her every waking moment. Skye doesn’t have the advantage of anonymity in the sequel. Everyone knows who she is, and her reputation takes a few hits as she seemingly melts down in the public eye. That’s a rarely explored idea in the horror genre.
Finn perfectly paces Skye’s breakdown to give her the proper motivation at the end. Every scary moment in the film escalates until it hits its crescendo with a great conclusion for the story. While we always appreciate a strong ending to any story, we’d be the first in line to see Smile 3. And you should start making time to watch Smile 2 this month on Prime Video.
Watch Smile 2 on Prime Video.
