Smile 2 is also currently developing into a horror hype in cinemas. But the ending confuses many fans: What is dream, what is reality? We explain what happens in the finale.
Smile 2: Do You See It Too? is currently thrilling horror fans in cinemas. No wonder: the sequel starts with a uniquely breathless scene and ends with a huge shock. Many are now demanding an explanation of its meaning and consequences, which you can find here.
Spoiler alert!
How did the horror finale of Smile 2 come about?
Smile 2 is about pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), who suffers from gruesome visions after the bloody suicide of an acquaintance: people with malicious grins seem to threaten her and throw her life off track. Skye finds the boundaries between vision and reality becoming increasingly blurred.
Watch the German trailer for Smile 2 here:
The nurse Morris (Peter Jacobson) finally provides her with an explanation: a being has taken possession of her that feeds on pain and trauma. It eventually kills its host by means of a supposed suicide and passes on to the witnesses of the bloody act.
Morris claims to have found a way out of Skye’s situation: he wants to stop her heart artificially, because with this form of clinical death, the being should also lose its power. Skye, who stabbed her mother in a fit of madness and is on the run from the law, meets Morris in a disused Pizza Hut to have her heart stopped.
But here comes the twist: Morris disappears and in his place Skye encounters the horror creature. As it turns out, it has only deluded its host into believing large parts of the past events: She did not kill her mother, did not flee and did not meet Morris, who may not even exist.
Skye wakes up in an elaborate stage costume and realizes that she will be giving a concert in front of 20,000 fans in a few seconds – at the renowned Madison Square Garden in New York. It is the highlight of her tour, for which she has been preparing for a long time.
Many will have overlooked a hidden meaning in the Smile 2 finale
Anyone who has seen the first Smile movie knows what is going to happen next: While the eyes of her fans and countless cameras are on her, Skye, grinning maniacally, kills herself with a microphone. The horror within her has won.
And not only that: It has obviously used Skye’s popularity to increase its own spread or rate of infection. 20,000 people witnessed Skye’s alleged suicide on the spot, with millions more possibly witnessing it through the cameras. All of them will now undergo Skye’s murderous nightmare. “Smile, and the world smiles with you.”
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, director Parker Finn also pointed out a meta-level of the finale that certainly not everyone has noticed: when the camera shows the endless sea of shocked fans, it is also meant to hold up a mirror to the movie theater audience.
[It’s about] the fall of a pop star who can’t bear the things that are imposed on him. I wanted to create a meta moment where the audience of the concert arena stares at the audience in the movie theater through the screen. I want to ask: Did we ourselves do this to Skye by returning to the movie theater for Smile 2? I found this idea of complicity exciting.
