Smile 2 Movie Review: Parker Finn uses a cultured and functional quotationism, for a second chapter of rare elegance, intensity, and restlessness. Suggestions of Polanski, Cronenberg and Fargeat. In theaters from October 17
It rarely happens, especially in the new popular horror cinema, that a franchise finds a way to regenerate itself from chapter to chapter, improving more and more. We have in fact witnessed inadvertent failures, just think of The Conjuring Saga and related spin-offs - started wonderfully and then lost - and so many other titles branded Blumhouse Productions and not only.
Yet among failures, titles announced and ultimately never made and reboots with catastrophic outcomes, real epiphanies suddenly shine, not at all contaminated by the desperate similarity surrounding, as is the case of Parker Finn. An American author, it must be said, incredibly young, Finn, like many other colleagues, began by directing the short; Laura Hasn’t Sleep is Worth Remembering; then arrived at the great commercial title, Smile, which not only thrilled the international public, but also the critics.
Thus was born a franchise with unpredictable outcomes, immediately viral; the marketing campaign is one of the most interesting and astute of recent years; and the hope is that Parker Finn does not get lost, once swallowed up by the ruthless logic of the Hollywood majors. It did not happen. Smile 2 goes even further and its roots are in a rich and functional cinematographic citation, telling us something ferocious and interesting about this new world, increasingly at the mercy of social media, fame, artistic cruelty, and inevitably lacerating and widespread self-harm, derived from each of the previous causes.
In the often nocturnal New York transfigured by the demonic and desperate dimension of the nightmare - with open eyes and not - and of the visual hallucination, caused by that silent, but incredibly concrete epidemic, that we learned about in the excellent previous chapter, Skye Riley, a very famous pop star, worn out by a past of addictions and death, moves ungracefully.
Played by Naomi Scott, who is not only a successful singer-songwriter, but also an actress of notable intensity, Riley wanders, often in pain, otherwise haunted by those ghosts, that she has tried to silence for too long, resorting to drugs and choices in bad taste, of which she would like to forget every consequence and circumstance, even if she does not succeed at all. Around her is her family, who is devoted to her, beyond which there is nothing. She has lost love because death has taken it away and so has friendship, devoured by the logic of success, vanity, and the unnoticed but evident mutations of the same.
This is why when evil arrives, devouring her from the inside - to the point of catharsis, therefore the exposure and explanation of the same, in front of the general public -, no one seems to notice. Because Riley had already been devoured by evil, over and over again. An evil that had different names, but tragically similar effects. She will be asked "Are you still doing drugs?", not because of a lack of understanding, but rather because of an excess of it, in fact, the revelation follows "If it's like this, we won't tell anyone, you'll continue the tour", fame silences evil, so what is the worst cruelty? That of the demonic epidemic, or of those who incessantly lead to wear and tear and collapse?
It is therefore curious to find in this accessible model of great popular horror cinema, authorial influences that, passing through the sinister Polanskian Rosemary’s Baby, soon reach the obsessive, morbid and ferocious reflection of Maps to the Stars, the film in which David Cronenberg observes and tells for the first time the afterlife of the show, the darkness that peeps out behind the mask and the horror, the real one, that generates fame and that belongs precisely to the stars. That’s not all, because surprisingly, among the ferocious sequences on the self-harm of the stage, of beauty and exasperated femininity, Coralie Fargeat of the recent and exciting The Substance reappears, even more ferocious, even more desperate.
Smile 2: evaluation and conclusion
Nightmare and reality merge and merge, in an atmospheric horror that observes and uses multiple languages and visual and narrative registers, passing through the video clip, the thriller, the high-concept movie, and the deepest drama. Parker Finn indeed uses an extremely varied cinematographic citation, but it is equally true that the authorial imprint is now recognizable, personal, and authentic.
A new author is born, a new voice capable of keeping us glued to the seat, waiting to make us jump and then look away and run away. Finn fully expresses his intensity, through brutal violence, which is not satisfied with just a few splatter moments, but also with a drift, whose merit is that of skillfully rooting itself in a particularly cruel, amused, and vintage gore imagery, which reminds us of the great cult films of Troma Entertainment. The same source of inspiration, albeit undeclared, of Coralie Fargeat.
It's a great year for horror cinema, it's a great year for Parker Finn. Smile 2 is already one of the most elegant, successful, and disturbing horror titles of the moment. It's curious to find within it, suggestions of Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria, between choreographies of death, demonic dances, austere buildings, and bones that break, tearing us and them apart. Don't miss it, it's great cinema.
Smile 2 is in theaters starting Thursday, October 17, 2024, distributed by Eagle Pictures.