After the terrifying events of the first film, Smile, the curse that forces its victims to wear a twisted, horrifying smile has returned—stronger and more sinister than ever. In Smile 2, we follow Dr. Emily Dawson (played by Naomi Scott), a psychologist grappling with trauma from losing her sister to the curse. Though she has dedicated her life to studying mass hysteria and psychological trauma, she refuses to believe in supernatural forces—until she’s forced to confront the horrors that haunt her.
Emily relocates to a small, isolated town to escape the memories of her past. There, she befriends a local resident, Daniel (played by Lukas Gage), a reclusive artist with a dark past of his own. Daniel had once been a rising star in the art world but withdrew from society after witnessing a mysterious suicide that left the victim with the same unnerving smile his art depicted.
Unbeknownst to Emily, the curse has begun to spread again. A string of bizarre, smile-filled suicides grips the small town, with each death more grotesque than the last. The curse passes from one victim to another, each seeing the same eerie, smiling figure that slowly pushes them into madness. As more people fall prey to the haunting smile, Emily finds herself at the center of an investigation into the mysterious deaths, especially after she begins to experience hallucinations.
Emily and Daniel, who is haunted by his own visions of smiling figures, team up to uncover the source of the curse. They discover a chilling pattern in the victims’ backgrounds, leading them to a long-abandoned asylum where horrific experiments were once conducted on patients suffering from “psychotic smiles.” It turns out that the asylum’s doctor, who experimented with dark rituals to “cure” patients of their disorders, accidentally unleashed the demonic entity responsible for the curse.
As the duo digs deeper, Emily realizes that the curse may have been responsible for her sister’s death. Wracked with guilt, she becomes desperate to end the cycle of death, but the more she resists, the stronger the entity grows. The curse begins to toy with her mind, making it impossible to know what is real and what is a hallucination. Daniel, too, is tormented by his past traumas, and his sanity begins to unravel as the curse tightens its grip.
The climax of the film sees Emily and Daniel returning to the asylum, where they confront the entity in a heart-pounding final showdown. In a terrifying twist, they discover that the only way to break the curse is to pass it on to someone else, forcing Emily to make a harrowing decision. Will she sacrifice herself to save others, or will the curse continue to spread?
Smile 2 delves deeper into the psychological horror of its predecessor, combining jump scares with slow-burning dread. The film explores themes of trauma, guilt, and the terrifying cost of survival, all while keeping audiences on the edge of their seats with its relentless tension. With Naomi Scott and Lukas Gage delivering gripping performances, Smile 2 is a thrilling continuation that will leave viewers haunted by its eerie, twisted smile.