I feel like Disney is somehow involved. The whole time I was watching it I felt like it was a Descendents-style take on the Smile movies. More gore, yes, and jumpscares. But none of the creeping suspense in the first movie. None of the "race against the clock."
It was just "Hey, this girl got stuck with the Smile thing. She's gonna die." And then you watched the whole movie and
Tap for spoiler
then she died
.
Smile 1 sucked, it ripped off so much from It Follows and The Ring. It felt like an “elevated horror” movie for dumbasses. Also she had a verifiable trail of evidence detailing what was happening to her I always hate when horror movies have nobody believes the protagonist. And she was a mental health worker too to make my main two points more valid. Also idk its a bit stupid too an evil smile makes people kill themselves. Cool monster at the end tho.
Smile 2 is awesome because it ditched the lame-ass lore and made protagonist a popstar with substance abuse issues and the car crash thing so the audience can pretty easily infer that theres some trauma going on being the theme. And we just get thrust into the mystery and terror with the protagonist. Also she was way more interesting than Smile 1 protag. It ditched the baby elevated horror nonsense for pure schlock and thrills. Hell yeah its getting better reviews.
I guess I was looking for a horror movie. You know, something scary. There was nothing scary about this movie (jumpscares excluded). Those dancers in her room, moving toward her with smiles on their faces? What the hell was that? That was the most high-school production value (with professional dancers I'm sure) scene I've ever seen in a horror movie. The "twists" in this movie were always pointless. There were HUGE blocks of time dedicated to scenes that didn't add anything to the narrative or backstory or tension or anything.
Such indulgent schlock. Disney does "real" horror.
Yeah I mean it reminded me of an Herschel Gordon Lewis movie but for modern times