An English professor would tell you it’s too much, and an editor would force you to kill some darlings. ‘More is more’ isn’t really an ethos that holds much sway in modern Hollywood, where basic legibility, especially across continents, rules the day. Putting a hat on a hat is at least discouraged, if not downright outlawed in Tinseltown, especially when it comes to sequels. Having scored a huge, unexpected hit with 2022’s Smile, writer/director Parker Finn must have an unusual amount of sway at Paramount, because the film’s follow-up operates as a sort of double feature unto itself. The impulse to take a flick that previously worked all on its own and stack another directly on top is a curious one, but as the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, expand and remodel.

Rather than simply introduce the series’ mysterious, demonic presence to another unsuspecting member of the working class, Smile 2 sets its scene in the voyeuristic world of pop stardom. The subject of its attention is Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), a Demi Lovato-type who, as the film opens, is set to embark on a comeback tour following a year of public and personal tragedy. A pair of chance infections bring the nefarious spectral presence to Skye’s doorstep, but she probably never stood a chance in the first place. If the original movie taught us anything, it’s that this haunting vector has a knack for locating those at an intersection between trauma and perseverance. As a wise man once said, this is going to ruin the tour.

Despite having an entirely new setting and collection of toys at his disposal, Finn opts to open his movie with an additional narrative indulgence, a bottle episode featuring Kyle Gallner’s character from the previous entry. More Sicario than Scream, the gritty, crime-infused prelude is positively electric, allowing Finn to stretch his stylistic muscles while grabbing the audience by the throat the instant the studio tags have receded. While existing as one of 2024’s best scenes full stop, it also serves as a statement of intent from its creator. While the shadowy frights and rictus grins will again be present, Smile 2 and its expansive 127 minute runtime will be finding space for ample flights of fancy, even if they do little to enhance the film’s overarching narrative.

The chief exemplar of this is Smile 2’s genuine interest in the minutiae of musical fame, both its forward-facing aspects and backroom inner workings. Unlike its pop-girl-thriller spiritual twin, Trap, Finn’s flick portrays Riley’s on-stage exploits with both braggadocious technical know-how and sincere admiration, as lavish as any of the hagiographic concert documentaries that have flooded our streaming services in recent years. A renowned entertainer is a hand-in-glove fit for this particular story, wherein the most inviting of facial veneers does precious little to disguise malicious intent, but that’s all egg-headed, thematic stuff. Finn’s here for the meat-and-potatoes of it all, from exhaustive rehearsals to painstaking aesthetic preparations, militaristic stage moms (Rosemarie DeWitt) on down to level-headed confidants from back home (Dylan Gelula). It all plays like gangbusters, to the point where everyone involved seems more interested in the glitz and glamor than the ghostly and ghastly, though maybe they’re just succumbing to Scott’s gravitational pull.

Horror has always been a fruitful showcase for actresses on the rise, with ample opportunities to scream, cry, and writhe at the center of the frame, and Scott wastes little time turning this franchise entertainment into a vehicle for her ascendancy. Present in nearly every frame, with the camera pushed up close enough to capture the slightest change in expression, Scott’s turn is more in line with the silent film stars of the 20’s and 30’s than history’s lineage of scream queens, all watery eyes and maximal expressivity. Operating like a microcosm of the film itself, her performance can tend a bit loud and a tad wearying, but there’s no doubting that Scott is giving it her full weight. It’s committed enough to border on parody, which is, again, in keeping with the apparatus at large.

No one would accuse Smile of being a laugh riot, and while its successor also bears a grim worldview, tiny bits of humor and self-reflection dot the margins this time around. The aforementioned DeWitt and Gelula have rakish fun on either side of empathy’s coin, while Peter Jacobson, playing a doctor by way of exposition machine, carries the hangdog aura of party host explaining the rules of a game to a captive, unruly audience. Anyone doubting the intentionality of these choices need look no further than the presence of Ray Nicholson, son of Jack, in a bit part. It’s one thing to scour central casting for actors with the creepiest smirks; it’s another to hire the offspring of the man who provided The Shining with horror’s most iconic, toothy simper. There’s also the film’s clear fiscal arrangement with Voss, and while it’s difficult to know how the bottled water titans feel about their hilariously omnipresent representation here, Finn is sure having fun.

These meta-textual shenanigans and oddly calibrated performances are at odds with the franchise’s dour, full-throated belief that humans are the play things of trauma, reducing their prominence in the proceedings. It’s a big L for anyone who generally supports the qualitative stratification of Elevated Horror, and an equally large windfall for those tired of the calamitous undergirding of scary cinema’s present moment. Rather than focusing so closely on the mental and emotional pain of the previous entry, Smile 2 diversifies its affronts to the realm of the physical, exploring new levels of gore and self-mutilation. While less likely to inspire a thesis paper, this new fangled, grisly attitude gives the movie something to call its own, a mission that seems to be of greatest importance to everyone involved.

It also means that the jump scares have been pared back, and while the technique has been the subject of ridicule for years now, Smile’s mastery of the art form would suggest that Parker’s got a few more bangers in him. We’ll just have to wait for the inevitable Smile 3, or, if the movie gods are kind, a new tale from a director whose obviously got the goods. Things only seem to be ramping up for him, and if Smile 2 throws a few too many things at the wall, we should all be so lucky. A movie that works overtime to justify the price of admission, Parker’s sequel might be a bit of a try-hard, but it’s full-throated in its terrors, determined in its indulgences, and never less than entertaining. They say you’re not supposed to put a hat on a hat; Parker puts on six, and, for the most part, looks damn good doing it.