Smile 2 is missing the scariest thing about the original in 2021

Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Smile 2

Although Smile 2 features plenty of scares, the horror sequel is missing the scarier take on the 2022 original. In many ways, director Parker Finn’s sequel Smile 2 It’s an improvement on its 2022 success Smile. The sequel is more ambitious, focusing on Naomi Scott’s traumatized pop star Skye Riley rather than Sosie Bacon’s troubled psychologist. Where Smile operated in a lower register and saved its biggest shocks until the final act, Smile 2 It starts out big and only gets bigger. Smile 2Joel’s initial death kills Joel in a sequence that perfectly combines crime thriller and supernatural horror.

From there, the death of Lukas Gage’s Lewis only heightens the horror, while Skye’s rapidly worsening situation becomes increasingly terrifying and surreal as Smile 2the story continues. Smile 2Twist’s brutal ending features a failed attempt to temporarily stop the heroine’s heart, a gruesome murder sequence, and a long car chase, proving that Finn can expertly mix horror and action. However, there is one element missing at the end that made SmileThe twist at the end is memorable and chilling. While the absence of an iconic villain makes sense narratively, it’s still hard not to miss them.

The Smile entity’s giant monster form is missing from Smile 2

The end of the smile featured a giant smiling monster

In Smile 2is ending, the Smile The curse of the franchise is personified as a skinless, fifteen-foot-tall monster with many mouths who reveals himself to Skye while she is on stage at a sold-out show. This monster appeared in Smileis also ending, but only after the demon has assumed a much scarier and less surreal humanoid form. In SmileIn the Stephen King-inspired ending, the heroine Rose confronts her mother’s ghost in the dilapidated shell of her childhood home, only for this apparition to suddenly transform into an eight-foot-tall humanoid with dark hair and drained and pale white skin. , and a demented smile.

Played by actor Marti Matulis Smilefrom “Monstrosity”It’s one of the most memorably disturbing movie monsters of recent years, and the humanoid monster is far more viscerally frightening than the Lovecraftian creature it later becomes. Despite that, Smile 2 abandoned the Monstrosity and jumped straight into the wilder, less human incarnation of the monster. This makes more sense from a thematic standpoint, as Skye’s ordeal with the curse is not identical to Rose’s journey in the original film. Rose’s confrontation sees the demon take the form of her mother, then the Monstrosity, and then the bizarre giant demon, while Skye’s is different.

Why Smile 2 doesn’t use the monster’s original final form

Smile 2 is missing the infamous monstrosity

Skye Smile 2 the ending initially shows her face against a smiling version of herself. Smile 2The Smile Entity apparently takes a different approach depending on its victim, meaning Skye has to confront her demonic doppelgänger, while Rose has to deal with the Monstrosity. The reason why Matulis didn’t come back in real life Smile 2 May be he was busy with his papers in Evil and The Mandalorianbut this choice made a strong ending less scary. That said, it makes sense for the demon to bypass the Monstrosity form in Smile 2 since ultimately Skye’s true greatest fear is herself.