Smile 2’s ending made the most obvious twist work perfectly

Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Smile 2

Although Smile 2Should have been exceptionally obvious’s ending, the horror sequel managed to make the twist feel like a genuine surprise thanks to some incredibly clever directorial missteps. Sequel from director Parker Finn Smile 2 is based on the world established by the 2022 blockbuster Smile from the opening scene onwards. Bravura’s opening sequence sees SmileDoomed antihero Joel ventures into the trap of some drug dealers so he can pass the curse on to them, only to accidentally also implicate Lukas Gage’s hapless drug dealer Lewis. This bodes ill for Naomi Scott’s Skye.

A traumatized pop star, Skye Riley suffers from chronic pain and PTSD after a car accident that killed her boyfriend, Paul Hudson. Skye relies on Lewis to supply her with Vicodin, but gets much more than she bargained for when he takes his own life in front of her while under the control of the Smile Entity. This passes the curse onto Skye, and as pressure builds around her big comeback tour, the musician’s grip on reality becomes increasingly tenuous. This leads to Smile 2the brutal twist ending, a shock that should have been blindingly obvious but isn’t.

Smile 2’s ending includes a mass curse on Skye Riley’s show

Fans guessed this twist as soon as the Smile 2 premise was revealed

From the moment the sequel’s premise was announced countless commentators guessed that Smile 2Skye’s story would end with Skye succumbing to the Entity at a concert and cursing the entire crowd. Online fan theories argued that this ending was almost inevitable, as it was the most dramatic way for the curse to go viral. Furthermore, the decision to make the sequel’s main character a famous pop star instead of an ordinary civilian seemed like a clear path to exposing more victims to the Entity’s influence. Although Smile 2 used this exact ending, it was somehow surprising.

Smile 2 took viewers down a winding garden path, only using the obvious twist long after that ending seemed impossible. Fan theories about Smile 2The ending of seemed to become increasingly irrelevant as the sequel’s plot unfolded. First, Skye made a disastrous appearance at a charity event that ended with her accidentally knocking an elderly woman off the stage. Then, she met a family member of one of the first victims of the curse who had a harebrained scheme to stop the Entity by temporarily stopping Skye’s heart. Then, Skye murdered her own mother while she was locked up in a rehab facility.

Smile 2’s deceptive story made its predictable twist more satisfying

Skye’s story helped Twist get going

By the time Skye unknowingly killed her mother, escaped from rehab, and volunteered to be temporarily killed by this random stranger to stop the curse, viewers had completely forgotten about the possibility of her making a comeback show. That’s why, the idea of ​​Skye casting the curse on a large captive audience was pushed to the back of the public’s mind as this seemed increasingly impossible. Then, Smile 2 boldly repeated SmileThe Stephen King-inspired twist when the sequence revealed that the entire final act took place entirely in Skye’s mind, and she was on stage ready to start singing.

Smile 2The twist ending is not, in itself, particularly innovative. 2017 The ring restart rings and 2019 Cleaning timewho also starred in Smile Kyle Gallner of the franchise, both end by suggesting that countless people were cursed simultaneously while watching the film’s events via live stream. Once Smile 2The heroine of was revealed to be a performer, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that her death would happen on stage, would be witnessed by countless people in person and online, and would later give the Smile the franchise’s demonic entity has more victims than ever before.

Smile 2 expands on the original Smile’s famous twist ending

Both Smile films use fake events to fool viewers

Thus, the execution of Smile 2the twist, not the twist itself, that made the ending so ingenious. Smile 2The ending of makes an obvious twist impossible to predict showing viewers the same misdirection that the monster uses to confuse and disorient Skye. It’s not quite clear when the Entity’s lies begin and reality ends, since the events before Skye arrives at rehab could reasonably be things that actually happened within the film’s reality. Skye’s mother is alive in the show, so her death is definitely part of the Entity’s elaborate mirage.

However, the fact that Gemma was never real means that Skye’s hallucinations could start much, much earlier in the film. In Smileabout ten minutes of the end of the film take place in the heroine’s head. In the sequel, potentially half the film is an imaginary illusion invented by the devil. It is not even clear whether Smile 2Is Morris a real person, or is he just the Entity in disguise. This ambiguity makes Smile 2is ending up even scarier and more effective.