Smile 2 director talks the horror sequel's brutal, one-shot, "really surprising" opening scene: "It wasn't going to feel like anything we did in the first film"

2024-10-15

EntertainmentMoviesHorror MoviesSmile 2Smile 2 director talks the horror sequel’s brutal, one-shot, “really surprising” opening scene: “It wasn’t going to feel like anything we did in the first film"When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Paramount Pictures)

Lukas Gage in Smile 2

Horror sequelSmile 2makes it very clear from minute one that it won’t be taking any prisoners. The much anticipated follow-up to writer/director Parker Finn’s 2022 breakout hit Smile kicks events off with a bang, beginning with a striking and brutal one-shot scene. Of course, we won’t be diving into spoilers here - you’ll have to see the film for yourself - but what we can tell you is that it makes an immediate impression.

Which is exactly what Finn was hoping to achieve, who returns to helm this second installment. Speaking to GamesRadar+, he reveals that with the opening he wanted to do something he hadn’t done before, whilst throwing audiences right into the action. Finn explains: “Where the first film ended, I knew I wanted to have some connective tissue, a sort of through line between them, and so it felt like a natural place to start.

“But I also knew that the opening scene was not going to feel like anything we had done in the first film, it was going to be totally something that felt really surprising in a Smile film. In the script itself, I had written that it’s going to be a single unbroken shot because I knew that was really going to create this incredibly tense, suffocating feeling as as you’re thrown into the opening. It was a major challenge to prep and shoot, but I’m really pleased with how it came out.”

(Image credit: Paramount Pictures)

Naomi Scott as Skye Riley in the upcoming movie, Smile 2.

Finn also wanted to do something different when it came to the story, meaning Smile 2 doesn’t focus on Kyle Gallner’s police detective Joel, who you may remember had the curse passed onto him at the end of the 2022 original. Instead we followNaomi Scott’s Skye Riley, a troubled pop star who is on the dawn of a world tour.

But was there ever the idea that this sequel could have Joel at the helm? For Finn, there wasn’t, as he tells us: “I love Kyle Gallner, he is such an incredible actor and I want to put him in everything. But I knew that if I was approaching a sequel I didn’t want to do the obvious thing, or a simple continuation, or a retread of the original. If I was asking audiences to come back I wanted to deliver something really unexpected, fresh, and different.”

Of course, 2022’s Smile was originally designed to be a standalone movie, but the film becoming a box office sensation meant a sequel was swiftly commissioned. Finn admits that he can be “quite cynical sometimes of sequels”, so therefore wanted to ensure that if he was going to make Smile 2 it had to be done right.

The filmmaker agreed then to make the movie when he came up with the character of Riley, which Finn says “unlocked everything” for him. As he concludes, that idea meant the sequel was justified: “I find myself being quite cynical sometimes of sequels. I think there are incredible ones out there but they need to be made thoughtfully with all of the care of the original.

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“And so, I knew if I was going to do it, it needed to be something that was worth coming back to. The discovery of this character, this massive pop star Skye Riley, unlocked everything for me. That got me really excited. I wanted to go bigger, bolder, way more off the rails, and insane. There’s this great escalation from the first to the second, which I wanted to lean into.”

Smile 2 hits UK cinemas on October 17, before releasing in US theaters on October 18.

For more, check out our picks of thebest horror moviesand theupcoming horror moviesyou should be watching out for.

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GAME REVIEWSMOVIE REVIEWSTV REVIEWS

1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”

Nemesis board game models and tokens laid out on a board

1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”

Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”

2Arcs review: “A whole lot of game in a small package”

Arcs review: “A whole lot of game in a small package”

3Path of Exile 2 review: “A stellar start to a thrilling and brutal dark adventure”

Path of Exile 2 review: “A stellar start to a thrilling and brutal dark adventure”

4Indiana Jones and the Great Circle review: “The best adventure Indy has embarked on in over 30 years”

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5Marvel Rivals review: “So preoccupied with trying to be like Overwatch that it forgets to play to its own strengths”

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1Sonic the Hedgehog 3 review: “Keanu Reeves as Shadow is wasted whilst Jim Carrey steals the show”

Shadow brandishes a gun in Sonic The Hedgehog 3

1Sonic the Hedgehog 3 review: “Keanu Reeves as Shadow is wasted whilst Jim Carrey steals the show”

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 review: “Keanu Reeves as Shadow is wasted whilst Jim Carrey steals the show”

2Mufasa: The Lion King review – “It’s no Hakuna Matata but this Disney origin story is a class above the 2019 movie”

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3Kraven the Hunter review: “The insistence on an R-rating helps save this, with a decent helping of bloodthirsty action”

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4The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review – “An uninspired expansion of the most iconic screen take on Tolkien”

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Squid Game season 2

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