Remember Smile? Demony thing stalks and/or possesses a hospital trauma therapist who has just witnessed a horrific act of self-harm, and the main symptoms of said possession, prior to gruesome death, are losing time and seeing people oversmile creepily at you everywhere you go?

Smile 2 is very much like that movie, only instead of a deep metaphorical dive into the personal costs of providing mental healthcare, it follows a Taylor Swift-level superstar who lost everything to drugs and alcohol and is staging her comeback. Only, she makes a single impulsive (and low-key bad) decision that puts her in the wrong place at the extremely wrong time, and now people are smiling creepily at her.

Where the first movie was deeply horrifying and also an unpredictable mindfuck, this one is… well, the mindfuck part is gone because we know for sure that it’s real even if the afflicted character doesn’t, and the horror is not precisely gone, but it just feels mean-spirited this time. Not like it could happen to anyone, but like it is happening to this character because she deserves it. (Wondering whether she actually does deserve it or not honestly misses the point.)

In conclusion, not every horror movie needs to be a franchise.

But, if you’re into body horror, there was some stuff with hair that was really making me squirm.