Naomi Scott has received widespread praise for her role in the horror sequel Smile 2, where she plays an international pop star returning to the spotlight after recovering from a car crash and nervous breakdown – only to find herself ‘infected’ by an unknown entity trying to end her life.
So what went down in the film, and how did it end? For those who might have run out for a second box of popcorn and missed a trick, or for those who just want to know how the movie ends without a trip to the cinema, here’s what happened…
What happens in Smile 2?
The film opens with Joel – cursed at the end of Smile – attempting to pass the entity onto a drug dealer, but the plan goes awry when they are both killed in a shootout, leaving no witnesses (which are needed to pass on the entity). However, a third man – Lewis – was in the building at the time and inherits the curse.
Elsewhere, Naomi’s character – the world-famous Skye Riley – has returned with a world tour announcement a year after a car crash killed her boyfriend, actor Paul Hudson. While rehearsing for her comeback shows, she struggles with a back injury from the crash and visits a drug dealer, Lewis, to buy Vicodin.
When she arrives, Lewis behaves irrationally, seeing things that aren’t there and appearing confused about time passing. He’s startled by Skye’s presence and shocked by text messages showing he invited her, which he insists he didn’t send. After leaving the room briefly, he returns with a terrifying grin and dies by suicide by hitting himself with a weight.
Shocked and horrified, Skye leaves. She tries to resume her life but is haunted by visions of people grinning at her during signings, eventually imagining people attacking her in her apartment.
Making amends with her best friend, Gemma – with whom she’d fallen out at the time of her crash – Skye becomes increasingly disturbed by hallucinations, eventually believing she has murdered her own mother.
Skye’s hallucinations
Earlier, she met a man named Morris who claimed to know how to kill the entity (by stopping her heart temporarily to kill the parasite and then reviving her) and decides to meet him, with Gemma driving her. However, during the journey, she realises that she’s been hallucinating Gemma the entire time – with the entity impersonating her friend.
Ready to undergo the procedure to stop her heart, Skye confronts the entity, trying to kill it by ending her own life – only to realise that everything had been a hallucination. None of the events – killing her mother, driving to meet Morris, or speaking to him – ever happened.
What does the ending mean?
Skye finds herself on stage during her world tour, where the entity takes over and forces her to die by suicide in front of thousands of fans, effectively infecting them all with the same paranormal entity – hinting that this paranormal virus will spread to thousands.