Sympathy is a knife in the horror story of a grinning pop star

“Smile 2” comes at an interesting time in the pop conversation, as the matrix of pop stardom has been under scrutiny, not only by Chappell Roan, who discusses her struggles with the spotlight, but also by stars like Charli XCX and Taylor Swift I have been open, to varying degrees, to the pressures of public life within and outside of the modern social media/parasocial/fan vortex. Smile 2 presents an obviously exaggerated version of this world, but Finn is absorbed in its ins and outs and stays with Skye for most of the film. (“Vox Lux,” which also explored the intersection between pop fame and personal trauma, is a reference point here both stylistically and thematically.)

Rosemarie DeWitt plays Skye's mother, Dylan Gelula is Gemma, Skye's former best friend with whom she tries to repair her relationship, and Lukas Gage is Skye's sleazy high-end drug dealer. Kyle Gallner, a holdover from the original Smile, makes a brief appearance early on to connect the worlds of the two films, and Cristobal Tapia de Veer's disorienting score leaves the viewer feeling uncertain and confused.

As a horror film, “Smile 2” tends to rely too heavily on moments where the quiet silence is broken by sudden loud screeches, and is indebted to the jump-scare school of horror mechanics. Things get more interesting when it happens in Skye's head and Finn creates an elaborate house of cards that he can bring down at any time. (He also has a pretty good sense of humor, and he gets a lot of kick out of a joke about an abandoned pizza shack on Staten Island.)