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baddestbittyontheblock · 10 months ago

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february fic recs (1/2)

✦ dividers by @saradika-graphics, @gigittamic ✦

Ⳋ᧙ hi everyone!! i've read a ton of fics this month, so i hope you all enjoy my faves of february!! Ⳋ᧙ ⑅part 2⑅

I made 2 post's for february cause it was too long lol

ᖭི༏ᖫྀ remember to like and reblog the works you enjoy in order to support each incredible writer!! ᖭི༏ᖫྀ

Ⳋ᧙ however, make sure you read the information on each story themselves such as triggers & warnings Ⳋ᧙

ᖭི༏ᖫྀ also, if you’d like me to remove your fic from this list, message me! ᖭི༏ᖫྀ

women's soccer

alexia putellas

❀᧓ when i break, it’s in a million pieces (1/3) by @girlgenius1111 alexia x putellas!reader

-the pressure on reader is intense, from her sister more than anyone. an injury pushes her to her breaking point. desperate not to let her sister down, reader struggles under the weight of her injury.

❀᧓ shining just for you (2/3) by ^ alexia + barça & putellas!reader

-reader only gets worse. alexia gets frustrated. a much needed conversation is attempted.

❀᧓ all i do is try, try, try (3/3) by ^ alexia putellas x putellas!reader

-alexia and reader finally talk.

❀᧓ young, drunk, and alone by ^ alexia putellas x putellas!reader | angst, fluff, brief mentions of blood and vomiting. and alcohol consumption, 6k

-reader infuriates her sister when she sneaks out and gets drunk with her friends. alexia comes to realize that maybe, this is a result of her pushing you too hard.

❀᧓ you come back from gravity by ^ alexia putellas x reder | angst, fluff

-alexia and reader have an argument. reader misunderstands, and when alexia leaves to calm down, she thinks she's going for good.

❀᧓ annoyances by @sunnyaelia alexia putellas x reader | pure fluff, reader being a little shit

-alexia forces you to come with her to a photo shoot and a meeting while you’re tired - you’re intent on making her regret it

❀᧓ matches and hickeys by ^ alexia putellas x reader | mostly fluff and then suggestive at the end, not meant for minors!

-alexia is very proud to take you with her to a match - until one of her opponents starts flirting with you

❀᧓ jealously and sisterhood by ^ alexia putellas x reader | angst

-alexia and you are dating and she is happy that you get along with her sister alba so well - until people start thinking you and alba are a thing. in her effort to keep you away from her sister, she drives a wedge in between you and her relationship

❀᧓ listener and talker by ^ alexia putellas x reader | grumpy x sunshine trope but a very mild version of it

-you always think that you talk too much for alexia to listen to everything - she proves otherwise

❀᧓ listener and talker 2 by ^ alexia putellas x reader | pure fluff

-alexia continues to be cute and you try to match her actions and do some things for her

❀᧓ insecurities and drunk talks by ^ alexia putellas x reader | talks about body insecurities and then wanting to change body image, nothing heavy or detailed though and it’s about gaining muscles not losing weight! also non sexual nudity and suggestive comments, 18+ please

-alexia tries to tease you by not initiating any physical contact anymore - she doesn’t expect that you might misunderstand it and withdraw from her as a result

❀᧓ laps and regret by ^ alexia putellas x reader | this contains descriptions of reader almost throwing up and non sexual nudity

-in her efforts to hide your relationship to the others on the team, alexia overdoes it during training and is way too strict on you - it has consequences

❀᧓ delay by @awfcspencer alexia putellas x reader | mdni 18+ only, smut with basically no plot. dom!alexia, sub!reader, fingering, strap-ons, praise kink, dirty talk, choking, orgasm denial

-flight cancellation isn’t ideal, especially when you had been teasing alexia all day.

❀᧓ dancing with the devil (1/3) by @pers1st alexia putellas x singer!reader | mentions of drugs and alcohol

-meeting alexia hadn't been an accident. if anything, meeting anyone, for you, was an accident, because more often than not, people were screaming into your face, demanding pictures and autographs and spinning theories about your private life that you were pretty sure could be considered conspiracies.

❀᧓ painkillers (2/3) by ^ alexia putellas x singer!reader | alcohol & drug abuse

-if lois noticed the tears threatening to spill from your eyes, he didn't mention it. you turned the radio on from the control in the back, desperate to escape the whistling thoughts in your head.

❀᧓ afterglow (3/3) by ^ alexia putellas x singer!reader | mentions of OD

-keira was taken away first. alexia noticed it as she marched across the damp pitch, a winter coat shielding her body from the cool wind, her body glistening with sweat.

❀᧓ bittersweet by @barcaatthemoon alexia putellas x reader

-the roar of the crowd was deafening. spain had won, and while you were so proud of alexia, you couldn't bring yourself to move to congratulate her.

❀᧓ testy by @acornsquish alexia putellas x reader | smut, 18+ minors dni, AFAB reader, cunnilingus, fingering, begging, restraints, D/S undertones, orgasm control

-you're in a terrible mood, for no particular reason. you know exactly what would help, but your girlfriend's been insanely busy for weeks, and you don't want to ask for what you need and put one more thing on her plate. alexia figures it out anyways.

❀᧓ broken by @ale-wosofan alexia putellas x reader | little bit of angst (+fluff), implied adhd

-reader is struggling but she’s not sure why or how to fix it. will she finally be honest with her girlfriend about how she’s feeling?

❀᧓ reliance by @leahluvr alexia putellas x reader | angst, comfort

-your newborn son won’t go to sleep

❀᧓ spoiled rotten by @wileys-russo alexia putellas x reader | fluff

-"only me!" you called out as you stepped through the front door, immediately nearly crashing to the floor over a pair of your girlfriends sneakers she'd left laying in the way.

❀᧓ caught on camera by ^ alexia putellas x putellas!reader

-"where are you going? the field is that way hermana."

❀᧓ open your eyes by @magics-neptunes-things alexia putellas x reader

-alexia. you’ve known her since you were a little girl. you met her when the ball she was playing with ended up in your backyard and she came looking for it, half hidden behind her father.

❀᧓ between us by @alexias-putellas alexia putellas x reader x jenni hermoso

-you’d had a crush on alexia from the moment you’d laid eyes on her the day you signed your barcelona contract. she was pretty and kind. and unfortunately, taken.

aitana bonmatí

❀᧓ sleepyhead by @storiesforthemoonchild aitana bonmatí x reader

-breakfast was always loud with the team, and you loved it.

❀᧓ clingy by @alexias-putellas aitana bonmatí x reader | fluffy

-with a heaved sigh, you pushed open the apartment door, dragging your suitcase in behind you. the quiet humming you could hear stopped and was replaced by the sound of footsteps.

❀᧓ beach babe by @princejiu aitana bonmatí x reader

-the barca girls spots a beach babe and aitana is immediately in love

jessie fleming

❀᧓ you've been missed by @lovinpelova jessie fleming x reader | smut

-jessie feels a bit more lonely than usual, so she makes sure you get home earlier.

leila ouahabi

❀᧓ eyes on me by @repulsiveliquidation leila ouahabi x reader | smut

-the sun shines through the hotel room in malta. leila has her arm wrapped around your middle with a tight grip on you.

mapi leon

❀᧓ don't doubt us by @girlgenius1111 ingrid x mapi x reader | 18+ smut!

-reader gets sick. mapi and ingrid get overprotective. reader pushes herself too hard, but her girlfriends know what she needs better than she does

ingrid engen

❀᧓ ingrid blurb by @wileys-russo ingrid engen x reader

-"i didn't know you switched numbers"

❀᧓ inside everything by @retrocesosdestacion ingrid engen x reader | smut, minor disastrous, +18 writting, semi-public sex, touching, fingering, r sub, maybe a bit realistic, did not reach the limit, half sex, almost caught.

-It's shopping day, however you are very doubtful on which denim shorts you are going to acquire.

❀᧓ don't doubt us by @girlgenius1111 ingrid x mapi x reader | 18+ smut!

-reader gets sick. mapi and ingrid get overprotective. reader pushes herself too hard, but her girlfriends know what she needs better than she does

alessia russo

❀᧓ mornings with you by @mrchiipchrome alessia russo x reader | suggestive, 1.4k

-early morning rays of sun peeked in through the blinds as your girlfriend admired your features lit up by the soft glow of the rays. alessia’s blonde hair was splayed over the pillow, her finger tracing soft shapes into the skin of your arm.

❀᧓ puzzle book by @wileys-russo alessia russo x reader

-cute little blurb about being on camp in spain with less

jenni hermoso

❀᧓ homecoming by @girlgenius1111 jenni hermoso x reader | smut! 18+

-jenni returns from a trip without you, intent on reminding you of who you belong to. you are only interested in proving to her that you've forgotten who is in charge.

❀᧓ between us by @alexias-putellas alexia putellas x reader x jenni hermoso

-you’d had a crush on alexia from the moment you’d laid eyes on her the day you signed your barcelona contract. she was pretty and kind. and unfortunately, taken.

❀᧓ caught by @barcaatthemoon jenni hermoso x reader | minors dni, 18+, smut

-you and jenni get caught breaking one the team's "no hotel sex" rule.

ona batlle

❀᧓ scratches down your back now by @alessiasfreckles one batlle x reader | smut 18+, dom!ona, sub!reader, fingering (r receiving), strap (r receiving), back scratching, dirty talk, degradation, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, praise kink

-you just want ona to use you, and she's more than happy to do so.

men's soccer

jude bellingham

❀᧓ tainted memories by @anadiasmount jude bellingham x reader | angst? smut and fluff, minors dni, 3.6k

-breaking up wasn’t apart of the plan. so was also inviting him to your friends party, but now that he’s back after seven months, a little rekindle never hurts anyone, right?

❀᧓ not what you think by ^ jude bellingham x reader | 2.1k

-a club filled with many girls but the one he wants is standing in the dance floor, his best friends little sister. he shouldn’t be thinking the way he does, but something about seeing you doing something he never thought and imagined has his mind racing with thoughts that were forbidden…

❀᧓ a love that feels right by @judethsluvr brother’s bsf!jude bellingham x fem!reader | 18+ minors dni

-“you know you don’t have to share a tent with me—in fact i’d be happy to have one for myself, just saying.”

❀᧓ just a fan by @mufcjb jude bellingham x reader | just slight angst, appearances from Camavinga and Vini Jr

-a security guard at one of jude’s games mistakes you for a fan.

❀᧓ wag in training by ^ jude bellingham x reader | insecurities, body image issues, brief mentions of lack of eating,very angsty

-reader is insecure about her capabilities of being a wag and feeling like she doesn’t fit in, especially after seeing the others at the world cup.

❀᧓ la playa by @moviestarmartini jude bellingham x latina!reader | really short instagram aus at both the beginning and the end, situationship where they both clearly fell for each other but won't discuss it, pet names in spanish, NSFW, semi-public sex, soft dom!jude if you squint, teasing, p in v, praise, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it y'all), creampie, cockwarming, fluff (aka two big goofs in love), 2.0k

-situationship!jude asked to spend the summer vacations with you. he's been looking at you with something other than his hungry eyes for some time now.

❀᧓ ballroom extravaganza by @leviscolwill jude bellingham x f1 driver!reader | jude is jealous, reader drives for mclaren w lando, possible racing inconstancies (i can't drive to save my life), reader crashes (nothing too bad happens tho), gasly slander, language ??, quite angsty but happy (&fluffy) endin, 1.7k

-you always hated arguing with jude, but even more so when you're about to race monaco's streets

❀᧓ watermelon sugar by @judeswhore jude bellingham x fem!reader | 18+, minors dni, oral (f), pussy drunk jude??

-jude just can’t get enough of you

bridgerton

anthony bridgerton

❀᧓ bridgerton blues by @imthebadguyyy anthony bridgerton x reader | smut, heavy smut and excessive amount of fluff

-it's the first time after your wedding that anthony sees you sporting the signature bridgerton colour : blue, and it does things to him that he can only express in a much more....physical manner.

❀᧓ truth or dare by @ithebookhoarder anthony bridgerton x wife!reader | alcohol, mild smut, swearing, anthony losing his mind, typical bridgerton sibling shenanigans

-married only a few months, you are very much one of the bridgerton brood - something that often drives your poor husband mad, especially when you happen to be every bit as chaotic and unruly as his siblings... also known as, you, benedict and eloise take a game of ‘truth or dare’ a bit too far.

❀᧓ to lose yourself by @frost-queen anthony bridgerton x reader

-you and anthony have an intense moment in the library at lady danbury's ball. It leads to full on kissing till his sister daphne enters shockingly. teasingly she starts telling you to duel her just like anthony once did with simon.

call of duty

simon riley

❀᧓ drabble by @truetogaia simon riley x reader

-simon keeps his late girlfriend's things long after her passing.

❀᧓ simon fic by @lunarw0rks simon riley x gn!reader | nsfw + sfw, established relationship, smut/fluff, shower sex, hurt/comfort, 1.1k

-reader using their safe word for the first time with ghost

❀᧓ picture by @peachesofteal simon riley x fem!reader | 18+ minors dni, pregnancy, pregnant reader, blow job, praise kink, blood, violence, injury, ptsd, anxiety, trust issues. simon is bad at feelings. soap is a good friend. POV switches

-soap gives simon a picture.

❀᧓ simon blurb by @hecateslore dad!simon x mom!reader

-a working mom who comes home to a retired papa!simon

❀᧓ smut blurb by @shotmrmiller pornstar!ghost x fem!reader | 18+, smut

-pornstar!ghost who can't seem to ever keep his hands to himself whenever you're around, even when about to film.

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kevinsreviewcatalogue · 2 months ago

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Review Double Feature: Smile (2022) and Smile 2 (2024)

Another day, another double feature, this time of a movie that came out a couple of years ago but which I'm just now getting around to seeing and its newly-released sequel. How were they? Read on...

Smile (2022)

Rated R for strong violent content and grisly images, and language

Score: 3 out of 5

Smile is a good movie, but one that I feel like I should've liked a lot more given how much it had been hyped up. It felt bloated in a lot of ways, and while it tried to tell a story about a woman who's never gotten over the childhood trauma caused by her terrible mother, it never gave that story the attention it needed, to the point that its focus in the third act felt almost like it came out of nowhere. That said, it's also a clear-cut example of how rock-solid technical craftsmanship can salvage a movie from an otherwise bad script. It's dripping in atmosphere and mood, it's filled with unsettling imagery and scary moments, it manages to create a feeling that one is slowly going insane, and the cast is excellent, particularly Sosie Bacon as its haunted heroine. It's a movie that other people seem to have liked a lot more than I did, but even with its problems, it was still enjoyable, a film that, even if it never quite manages to capture the depth of the "elevated horror" films it's clearly imitating, still manages to be a scary ride that nails their aesthetics, tone, and frights.

The film starts with Rose Cotter, a therapist at a psychiatric hospital, watching a patient named Laura Weaver freak out in front of her, talking about being stalked by a malevolent entity, before slitting her own throat. The scariest part: after the freakout, Laura suddenly developed a gigantic smile on her face that she held until the moment she died. What's more, Laura, a promising graduate student, had no history of mental health problems until about a week ago when she watched her professor kill himself right in front of her. And now, Rose is suddenly seeing the same entity that Laura described. Doing some digging with her detective ex-boyfriend Joel, Rose finds that Laura was just the latest in a chain of mysterious suicides that, as she soon realizes, are the result of a curse, one that is now coming for her.

Notice how nowhere in that plot description did I mention Rose's mother. The opening scene is a flashback to Rose as a young girl watching her mother, who had been an abusive, mentally ill drug addict, dying of an overdose, and the third act especially tries to bring Rose's relationship with her mother to the forefront of the story. And yet, from my perspective it felt far more minor than the film seemed to think it was. There's a message board I frequent where we have a running joke about a cliché that we've seen come up in a lot of modern horror movies: "TROWmah", the cause of all the protagonists' problems turning out to be trauma buried in their backstories, usually related to their families. There have been a lot of horror movies in the last ten years like The Babadook and Hereditary that have done this kind of drama well, but there are also many lesser films that have fumbled such, and this is one of the latter, feeling like it shoehorned in a traumatic backstory for Rose simply because that's what modern supernatural horror movies do. For much of the film, Rose's mother barely figures into the events. We're told by Laura that the entity stalking her can take the form of anyone, including people who have died, but only towards the end does it take the form of Rose's mother. The final confrontation taking place at Rose's dilapidated childhood home, her metaphorically confronting all of her bottled-up feelings about her mother, was visually exciting but felt unearned as a result.

The worst part is that there was a far better movie sitting right there under the surface, one that could've used the entity as a metaphor for a completely different problem in Rose's life that the first two acts do, in fact, very much establish. We're shown throughout the film that Rose is a workaholic, clocking in 70-hour weeks at the hospital, being nagged by her sister Holly because she's willing to miss her nephew's birthday to work weekends, and slowly driving away her fiancé Trevor and her family. Instead of childhood family trauma, this movie would've worked a lot better if the entity/curse had been a metaphor for Rose's adult trauma, specifically that of an overworked white-collar professional who has sacrificed everything for a career that doesn't love her back, subjecting her to the sight of one of her patients committing suicide right in front of her (which caused the curse to target her in the first place). Even the film's title would've lent itself to such a story, about somebody who has to show up for work every day and put on a happy face for the people whose mental health problems she's trying to heal even though she herself is crumbling inside, the sad kind of phony smile juxtaposed with the scary ones she encounters throughout the film. It's a story that anyone who feels worn down by their job could've related to, especially health care workers whose job description involves occasionally watching people die and having no way to save them (which, in 2022, would've been especially timely), and more importantly, it would've fit what this movie established about Rose a lot better than the story it did tell. When the time came for Rose to exorcise her demons both personal and literal, it shouldn't have been about learning to put her mother behind her even though the film was barely about her mother before then, it should've been about finding some work/life balance. I wonder if there were some major rewrites on this movie, or if it was a consequence of writer/director Parker Finn trying to stretch his 11-minute short film Laura Hasn't Slept out to feature length, because its attempts at exploring Rose's personal problems felt incoherent.

Fortunately, unlike Night Swim, another recent horror movie adapted from a short film, this manages to still be an effective horror movie in spite of itself thanks to Finn proving to be a better director than he is a writer. It's mostly supernatural horror boilerplate, but it's done well, with a mix of tried-and-true jump scares and deeper, more unsettling chills as Rose and the viewer are both thrust into scenarios where something is just wrong and we can't trust anything we see. While its attempts to tie Rose's problems to her childhood trauma fell flat, it did otherwise succeed in putting me in the headspace of somebody who's slowly going mad with nobody to help her, as with the exception of Joel, nearly everybody in her life abandons her in her darkest hour. As a metaphor for mental illness, it was chilling, and Sosie Bacon pulls off an incredible performance as Rose here, one that I can see taking her places in the future as more than just "Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick's daughter." Kyle Gallner, meanwhile, makes for a likable male lead as Joel, the only person who seems to believe Rose even despite their history together as he, in his capacity as a detective, uncovers the truth about what is happening to her. Finally, Rob Morgan only appears in a single scene scene as the one person who managed to beat the curse, at considerable cost to not only his psyche but also his physical circumstances, but his performance, clearly terrified of the entity and everything it represents, was enough on its own to considerably up the stakes for Rose in her journey.

And as for scares, this movie's got 'em. Again, there's not a lot here that's new, but this movie plays the hits well, not just with the obvious jump scares but also with the setup for them. We get moments where we just know that something is watching Rose from just off camera and are eagerly waiting for her to turn around and see it, a scene where Rose is with her therapist (more or less remade from the original short film) that establishes that she's not safe even with people she thinks she can trust, and plenty of other scenes that lend to the film's oppressive atmosphere, in which we feel that we're starting to lose our minds as much as Rose is. Towards the end, when the scares shift to Rose facing the entity head-on, it is represented as a genuinely chilling monster brought to life by some grotesque creature effects. The entity is a hell of a monster, used only sparingly but looking downright horrifying when it does show up. Between the scares, the perpetually gray New Jersey setting, and Rose's slide into what looks like madness, this movie carries a bleak, nihilistic tone all the way to the finish line, and refused to pull its punches.

The Bottom Line

Even with its derivative nature and bad script, Smile demonstrates how a horror movie can succeed purely on the strength of its direction, which manages to make the most of what it's given and deliver an effective little chiller.

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And now, for the sequel...

Smile 2 (2024)

Rated R for strong bloody violent content, grisly images, language throughout and drug use

Score: 5 out of 5

Smile 2 is the movie that the first Smile should've been. The scares are bigger, badder, and more effective, the central story is better written and more focused even as it dives much deeper into the idea that we can't trust what we're seeing on screen, the direction is far more stylish, kinetic, and exciting, and it's all anchored by what ought to be a career-making performance by Naomi Scott. The funny thing is, not only was this written and directed by the same guy who did the first movie, Parker Finn, but on the surface the two films hit most of the same story beats, and yet this sequel pulls them off far more effectively. It feels like Finn went back and took a close look at the first movie to see what worked and what didn't, and made a sequel that fixed all of its biggest problems while still keeping everything enjoyable about it, its more glamorous protagonist and setting doing nothing to detract from how raw it felt and in some ways making it feel even more intense. Even though, just from the premise and how the first movie played out, I was able to figure out exactly how this one was gonna end well in advance, that simply had me anticipating something grand rather than feeling like I'd spoiled the movie for myself. It's everything a great horror sequel should be, and a film that will probably make my list of the best films of 2024.

(Also, spoilers for the first Smile. You have been warned.)

The film starts right where its predecessor left off, to the point of opening with a "six days later" tag without any context, as if to say "hey, you've seen the first one, we don't need to tell you what's going on here." Joel, who at the end of the first movie became the new bearer of the curse after a possessed Rose killed herself in front of him, decides to kill two birds with one stone: not only pass on the curse, but pass it on to a genuine scumbag in the form of a murderous drug dealer by killing one of his fellow crooks right in front of him. The whole thing goes horribly wrong and ends with both Joel and the criminal dead, but he did manage to pass on the curse to one Lewis Fregoli, a guy who was at the dealer's place at the time to score some drugs. Lewis is himself a dealer -- and more specifically, the dealer for Skye Riley, a Grammy-winning pop superstar with a long history of substance abuse issues, including a pill addiction that she developed after being badly injured in a car accident that killed her actor boyfriend Paul Hudson and left her with scars and chronic pain ever since. A week later, when Skye goes to Lewis to score some Vicodin, a deranged Lewis kills herself right in front of her and makes her the entity's new target.

Unlike the first film, where the source of Rose's trauma felt like something that was tacked on to the point of becoming an unwelcome distraction, this one always knows exactly what Skye's problems are: addiction and the perils of stardom. Skye's life is miserable behind the scenes, in many ways because she's a rich and famous celebrity. She has a drug problem, she has body image issues, she has to deal with stalkers, her schedule is micromanaged by her momager Elizabeth, her relationship with her fellow celebrity Paul is shown to have been a mutually destructive one before he died, she has to watch her every move lest she face the wrath of a ravenous tabloid press, and the entity preys on all of this. If this movie has an overarching message, it's that fame and fortune are not worth it (with a side of "drugs are bad, m'kay?"), with the entity's torment of Skye framed from start to finish as a classic celebrity meltdown straight out of TMZ or Perez Hilton. She snaps at her mother and her assistants as she suspects the entity lurking everywhere around her, fan meet-and-greets and charity events turn into living nightmares as she veers wildly off-script, her dressing room is trashed, and in the third act, she gets sent to spend a night in a rehab center before her big concert. While Skye's fashions may have been inspired by Lady Gaga, her behavior will be unsettlingly familiar to anybody who remembers the 2000s and how celebrities like Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton were covered.

And they found an outstanding talent to convey this meltdown in the form of Naomi Scott. At every step of Skye's journey, I fully bought into Scott as a pop diva on the edge of a complete breakdown, to the point that the film barely even needed to show any supernatural occurrences in order to convey that she was not well. Much like last time, this movie is at its best when it's putting us in the shoes of somebody who feels like she's going insane, and just like Sosie Bacon, it wouldn't have worked without Scott. She had to do a lot of heavy lifting here in terms of acting and emotion, and she made it look easy. What's more, I didn't just buy Scott as a troubled heroine, I bought her as a pop star. Lots of movies about pop music feel as though they were made by people who are clueless about the genre, often settling into tired tropes while the music they have their main characters perform is often insipid garbage that would flop like Katy Perry or Justin Timberlake's last couple of albums if they tried to release it in real life. Here, however, I came away with the impression that, in another life, Scott (who has a background as a singer, including in the Disney Channel movie Lemonade Mouth and in the live-action version of Aladdin) could've become a pop star instead of an actress. There are multiple scenes dedicated just to Skye's music, all of it performed by Scott herself, and it is legitimately good, as are the performances she puts on at multiple points in the film, where she feels like she has the kind of star power that pop careers are made of. This is the kind of larger-than-life performance that makes stars out of actors, and while it's long been a cliché to say that horror never gets recognition from "professional" critics or award shows, I hope to the heavens that this isn't the case here, and that Scott gets some juicy roles after this.

The fact that the film's story was so on point in what it was satirizing and commenting on is all the more remarkable given how much more it leans into the idea that we can't trust what we're seeing on screen. Building on the first film having a protagonist who increasingly could not trust her own senses as the entity caused her to hallucinate, it's strongly hinted that many scenes in this movie, even outside of its more overt horror sequences, are not happening precisely as Skye and the viewers are perceiving them. I don't want to give much more away than that, but I can say that, once it became clear(ish) what was actually happening and what the entity was doing to Skye, I had to reevaluate large chunks of the wild events that took place before then. Amidst all the creeping dread, effective jump scares, shockingly potent gore effects, and the possibility that anybody around Skye might be the entity, this was the part of the film that freaked me out the most. Behind the camera, Parker Finn also shot the hell out of this, taking full advantage of the bigger budget to go wild with far more kinetic and stylish camera work. This was a damn fine-looking movie to watch, making use of long one-shot takes, sweeping shots, horror sequences that felt like the creepiest music videos this side of late-night '90s MTV (especially one bit in Skye's apartment that calls back to a scene of a dance rehearsal earlier in the film), and simply a level of production polish that indicates that everybody involved knew what they were doing and acted accordingly. It all builds to a hell of a climax that I saw coming the moment I learned this movie's premise, but which felt like exactly how it needed to go -- and which set up one hell of a Smile 3.

The Bottom Line

Smile 2 is a dream sequel, a movie that fixes every problem I had with its predecessor, keeps what worked about it, and ultimately winds up as one of the best movies of the year. Not much more to say than that. If you're even remotely in the mood for something scary this Halloween (or, frankly, at any other time of year), this should be near the top of your list of movies to watch.

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