Horror aficionados, scream queens and lovers of all things spooky may have already seen the latest installment in the terrifying Smile film franchise. Smile 2, released on Oct. 18, showcases a number of scary sights, including but not limited to the freaky ear-to-ear grin on the face of people infected with the curse of the Smile Entity. The film picks up right after the events of the 2022 original, and follows a pop star as she prepares to embark upon a national tour. Since the new film has been generating so much buzz with moviegoers, there have been a lot of questions floating around about whether the movie sets the stage for a third project. Luckily, we’ve got you covered, with a look at Smile 2‘s ending, the closing credits and any additional content that may pop up after the credits roll.
If you’re a major Marvel fan, this may come as a shock, but Smile 2 does not actually have a traditional post credit scene. Despite the lack of a formal sequel set-up, there is a significant post-credits element to the film, in the form of an ultra creepy audio track. To better understand the significance of this closing music, we’ll first have to discuss both Smile movies in detail. Needless to say, the following write-up will be rife with spoilers for both Smile movies, so please feel free to bookmark this page and return later if you haven’t seen both films just yet. With no further preamble, let’s dive right in, and see what we can learn from the ultra-creepy Smile 2 post credits.
What Happens in the Original ‘Smile’ Movie?
Long before the Smile Entity was taking over sold-out concerts in Smile 2, the enigmatic force was torturing a therapist named Rose Cotter. The first Smile film opens on Cotter as she treats a patient at her psychiatric ward who claims to be terrorized by visions of smiling people killing themselves in ritualistic fashion. After her patient takes her own life, Rose also begins seeing terrifying smiles and hearing threats of physical violence everywhere she goes. Her colleagues believe that Rose is experiencing some kind of mental breakdown as a result of on-the-job stress, though she soon comes to learn that she is the victim of a terrifying curse. While investigating the origin, Rose discovers that the so-called “Smile Entity” latches onto people through proximity and visual stimuli, causing them to go mad before committing suicide.
Rose ultimately surmises that she can end the curse by taking her own life without any witnesses, thus ending the chain of transference that allows the curse to propagate. She packs a bag and flees to her abandoned childhood home in the middle of the night, only to be unwittingly followed by her ex-boyfriend Joel. Once she arrives at the boarded-up residence, Rose actually encounters a physical manifestation of the Smile Entity, which appears in the form of a grotesque, skinless man with massive gaping jaws all over its body. Right as Rose decides to put an end to the curse via self immolation, Joel enters the abode and bears witness to her smiling face, unknowingly passing the curse along to himself.
How Does the Curse Continue in ‘Smile 2’?
The opening scene of Smile 2 shows exactly how Joel passes the curse onto an unsuspecting drug dealer just one week after the events of the first film. Unfortunately, this transferral is one of the worst yet, as it turns out the drug dealer is connected to a Grammy Award winning pop singer named Skye Riley. The dealer then passes the curse off to the pop star, just days before she plans to embark upon a comeback tour following a very public drug addiction and mental health scandal. Of course, she begins to face the same smile hallucinations that afflicted the carriers of the curse before her. Given her status as an international icon, however, Riley’s erratic behavior becomes highly publicized by tabloids and paparazzi, who are looking to paint her as an unstable drug addict for salacious clicks.
The hallucinations in Smile 2 become increasingly more erratic as the film builds to its thrilling conclusion, revealing a proverbial Russian nesting doll of never-ending psychosis. Eventually, the film concludes with Skye Riley taking the stage at her sold out Madison Square Garden concert, and taking her life in front of the entire horrified crowd. Depending on how the Smile Entity works, this could have a few horrific implications for a possible third installment. If a third film does get greenlit by Paramount Pictures, the next movie will likely see Riley’s on-stage death serving as a super spreader event, passing the curse off to thousands of fans in attendance all at once.
What Happens During the End Credits of ‘Smile 2’?
As stated above, there is no traditional post credits scene following the final moments of Smile 2. However, there is an important detail that seems to tie directly back to the first film, and establishes a possible sneak peak into the future of the franchise. Much like the first movie, Smile 2 plays its final credits over an audio track that features a series of unintelligible rambling from numerous bizarre voices. Clearly, the audio cue is meant to provide audiences with a sense of what victims of the smile curse experience, suggesting that moviegoers themselves are the next curse carriers. The only major difference between the audio track from the first and second movies are the quantity of voices heard, with the Smile 2 track blasting tons of overlapping voices at once.
Though franchise writer-director Parker Finn has not directly confirmed this theory, fans seem to believe that the stacked vocal recordings represent each of the Smile Entity’s previous victims. Now that the Entity has seemingly gotten a hold of thousands of new victims all in one fell swoop, the monster’s influence could spread across the globe faster than a COVID-19 variant. This theory does seem to hold weight, as Skye’s horrified screams are clearly mixed into the audio. The end credits music in the film is so terrifying that many movie theater employees across the nation are too perturbed by it to clean the theater as it plays, according to one Reddit thread.
Will There Be a ‘Smile 3’?
For now, there’s no exact confirmation that a Smile 2 follow-up is on the way. Still, it seems likely that Parker Finn will be given the opportunity to launch a third installment in the Smile franchise, as the latest film seems to be on track to perform exceptionally well at the global box office. Finn’s directorial debut with 2022’s Smile was so successful that Paramount Pictures offered the young filmmaker a comprehensive first-look deal, with the intention of developing several new horror outings. With any luck, the announcement of Smile 3 may be just around the corner.
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