2022’s “Smile” was a surprise hit both with film critics and horror fans. The movie was kickstarted by a killer promotional campaign that saw the studio’s marketing team planting actors behind home plate at several Major League Baseball games where they would stare into the television cameras with blank maniacal smiles. It was terrific viral marketing meant to get the small budget feature noticed. Now the sequel, “Smile 2” is here and the studio is hoping to capture that same lightning.

“Smile” mixed psychological horror with the supernatural to deliver a genuinely creepy chiller with a nasty edge. “Smile 2” seeks to follow the same course with a bigger budget and more ambition. But even as it’s aiming higher and upping the ante, the sequel falls short of its predecessor in a number of hard to ignore ways.

Writer-director Parker Finn returns for “Smile 2” and begins his sequel with an intense opening that connects it with the first film. From there we’re taken to New York City where pop superstar Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) is preparing for a global comeback tour. Her career was nearly ended due to drug and alcohol abuse which contributed to a highly publicized car crash that killed her boyfriend Paul.

Now clean and sober, Skye is hard at work promoting her upcoming tour at the behest of her mom/manager, Elizabeth (Rosemarie DeWitt). But her comeback is threatened by lingering back pain from her car wreck. So she seeks out Lewis Fregoli (Lukas Gage), an old classmate and known drug dealer, in hopes of scoring some Vicodin to ease her pain. But upon arriving at Lewis’ apartment, Skye is shaken by his disturbing behavior which culminates in him killing himself right in front of her.

Rather than contact the police, a frightened Skye flees to avoid being implicated in Lewis’ death or drug dealing. But little does she know, there’s something much more sinister she needs to worry about. She begins having horrifying visions with many including people with big creepy smiles. Of course the first movie has already let us in on the secret. Skye is the new host of malevolent parasitic spirit that drives its victims to kill themselves. Better yet, it can is only be transmitted when the host commits suicide in front of someone else. Lewis had it and then passed it on to Skye.

The rest of the movie follows Skye as she’s tormented by the vicious spirit that no one else sees. As she’s mentally pushed to the brink, her visions intensify. And as they do, Finn twists our perception of what’s real and what’s an illusion. But even with that, “Smile 2” lacks the element of surprise which played a big part in the first film. This time around we know it’s an evil spirit; we know what it does; we know the only way to get rid of it.

Finn does throw in some pretty wicked body horror and things get especially gnarly in the final act. But at the same time he leans too heavily on lame and lazy jump scares that get more annoying as the movie progresses. And even though he tackles some compelling themes such as the lingering effects of trauma and our infatuation with fame and celebrity, the story drags on for too long and gets surprisingly sloppy in its final 15 minutes or so.

Naomi Scott deserves credit for pouring every bit of herself into the lead role. She completely sells Skye’s pop star status and impressively captures her psychological collapse. But much like the movie itself, her performance starts to wear you down. Watching her get ran through the wringer gets tiring as does listening to her scream “F~CK!!!” into the air over and over again. But those aren’t problems with Scott. They’re script issues which when considered as a whole is the biggest reason “Smile 2” falls short.

VERDICT – 2 STARS