Smile 2

The series "Dangerous Laughter" has an interesting design: the identity of the heroine and the setting of the fake smile demon complement each other. In the first film, the heroine is a psychiatrist who wants to help patients, but cannot believe what the patients see; when she herself is haunted by evil spirits, she personally experiences this pain. In this film, the heroine Skye is set as a star who is the focus of everyone's attention. The ubiquitous fake smile has a double meaning: it is the illusion of evil spirits, and it is also her real situation. Although surrounded by applause, no one cares about herself behind the halo. In short, it is loneliness. Even if you are in a crowd, you will become a lone prey.

Irony, which was just a spice in the first film, becomes very important in this one. The director seems to have deliberately emphasized this point, wanting to make this film profound. The most exquisite part is undoubtedly the dancing of smiling faces in the mansion on the eve of the tour; the horror atmosphere reaches its peak, and it also completely reveals the dilemma of the heroine. Her team and fans are just like these smiling phantoms, who come with smiles on their faces, but can only add fuel to the fire. Before Skye met Morris, it was also the fans who pushed her away from this last straw.

After the "smiley dance", Skye went down all the way, rushing to the destined ending in the illusion. The director used the same trick again. The only friend Gemma who he trusted never appeared, and Morris who could help him was not real. When he opened his eyes, he was wearing clothes he didn't like, still standing on the tour stage, performing the most gorgeous suicide in the spotlight, and the spectators all became prey, and the irony was bursting out. This part of the plot is very similar to "Some Kind of Material", especially the monster that broke out of the body at the end.

Whether in terms of characters, plot (second half) or theme, this work is like a sister film of "Something Substantial". The difference is that "Something Substantial" is an art film that focuses on satire, using horror elements to strengthen the expression; while "Smile 2" is a pure horror film that sublimates the theme. The design of this work is simpler and the satire is more direct. Although there is a slight disconnect between the beginning and the end, it is unexpectedly powerful. Which of the two works is better or worse is a matter of opinion.

There is a small bug: one of the victims in the previous film was a professor who committed suicide in class, and only one of his students was infected. According to this inference, no matter how many people saw Skye's death, the fake smile demon can only infect one person. Thinking about it this way, the fake smile demon seems to have worked in vain. However, the ending is too shocking, so we should still ignore the imperfections in the setting.

After watching horror movies over the years, an idea has become increasingly clear and has indeed been verified: the life experience of creators in the film industry is becoming increasingly scarce, especially the horror film directors who represent it.

In Benjamin's words, the decline of storytelling as a human behavior represents the end of the possibility of experience. But his statement is based on the human communication experience of text media and word of mouth, which is completely different from the image experience created by the film industry.

The experience of the age of writing is born out of understanding, imagination and empathy, embodying what Benjamin called "communicability", while the image creates its own objectivity, its own "facts", which is the so-called "age of world images" (that is, the reversal of images and actual presence).

Today we naturally regard images as a kind of reality, or in other words, if all reality cannot be visualized, it cannot enter the realm of contemporary human experience.

So based on all of this, what kind of experience do we get when horror movies mobilize the audience's emotions through images and sounds?

I used to be keen on all kinds of horror movies because I was attracted by the tearing and broadening of human experience brought about by the special themes. Abnormality brings distortion and inversion of reality. Daytime experience becomes no longer applicable because of the appearance of a certain detail. Everything routine makes people feel boring and unbearable, and the inert reality just piles up dully in front of their eyes.

At this time, horror movies bring a strange "force field that distorts reality", in this sense, it is surreal. Although the latter does not necessarily include "horror", "horror" as an emotion must have surreal attributes.

So I particularly prefer horror films with supernatural attributes, because the stories in this category usually develop an imagination of real "strange experiences" very well.

Just think back to the representatives of this category: folk and religious horror films. Usually, because of their heavy and systematic nature in real life, they often give creators more room for imagination. The best works in this category often present a special "different world system" invading "inert reality", or it can be said that the former is superimposed on the latter, and then tearing apart the current life experience through some details. And it does not stop there. In fact, this invasion will eventually end with a complete overthrow and reversal of reality.

In this process, human horror is not so much a sought-after result as it is a by-product of the process that drives the drastic switching of experience. It is a strong sense of existence that belongs to the present and immediate moment, just like Levinas's writing on existential experience in his phenomenological text describing insomnia: human existence is at this moment forced to face the cold reality.

Consciousness can no longer wander outside the world of life as usual, and no longer carry the world on its shoulders through various means of entertainment and fun, but clings closely to the cold wall of reality. In this process, the audience of horror movies experience the joy of being torn apart and surviving the misfortune or tragic despair of the characters in the film. Yes, it will eventually be a kind of happiness, although it can be said to be perverse to a certain extent.

Behind the pursuit of the other world is a desire for a different experience. This experience may come from the turmoil of the human heart in daily life, but after all, the human heart is only the cause of this other world, but it cannot completely cover its end. Perhaps this is the "darkness" of life that Blanchot strives to pursue in the experience of words. But it is true that it has a greater charm that shakes people's hearts than the inert reality.

In comparison, I am tired of the increasing number of so-called horror films that "reflect reality". Such films usually have no obsession with abnormal experiences. Rather than pursuing this almost impossible surreal thing-in-itself, it is better to say that it just borrows such a setting to resonate with the theme of "the collapse of the human spiritual world".

Just like in Smile 2, the setting of the grinning demon virus, as a typical high concept like A Quiet Place, is a functional component that allows the script to be self-consistent, rather than a branch used to describe and enrich the story worldview. Its existence is irrelevant to the potential imaginable properties of the story world, it is just a small trick at the script level.

All of this makes way for the character's mental collapse, so that the character's emotions can fully reverberate in the theater and in the hearts of the audience.

However, all of this does not contribute to the goal of "broadening alternative experiences" in the slightest, because the only things these horror films focus on expressing and rendering are some common extreme emotions that are well known to the public but not easily touched upon: anxiety, fear, irritability, disgust, hatred, shrinking, cowardice, resistance, and self-destruction.

It presents these emotions through a largely designed routine, allowing the audience to experience a kind of emotional roller coaster. From this perspective, this type of realistic horror film is a hybrid genre film, which borrows the empathetic structure of horror films and strives to achieve a critical effect like a feature film.

However, such a creation, which seems to have a more noble goal, still revolves around a fixed circle of life. Here, reality is not torn apart. What is torn apart and destroyed is only the character's unremarkable subjective world.

Therefore, as we see at the end of the movie, for the protagonist, this thrilling and painful adventure is just a tragic death in a car accident in the eyes of the outside world.

It is tragic, but it is understandable and, at the same time, boring. We are too full today to imagine any extraordinary experience.

This is why I find this virtual reality of our media world boring: it seeks to add new stimulus to an already exhausted and impoverished human experience, but in return it only results in a return to an even more impoverished experience of reality.

It seems that the only experience that scares today's so-called free human beings is the loss that follows the destruction of their freedom.

Like the first film, Jump scare is slightly more, but reasonable. The many illusions seen by the singer heroine, such as leg injuries, various smiling faces, etc., and the counterattacks caused by these illusions, such as knocking down the host and killing her mother, all surprised the audience. The film is intertwined with reality and illusion, creating a good horror atmosphere. But the evil spirit is still too powerful. The heroine met a male nurse, and her psychological transformation from resisting his treatment to actively seeking treatment can be seen. Her reputation and her mother's life were destroyed by the evil spirit, so she had to fight hard and try to control herself, but ultimately failed and was still controlled by the evil spirit in her mind.

The heroine finally turned into a smiling face on the stage, indicating that all her efforts were in vain, giving people a deep sense of despair. I think it was real that the heroine was waiting for the male nurse in the cold storage, and then the evil spirit appeared and fought directly with the heroine, which was an illusion. Then the heroine went on stage, turned into a smiling face and committed suicide on the stage, which were all illusions. But in this case, the evil spirit did not find a new host, and I don't know how to write the third part, unless the heroine has not really died. If the heroine turned into a smiling face on the stage was real, then his smiling suicide was seen by so many viewers, wouldn't many people be possessed by the evil spirit, which is inconsistent with the previous setting.

I have never watched the previous film, but that does not affect my viewing experience of the sequel. I have always been a fan of horror thrillers, and I am glad that I did not miss this one. It has been a long time since I felt my hair stand on end...

I turned on the movie at 11:30 pm, and it was almost 2 am when I finished watching it. I couldn't calm down for a long time. Lying in bed, even though my boyfriend was by my side, we both watched other content separately, trying to forget the experience we had just immersed in and fall asleep as soon as possible. In the end, I barely fell asleep after 3 o'clock, but fortunately I didn't have a nightmare at night. Let me talk about why this movie touched me deeply, and what aspects of it can make the audience more immersive compared to other horror movies. ——————The following contains spoilers—————— The heroine is a popular female singer who used to take drugs, suffered a car accident, and her husband died tragically. After a year of recuperation, withdrawal and self-reflection, she decided to make a comeback. Because of the back pain caused by the car accident, she needed medication, so she accidentally fell into the trap of Wei Xiao. In fact, after her comeback, she was positive and hardworking (rehearsing repeatedly for the tour), kind and loving (unhesitating to participate in charity hosting), had a positive work attitude (behaved modestly and politely at the fan meeting), and was not arrogant and bullying (apologized to everyone for being late). Overall, she is a "good person" and a good protagonist who can easily make the audience stand on her side and understand her feelings. Not only that, because she is a female star who has a history of drug abuse, on the one hand, as a star, she must take into account her screen image and cannot easily reveal the strange things she has encountered. On the other hand, she has a history of drug abuse, which led to a car accident and the death of her husband. If she tells her relatives, they will definitely think that she has been addicted to drugs again, which will ruin her future. This layer of character setting solves the pain points that originally existed in ordinary people, about encountering strange things, telling others or trying to actively solve them, so that the narrative of the film has its own reasonable logic.

As an excellent film and television work, especially a horror thriller, the audience can substitute into the work, be immersed in it, and believe that everything in the movie is real. This is itself the primary condition for creating a horror atmosphere.

Just like after watching "The Ring", answering the phone or watching TV will be traumatized.

This is also why many people said that "The Curse" was "as uncomfortable as eating a fly", because the audience believed the setting of the movie, but the director cursed it at the end.

Those who feel cursed are often those devoted audiences who believe in the movie settings. It is inevitable that they will be criticized for receiving a curse in order to have an immersive viewing experience. Secondly, the "suicidal" behavior of the protagonists in this movie is different from that of other horror thrillers. The heroine in this movie is very similar to us in real life - seeing others die strangely, she feels very depressed and goes to her best friend for help. When she heard that the voss water bottle was broken, her first reaction was that someone broke into the house! First check whether the security door is locked, and then find a usable weapon to prepare for further testing. Invite your best friend to sleep together to avoid being alone at home. Including constantly asking your best friend for help afterwards, hoping to get her most important company. When you get home, turn on all the lights to give yourself courage. All of the above are what we normal people do. In this way, a kind of "trust" in horror movies is established between the movie and the audience, allowing the audience to immerse themselves.

Let's talk about some of the director's jump scare designs. I actually don't have any feelings about this kind of sudden shock technique. I expected it before watching horror movies, so I subconsciously prepared myself. In addition, with years of experience watching horror movies, I can usually predict that "in this scene and this atmosphere, a ghost will suddenly jump out and scare people!" However, there is a scene in this movie that makes me lie in bed for a long time at night and can't calm down. The heroine and her best friend put aside their past grudges and reconcile. Suddenly, the scene changes, and the heroine is trapped in a car accident with her long hair, and her boyfriend (ex-husband? It doesn't matter) is buried next to her. She suddenly wakes up from the shock and finds that it is a nightmare. Take off the headphones with white noise (off topic: listen less, listening too much will cause tinnitus, don't ask me how I know) The camera zooms out and sees the best friend lying next to her, lying on her soft big bed, and it seems that she was also woken up by her. The best friend lazily turned over and asked the heroine with concern, what's wrong, are you okay?

It was originally a very warm scene, the heroine also lay down, mumbling a few words to her sleepy bestie, saying that she felt that there were some things wrong with her, and it was all her fault (she was reflecting on herself, asking for a hug). At this moment, the style of the painting suddenly changed, and suddenly a sentence said: Because you are such a bad person.

The heroine then looked at her bestie and found a dangerous smile on her face. Then her eyes and mouth turned into headlights as the horn sounded, and the night instantly turned into day...

I have to say that this sudden startling shot is designed just right. Some small details about the movie: Eyes - Before playing the piano at home, I opened the handwritten book, which had an eye symbol in it, and there was also a similar decoration on the piano. Later in the hospital, in the hallucination of the mother's death, the mother lost an eye, and there was also an eye symbol stained with blood on the heroine's clothes. In other words, the things in the heroine's daily life were projected into the subconscious and became part of the hallucination.

Breaking out of the cocoon - The costume that the heroine hates because it will show her scars is a butterfly-style costume, which is matched with the concert stage design, implying the emergence of a butterfly from a cocoon, indicating that the heroine has recovered from the shadow of drug abuse and car accidents and is reborn from the ashes. But in fact, when the heroine emerges from the cocoon designed by the stage, it is the evil thing that breaks out of the heroine's body and completely occupies the height of the heroine's soul. In the end, tens of thousands of people watched the heroine commit suicide with a smile.

I suddenly decided to go to Billie Eliesh's concert. I swiped for a while but couldn't get a ticket. I planned to try my luck at MSG's box office. I was scared by the fans who were setting up tents on the roadside when I passed by. I asked them and found out that they didn't have any tickets. So I turned around and went to watch Smile 2 at AMC next door. I didn't expect to catch up on most of the concert I missed in the cinema. The extremely straightforward and artistic plasma shots mixed with pop stars singing and dancing easily scared me half to death.

The story is rare and revolves around a young superstar. She appears glamorously and elegantly signs autographs for fans. She is injured and works hard to rehearse for the upcoming tour. When she returns home at night, the gorgeous night view of New York and the empty high-rise rooms highlight her emptiness and loneliness. The painful wound in the middle of the night makes her go to an old friend to get painkillers, but unfortunately she becomes part of the curse of smile.

Every time the city turns upside down in the movie, it indicates the beginning of a chaos. The soul of the heroine has actually been brought into the world of demons. Many bad things are no longer real, but nightmares created by the demons in order to defeat the heroine and get her body. The heroine and her deceased boyfriend drove drugs and escaped death, but her boyfriend died tragically in front of her. As a superstar, she is always worried about being discovered. She lives a suffocating life with no privacy. Her biological mother's so-called moral kidnapping for her star career has become the nourishment for her nightmare.

I stayed up all night in middle school to watch the entire Saw series. I thought I had a strong tolerance for horror movies and blood-thriller movies, and I could finish watching them calmly. However, this movie scared me to the point of almost crying in a few moments. Later I realized that I had completely put myself in the shoes of the heroine. She was caught by the devil's weakness and toyed with, and made a fool of herself in public again and again. The weird smiles that appeared from time to time from the people around her were drowned by the elusive reality that seemed real and hallucinatory. The confusion and collapse of mistakenly thinking that her biological mother had killed her. As the heroine's psychological defenses were finally broken down bit by bit, my empathy, which seemed too strong at this time, also put me in an extremely vulnerable state. Any jump scare at this time was more powerful than usual. When Gemma, the only friend the heroine could rely on and trust, called to say that she had just received her message, the heroine cautiously looked at the person beside her who was driving and looking at her with concern. "Gemma". The word creepy has never been so appropriate.

At the end, the devil took over the heroine's body as a parasite, and every fan in the audience was cursed by the smile. After it ended, I stayed in my seat for a long time and couldn't calm down. I felt depressed and suffocated and wanted to cry but couldn't. The ending song composed of women's screams and various weird sounds that made people uncomfortable was playing. I stared at the popcorn that I had no appetite for after just a few bites. I didn't dare to look at the other people wearing hoodies next to me, for fear that they would turn around and show exaggerated smiles…

Most horror movie fans disdain movies with too many jump scares, but I think the jump scares in this movie are very good.

The heroine is a singer and dancer, so it's not surprising to see the scenes of her rehearsing songs and dances, but many times these scenes seem a bit too long. When you start to lose interest and start to think, is it necessary to sing and dance for so long? Am I watching a concert? Suddenly, a jump scare appears, and its power is unexpectedly great. Seriously.

Another thing that left a deep impression was the video that the female protagonist received from an unknown number. She clicked on the play button and the camera switched to the first person perspective, with the enlarged mobile phone screen as the protagonist. The person in the video murmured to the dark corner, "There, can you see?" You couldn't help but open your eyes wide to see it clearly, and then you were hit. This method was so despicable that it reminded people of the spoof videos that looked like an ordinary short film, but suddenly a ghost popped out. The hateful people wanted to give the screen the middle finger, but they had to obey.

Unlike the first film, where the audience followed the protagonist to uncover the setting of the game of smile, most of the audience already knew the rules of the game at the beginning of smile 2. How to make the plot still confusing and exciting is actually quite difficult. The plot, sound effects, director's camera language, the clever combination of reality and illusion, and the heroine's emotional tension and full acting skills are all indispensable.

(A little easter egg: Skye Riley can be searched on Spotify and it seems like a real singer likes the song New Brain very much)