Turn that frown upside down, because the Smile 2 teaser is here

It’s 2024, and you can’t even flash someone a creepy-ass smile without being called “a demon from hell” or “literal nightmare fuel” anymore. Sad! For anyone still traumatized by Smile’s brilliant (and freaky) 2022 viral marketing campaign, we have some bad news for you. The franchise that made happiness horrifying is returning this October with Smile 2—a movie that could have been subtitled “The Smilening,” but we do applaud its creators for protecting us from feeling too much joy. We wouldn’t want to get cursed!

Smile 2 dropped its first teaser today, and the vibes can be summarized as “The Idol if it had leaned into the fact that it was a horror show all along.” The film’s official synopsis reads as follows: “About to embark on a new world tour, global pop sensation Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) begins experiencing increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events. Overwhelmed by the escalating horrors and the pressures of fame, Skye is forced to face her dark past to regain control of her life before it spirals out of control.”

While this teaser doesn’t include a bone-chilling jump scare like the last film’s did, it still has its eerie moments. We see what feels like the most important moment of the film almost in full, as a character played by Lukas Gage runs into Skye’s dressing room, flashes the smile, and then violently bashes his head in with a weight. From there, Skye suffers the typical haunting. It seems the entity from the first film is getting smarter; we already know that it passes from person to person as they witness a death—how better to traumatize thousands of people at once than to force them to witness something like that on a world stage!

It seems like the sequel is also gearing up for its own viral marketing stunt. Yesterday, Interscope Records’ official YouTube page released a cheeky teaser for Skye’s (who is, again, a completely made-up artist) first single, featuring real-life producer Ryan Tedder. If you were just scrolling through your feed, you could easily mistake this for a genuine music promo—even considering the fact that Tedder proclaims “There was music before Skye Riley, and there’s music after Skye Riley.” The song, “Blood On White Satin,” was also released today. Daisy Jones and August Moon, you have some competition; just don’t look at her for too long.

In addition to Scott and Gage, Smile 2 also stars Rosemarie DeWitt, Kyle Gallner, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Peter Jacobson, Raúl Castillo, Dylan Gelula, and Ray Nicholson. The film premieres in theaters on October 18.