WARNING: Major spoilers for Smile 2 ahead.
Parker Finn’s terrifying psychological supernatural horror sequelSmile 2picked up the narrative that began inSmile, and featured the return of Kyle Gallner’s police office character Joel. Most of the sequel followsNaomi Scott’s pop star Skye Riley, who is making a comeback after a traumatic tragedy that resulted from her drug and alcohol addiction. Just as it did with Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) in the firstSmile, the evil entity latches itself onto Skye, and slowly stalks and torments her with horrifying hallucinations and physical violence.
Before it latched itself on to Skye, the Smile Curse had to make its way to her by jumping from different hosts.Smile 2, which beat its predecessor’s debut Rotten Tomatoes score, begins by explaining how the curse made its way from Rose to Skye, which puts the focus on Kyle Gallner’s Joel.Smile 2’s big twist endingexplains away much of the rest of the movie’s narrative, but the opening scene that reveals Joel’s fate requires a bit of explanation, given how chaotic and shocking it was.
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Joel Dies In Smile 2 After Trying To Pass The Curse
Joel Doesn’t Survive Long After The Curse Passes To Him
After seeing Rose set herself on fire at the end ofSmile, the Smile Curse latched on to Kyle Gallner’s Joel, who at that point knew about the entity’s pattern of behavior and understood what would happen to him next. Following an unknown amount of time (although given that no victim of the Smile Curse lasts more than seven days, it was likely no more than a day or two) after Rose set herself on fire, Joel prepares to pass the Curse on to a pair of drug dealers, assumedly who Joel knew of from his job as a police officer.
September 30th, 2022
$17 million
$217 million
80%
77%
October 18th, 2024
$28 million
85%
Pending
Joel knew that in order to survive the curse, he needed to commit a murder with a witness, as the convicted murderer Robert Talley described inSmile. By targeting drug dealers, Joel likely believed that he was sparing an innocent life by passing the Curse on to someone who may have “deserved” it more. He stabs one of the dealers before getting into a shootout with the other, who is shot several times and dies in front of Joel.
Unfortunately, the plan goes awry, and Joel accidentally kills both drug dealers, removing the potential witness the Curse could have passed on to. Joel flees from the house when other drug dealers show up, and as he runs away he is hit by a truck, which drags him several yards and tears him apart in the process.
Is The Smile Curse Responsible For Joel’s Death?
The Smile Entity Did Not Succeed In Taking Over Joel’s Body
The Smile Curse was not directly responsible for Joel’s death, or at least not in the traditional way it climbs inside its hosts and forces them to commit suicide in an extremely violent manner. Joel was attempting to flee from the drug dealers shooting at him following his attempt at passing the Curse on, wasn’t looking where he was running in his desperation, and inadvertently fled into the middle of the street. The truck severed his lower half and dragged him, so his death matches the Smile Curse in gore, even if it was not actually caused by the entity.
Morris (Peter Jacobson) mentions inSmile 2that the Curse has killed at least eight people, including his brother, but it’s never revealed how far back to the chain actually goes or how it originally began.
While the Smile Curse did not directly cause Joel’s death by taking over his mind and body, it did play a role in how his death came to pass. Joel would never have attempted to pass it along had it not come to him in the first place via Rose, so in reality, Joel fell victim to one of the Smile Curse’s favorite tricks. Over the course of its stalking and infection of new hosts, the Smile Curse causes them to hurt the people they care about; Joel ultimately fell victim because he tried to help Rose, who he had previously dated and still cared for.
Joel Inadvertently Passed The Curse To Someone Else
After killing the two drug dealers in their hideout, he discovers a small-time dealer, Lewis Fregoli (Lukas Gage), was in the house and saw the murders. Joel has the briefest moment of relief upon realizing the entity likely passed from him before he is forced to flee the other drug dealers who arrive at the house. Lewis, on the other hand, doesn’t realize that the moment he witnessed Joel kill the other two drug dealers, the Smile Curse latched on to him.
Joel actor Kyle Gallner has recently developed a reputation as a scream king, but Lukas Gage, who plays Lewis Fregoli, is also set to dip right back into horror with Zach Cregger’s (Barbarian) upcoming psychological thrillerCompanion.
A few days later, Lewis is at the end of the Smile Curse’s period of torment, strung out on cocaine, sleep deprivation, and fear. That’s when Skye texts Lewis looking for Vicodin to treat her back pain, and the entity realizes it has an opportunity to pass itself along to a new host. It’s implied that the entity texts Skye back and tells her to come over, at which time it takes over Lewis' body and forces him to brutally smash his face in with a heavyweight plate. Therefore, Joel passed the Smile Curse to Lewis, who passed it on to Skye.
The Smile Curse Needed To Pass From Joel To Continue
Smile 2may be a sequel, but it’s really a continuation of the story that started inSmile, which is itself only a brief glimpse at the devastation of the Smile Curse which goes back years. Joel’s death could have come at the end ofSmile, but it was important to show how it passed along to a new host and then began the cycle anew. Joel’s death also occurred outside the typical Smile Curse cycle, so it was important to show that just because his death occurred independent of the Curse’s intervention, that didn’t kill the Curse.
It was also important forSmileto end on the death of Rose Cotter, as it was the ultimate proof that some evils simply can’t be defeated. The dark and tragic ending saw Rose finally succumb to the entity herself in the childhood home where much of her existing trauma was born, which speaks to the unbeatable nature of the Smile Curse. Seeing Joel survive while Rose died was the best way to keep the story going, as it was clearly established that the chain of suicides was all due to the same entity, and that they were all related.
Smile 2
Cast
Smile 2 is the sequel to the 2022 psychological horror film by director Parker Finn that centers on a therapist who witnesses a patient’s suicide, leading to a series of terrifying supernatural events. The sequel will see the return of Finn as director, with Paramount continuing distribution.
