The horror sequel “Smile 2” makes it clear from the first minute that it will take no prisoners. The highly anticipated follow-up to writer/director Parker Finn's 2022 breakout hit Smile opens with a bang, opening with an impressive and brutal one-shot scene. Of course we won't give any spoilers here, you'll have to see the film yourself, but we can tell you that it leaves an immediate impression.

That's exactly what Finn, who returns to direct this second installment, wanted to achieve. Speaking to GamesRadar+, he reveals that with the opening he wanted to do something he hadn't done before, while also involving the audience directly in the action. Finn explains: “Where the first film ended, I knew I wanted to have some connective tissue, some sort of through line between them, and so it felt like a natural starting point.”

“But I also knew that the opening scene wouldn't feel like anything we'd done in the first film, but that it would feel really surprising in a Smile film. In the script itself, I had written that it would be like this. “It's going to be a single, continuous shot because I knew that would really create an incredibly tense, suffocating feeling when you're thrown into the opening. Preparing and filming was a big challenge, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Finn also wanted to do something different story-wise, meaning “Smile 2” won't focus on Kyle Gallner's police detective Joel, who, as you may recall, was given the curse at the end of the 2022 original. Instead, we follow Naomi Scott's Skye Riley, a troubled pop star about to embark on a world tour.