Smile 2 ending explained: How horror reaches the masses

Smile 2 closes with a finale that takes the franchise’s signature curse out of the shadows and into the spotlight. Where the first film trapped its terror in private spaces, the sequel blows it up in front of thousands, as Naomi Scott’s pop star Skye Riley faces something terrifying during a sold-out performance. The ending reframes the curse as a spectacle, one that can’t be contained once witnessed by an audience.

Director Parker Finn has called this deliberate, a way to contrast the intimacy of Smile with the stadium-wide nightmare of Smile 2. For fans, it’s a jaw-dropping twist that leaves the future of the franchise wide open: Is the curse now unstoppable, or has Smile 2 written its most terrifying conclusion yet?

Here's what happens at the ending of the film and what it means.

What is Smile 2 about?

Six days after the previous film's lead Rose Cotter died, the curse continues its relentless path. Joel, who last has the curse in Smile, is now burdened with the Smile Entity. He attempts to outsmart it by killing one criminal in front of another, hoping to transfer the curse. The plan backfires in a chaotic shootout when the intended witness is accidentally killed. Unbeknownst to Joel, a bystander, drug dealer Lewis Fregol, watches the scene unfold.

Despite being closely monitored by her manager and mother, Elizabeth, and assistant Joshua, we see Skye in Smile 2 secretly visiting Lewis, an old high school friend, seeking Vicodin to treat a rehearsal injury. At his apartment, she witnesses Lewis succumb to the Entity, screaming, convulsing, then brutally smashing his skull with a barbell plate. Terrified and desperate to avoid scandal, Skye flees without reporting his death.

From that moment, her reality unravels. Skye begins to see sinister, smiling figures everywhere, visions that erode her mental stability. Haunted by Paul’s image and overwhelmed by paranoia, she spirals during a public fundraiser, delivering a rambling outburst before fleeing in panic. The curse, however, has already started. Strangers twist their faces into grotesque grins. Hallucinations bleed into waking life. Onstage at a fundraiser, Paul’s phantom rises from the crowd, sending her spiraling into panic.

Desperate, Skye meets Morris, a man obsessed with tracking the Entity since it killed his brother. He tells her the curse feeds like a parasite, passing with every witnessed death, and suggests a brutal cure, let her heart stop, then be dragged back.

How Smile 2's ending sets up an even more dangerous fate for the Entity

After a brutal mental breakdown in her apartment, Skye Riley finds herself cornered by the Smile Entity, which manifests as her backup dancers. She is violently thrown across the room as a grotesque arm invades her throat, and she blacks out. A flashback reveals that Skye caused the death of her boyfriend Paul during a drug-fueled car crash, setting a chain of trauma into motion.

Skye awakens in a hospital, where her mother and manager, Elizabeth, insists she continue her comeback tour. A horrifying vision unfolds: Elizabeth smiles, smashes a mirror, and fatally stabs herself, only for Skye to realize she is the one holding the shard, seemingly responsible for her mother’s death. Panicked, she flees the hospital, commandeering a car with her old friend Gemma, though she soon discovers the “Gemma” she is with all this time is the Entity, leaving her disoriented and questioning reality.

Skye meets Morris at an abandoned Pizza Hut, where he prepares to stop her heart in a walk-in freezer, aiming to temporarily sever the Entity’s hold. Before the plan can be executed, Skye is attacked by a vision of her injured, post-car crash self. In a desperate move, she injects herself with the syringe, believing she has regained control, only to be mocked by the Entity, which asserts she was never in charge.

The climax of Smile 2 takes her to a sold-out stage at Herald Square Garden, where the Entity morphs into a monstrous, skinless creature with countless smiling mouths. The illusion shatters as Skye, possessed, fatally stabs herself with her microphone in front of thousands, the inhuman smile locked on her face. This only means one thing: The curse now falls upon everyone in the room.

The ending leaves the curse’s reach terrifyingly open: established characters, crew, and audience members could be its next hosts. Much of the film’s events may have been a prolonged vision induced by the Entity, with only portions, like Morris’ guidance, anchored in reality. With no post-credits scene, the final notes of Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s score linger with screams and surreal soundscapes, underscoring the unrelenting spread of the Smile curse.

What Smile 2's ending means for the franchise

Smile 2’s finale radically expands the scope of the franchise, taking the curse from private terror to a stadium-wide spectacle. Unlike the first film, where horror unfolded in contained spaces, Naomi Scott’s Skye Riley faces the Entity before thousands at Herald Square Garden, making the curse public, unavoidable, and horrifyingly viral. Director Parker Finn has imagined the ending in contrast to the first film’s intimate fear, with a mass-scale nightmare.

Smile 2 makes it clear that the curse is now exponentially more dangerous. After Joel’s failed attempt to transfer the Entity, Lewis Fregoli inadvertently becomes its next host. Skye encounters him, witnessing his grotesque death, and becomes cursed.

From that point, her hallucinations escalate, blurring reality and perception, culminating in a horrifying series of visions in the hospital and at an abandoned Pizza Hut, where she briefly attempts Morris’ extreme solution to stop her heart.

The climax of Smile 2 is devastating and final: It happens onstage. Skye is overtaken by the Entity, which manifests as a skinless monster with numerous smiling mouths. Possessed, she stabs herself with her microphone in front of thousands, leaving the curse primed to infect anyone who witnessed her death.

No longer confined to isolated victims, the Entity can now sweep through audiences, crew, and friends alike. Reality itself is uncertain, leaving room for multiple hosts, mass contagion, and escalating horror for a potential sequel. The stakes are higher, the terror unstoppable, and the question looms: In a world where anyone can inherit the curse, who, if anyone, will survive?

Smile 2 is available to stream on Prime Video.