The scary face from 2022 horror snooze Smile returns to make pop star Skye (Naomi Scott) hallucinate that people are smiling at any point during this film.

Even horror fans cannot escape Taylor Swift’s influence this year, spawning a sub-genre of pop concert-centric horror stories (let’s call it Dynamic Slicing) such as M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap and now Smile 2. But the word “story” is a stretch in the case of a soporific sequel whose only discernible plot points involve VOSS, a brand of bottled water which is drunk, shown and referenced in literally every scene.

This is the only thing stopping you from assuming the film is sponsored by Taylor Swift, given how hard it pushes its message about how difficult it is to be a super-wealthy celebrity. Which would be easier to swallow if the protagonist was not so consistently unpleasant that only equally unpleasant popstrels could relate to her.

But the product placement is merely the most objectionable part of a movie that employs (also literally) a stereotypical gay assistant, and thinks acne and braces are the scariest thing in the world. The Scary Face 2 also has to keep contriving reasons for Skye to remain on the road mid-mental breakdown, the best of which has to be fulfilling a charity obligation at “The Foundation for Underprivileged Youth”.

By the time the movie reaches its climax in an abandoned Pizza Hut (again literally), its smiling mask of positive mental health discourse has slipped to reveal the true face of corporate pop-aganda beneath. The only way to get through its two-plus hours of trauma porn is the Smile 2 drinking game: down your drink every time Skye drinks VOSS bottled water, and you’ll be blissfully unconscious within minutes.