Pops Saw Some Movies: OPUS and SMILE 2

In the past week, I’ve watched two horror movies set in the world of pop music, one of them surprisingly much better than the other, both of them making me think about my relationship with that genre (pop music, not horror). 

The new A24 film, OPUS (written and directed by Mark Anthony Green) is about a hugely popular and influential pop star who comes out of retirement after decades to release his long-gestating masterpiece. Alfred Moretti (now there’s a pop icon name for ya) invites a small, select group of media tastemakers to his Utah compound for a special listening event, but everything goes south when it turns out that he’s a cult leader whose agenda only starts with revenge…

It’s… not good. It’s head-scratchingly bad, in fact. Despite a nice performance by Ayo Edebiri of THE BEAR as the hero of the piece (the one chosen guest who’s not a drooling sycophant of Moretti), there’s way too much of a been-there-done-that feel to this movie (many have noted its similarities to films like MIDSOMMAR and THE MENU, the latter of which I quite enjoyed, the former, not so much), and this horror sub-genre has reached the saturation point at which there are very few surprises (even the jump scares don’t pop). The ending is also a little muddled and forced, and I won’t spoil it apart from saying that its metaphor of the cultural brainwashing that a cult of personality engenders is not only a bit heavy handed, but almost redundant at this point. 

But the film’s biggest blunder is its casting, primarily of the enigmatic and hypnotizing pop icon. Alfred Moretti is presented as being bigger, more acclaimed, and more influential than Madonna, Taylor Swift, David Bowie, and Michael Jackson combined. There’s a montage of his last hit, “Dina, Simone” being sung along to by fans around the world and it is a laugh-out-loudly unbelievable construct in which dozens of wannabe actors get their Tic-Toc moment (which, I guess, is apt). Numerous times we’re shown that there are millions who would sell their soul to be in the presence of this icon.

... And he’s played by John Malkovich. No, for real. 

Now, Malkovich is obviously a great actor. Few would argue that. And he chews the scenery in many glam outfits that would make Elton John say, “that’s a little much, don’t you think?” But if part of the point of this movie is the superficiality of celebrity worship, wouldn’t it have made more sense to cast someone who… how can I put this… looks a bit LESS like… John Malkovich? The actor actually sings and raps and dances in a few scenes, and it mostly made me cover my eyes in embarrassment more than any sense of horror. It’s such a weird misstep that I have to imagine Green has some kind of reasoning for the casting, but for me (and others), it just makes the whole setup impossible to buy. 

I mean, at this point, A24 has pretty much lost any automatic prestige it once enjoyed. But let’s move on. 

A few nights later, I decided to watch last year’s SMILE 2 (written and directed by Parker Finn), despite having never seen the first entrant in the series. The plot is pretty simple: A demonic entity moves from victim to victim, causing them to experience horrific hallucinations that eventually drive them insane, compelling them to commit heinous acts until they kill themselves, the demon then jumping to any nearby human vessel (the “Smile” is the demon attempting to ape human emotions and not really getting it).

The possessed person in this film is Skye Riley, a pop star recovering from both addiction and a tragic, drug-fueled car accident that killed her actor boyfriend (she caught the demonic entity from a former dealer from whom she had the misfortune to try to buy some Vicodin). Skye’s comeback is overseen by her manager mother, whose unwavering support is tested by the increasingly erratic, unhinged behavior of her daughter. Skye is told the true nature of her possession by the brother of a former victim of the entity, but it takes a few more nightmarish events / hallucinations for her to be convinced. Skye then takes radical action to free herself of the Smile demon. 

The film is better than I expected, with some genuinely creepy moments (the eeriest one being a scene that contains practically no gore, but rather a smiling, advancing pack of background dancers in Skye’s apartment) and a wallop of an ending. But what truly makes this movie worth a watch is its lead, Naomi Scott, who gives an absolutely astounding performance as the tortured Skye Riley. Scott manages to make us feel empathy for a character whose flaws and wasted opportunities (even before she becomes possessed) normally elicit schadenfreude from an audience who always thinks they’d handle wealth and fame better. She beautifully portrays the conflicted emotions a celebrity often feels towards their fans and their fame. But once the demon takes hold of Skye, Scott’s portrayal of her escalating confusion and terror is nothing short of brilliant. I am not shitting you, I have NEVER seen a performance like this in a horror movie… or any film in which the protagonist suffers an unimaginable nightmare. It’s not just Scott’s willingness to make herself look bad, grimacing with snot running out of her nose and clumps of hair pulled from her head, she absolutely makes you believe that her entire life is falling apart in the worst way imaginable, and there’s nothing she can do to make it stop. It’s a stunning performance, and if I gave any credence to movie awards of any kind, I’d call it a crime that she’s not nominated for anything (genre acting rarely is). 

But what also struck me watching both of these movies back to back is again how utterly disconnected from mainstream America I often am. The pop music world in which these films are set is something in which I’ve never had an iota of interest (aside from a very brief period when I kinda dug Madonna), and often held in high disdain. I sometimes even forget that overproduced, visually-centered, hyper-theatrical, choreographed, style-over-substance stuff like this is something that MOST of the humans unabashedly enjoy without a lick of irony. I mean, I get it, neither of these movies would have worked as well if they’d employed the lead guitarist of a traditional rock band (such as they exist anymore), that the theatricality and excessive lifestyle of a huge pop star makes for a far more dynamic and accessible milieu. But I do wonder if my antipathy towards that genre made me enter these movies with more detachment than if, say, the singer in OPUS were more Bowie and less Swift? Or maybe because I think that stuff is already inherently horrific, it actually helped me to get into the horror mindset? Hm? 

Anyway. Don’t visit a cult compound. Or buy a ticket for stadium pop concerts. It’s risky.

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POSTSCRIPT: A few days after posting this, I watched M. Night Shyamalan's TRAP, another thriller set in the world of pop music. I'd not bothered to see this movie before because I am most decidedly NOT a fan of that particular auteur. I probably should've sucked it up and watched it to round out this review, but...  no, on second thought, I'm glad I didn't.