In movies like Smile 2 and Trap, pop stardom looks pretty terrifying

UNITED STATES – Around this time in 2023, audiences were heading to movie theatres to experience the joy of being in the presence of a pop star.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (2023) had just been released, prompting Swifties and the Swift-curious to descend on multiplexes, friendship bracelets adorning their wrists. Weeks later, the Beyhive would don silver cowboy hats for the release of Renaissance: A Film By Beyonce (2023).

Attending one of these concert films meant having a great time and revelling in the glory of the women onstage who seemed to be doing the same.

Now, being a pop star at the movies looks a lot more terrifying.

Horror centred on pop stars is all the rage these days.

In American director M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap, released in August, the concert by the fictional Lady Raven (Saleka) is an elaborate set-up to nab a serial killer (Josh Hartnett).

Now showing in Singapore cinemas, Smile 2, directed by American film-maker Parker Finn, follows Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), a troubled Grammy winner with a history of addiction who comes to be possessed by a demon that drives her mad with violent hallucinations.

To her fans and her team, it looks like she is on another, possibly drug-induced spiral, but really a monster is goading her into killing herself.

Both these movies are a product of a time when the business of being a pop star is bigger than ever. Events like the Eras and Renaissance tours became zeitgeist-defining moments, as well as fodder that film-makers could mine for inspiration.

Shyamalan was even direct about it in an Empire interview. His premise for Trap: “What if The Silence Of The Lambs happened at a Taylor Swift concert?”

But both Trap and Smile 2 prove that beyond the fun of the set-up, the life of a pop star is actually thematically ripe for horror. It is a high-pressure job in which you never know whether you are meeting a fan or a predator.

Smile 2 articulates this particularly well early on when Skye is doing a meet-and-greet. She has recently been infected with what is known as the “Smile entity” after witnessing her drug dealer gruesomely smash his own face in with a weight plate.

At the event, Skye signs autographs and smiles for photos with people who fawn over her. But then an unnerving man approaches. His hair is long, his skin is bad and his gaze is lecherous. He soon makes a pass at Skye and must be escorted away.

After a breather, she returns to her duties and is approached by a little girl in pigtails. The child does not say anything, just wears the creepy smile of the evil monster that has infected Skye.

Who is the real villain here? The gross man? The little girl? Or both? Viewers are left wondering which is a fan crossing a line or someone more sinister.

The interaction calls to mind recent statements by American singer-songwriter Chappell Roan, whose album The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess (2023) turned the up-and-comer into a bona fide sensation in 2024.

After she released a series of videos in August calling out fan harassment, she set off a wave of discourse as to whether she was ungrateful for her success. Ardent adoration turned into gleeful criticism.

In response, Roan denounced on Instagram what she called “predatory behaviour (disguised as ‘superfan’ behaviour) that has become normalised because of the way women who are well-known have been treated in the past”.

She added: “Please do not assume you know a lot about someone’s life, personality and boundaries because you are familiar with them or their work online.”

If you boil down Roan’s point to its essence – that people think they are entitled to her affections and her body because she is famous – you see exactly what Smile 2 is illustrating.

Being a public figure is scary and, for pop stars, it can be even more frightening. Their fans are particularly voracious and driven by what they believe is a personal connection to the artiste’s music.

This can also be seen in American film-maker Erin Lee Carr’s new Hulu documentary Fanatical: The Catfishing Of Tegan And Sara (2024).

It chronicles how the genuine interactions that Canadian indie pop twin sister duo Tegan And Sara – comprising Tegan Rain Quin and Sara Keirsten Quin – initially had with their followers became tainted by a malicious catfishing scheme, in which someone or multiple people stole their personal information and pretended to be Tegan online.

“You get to a certain size and a certain part of your fan base gets so intense, they ruin it for everybody else,” Tegan says in the movie.

There is a kind of violence to pop fame. On the recently released remix of the Charli XCX song Sympathy Is A Knife featuring Ariana Grande, the two use imagery that would be right at home in a horror film as they sing: “It’s a knife when you’re finally on top, ’cause logically the next step is they wanna see you fall.”

Both Smile 2 and Trap tap that fear which comes from the vulnerability of singing and dancing in front of a large group of people.

A pop star could be performing for someone whose love and appreciation is unadulterated or for someone who would happily murder her. Or maybe, as in Smile 2, the audience is rooting for her to make a misstep.

There are flashbacks to paparazzi images of Skye in the throes of a breakdown that are reminiscent of shots of American pop star Britney Spears and the late British singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse.

Being a pop star means – sometimes unwillingly – taking part in a kind of mass hysteria, no matter what side of the stage you are on. Perhaps that is why horror captures it the best. NYTIMES