it almost started as like a joke at the beginning because I was like what like what is the most like

bat thing I could go in there and pitch to them and then like the more I thought about it's like

I actually like I think there's real juice here I love the idea of exploring a character like this

through the lens of horror and I can treat it as another incredibly intense character study that Smile sort of comes in

and invades her world.

Yeah. Hello and welcome back to the director's cut, brought to by the Directors Guild of America.

In this episode, a pop star is haunted by increasingly terrifying visions, and director Parker Finn's horror thriller, Smile 2.

The film tells the story of Sky Riley, a pop star about to embark on a world tour when she begins to experience increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events.

Overwhelmed by escalating horrors and the pressures of fame,

she is forced to face her past. In addition to Smile 2, Finn's other directorial credits include the feature film Smile and the short films Laura hasn't slept and The Hide Behind.

Following a screening of the film at the DGA theater in Los Angeles, Finn spoke with

director Mike Flanagan about filming Smile 2.

Listen on for their spoiler-filled conversation.

I grew up in Northern Ohio, sort of in between Cleveland and Akron.

My dad was a cinephile and worked sort of in like the early era of like home theater, like back before anybody was even saying those two words together

home theater um so like movies were really big thing in my house and love movies and you know my

mom had been a school teacher so like i always had a book in my hand and so like i was sort of you know

enveloped by storytelling movies were the thing i think when I was like a little kid,

I guess I wanted to be an actor because like that's what I saw.

I didn't really understand that like there were people making these.

They just sort of, movies sort of seemed just like handed down from above fully formed, you know?

And it wasn't until I sort of started to understand like, you know, the Spielbergs and the, you know, James Cameron's and the Ridley Scots of the world.

...