Smile review

 SMILE: 

GO SIT ON THE BLEACHERS JOKER, THIS IS THE MOST TERRIFYING SMILE IN CINEMA! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

This will be the last thing you’ll ever see in Smile

 

            A therapist goes through increasingly disturbing and horrific experiences after witnessing a traumatic incident involving a patient in the new horror film, Smile. The film is directed Parker Finn in his feature film debut and based on his 2020 short, Laura Hasn’t Slept. 

            I’ve never seen the original short before, but the trailer for the film was giving me some mixed reactions. When I first saw the trailer, I wasn’t sure if it was trying to be a horror movie with a dash of dark comedy, a legitimately scary movie, or unintentionally hilarious like a lesser Shyamalan film. 

            Part of me was like “Yeah, there’s some creepy stuff in the trailer for this!” while other times I was in denial about a horror movie with a premise this ridiculous being good. Oh, how wrong I was? 

            While I don’t think this is a great horror movie, I really liked Smile and thought it was a very well-crafted film with a lot of inventive scares, haunting visuals and atmosphere, and a standout performance by Sosie Bacon (13 Reasons Why, The Last Summer, As We See It) as the lead. Granted, the whole demonic entity being passed onto another person premise is nothing new as we’ve seen this before in films like The Ring, It Follows, and Hereditary and you could argue they do it a lot better, I was completely invested in what was happening in terms of the story and characters even if it is reminiscent of other horror films. 

            The film follows Rose (Bacon), a therapist who after witnessing the bizarre suicide of a patient starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can’t explain. As this mysterious terror starts engulfing her life, Rose must confront her troubling past in order to survive and escape this horrifying new reality with the help of her ex-boyfriend and cop, Joel (Kyle Gallner-Veronica Mars, Smallville, Jennifer’s Body). 

            The film also stars Caitlin Stasey (The Sleepover Club, Tomorrow, When the War Began, I, Frankenstein) as Laura Weaver, Jessie T. Usher (When the Game Stands Tall, Independence Day: Resurgence, The Boys) as Trevor, Rob Morgan (Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mudbound, Stranger Things) as Robert Talley, Kal Penn (National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, Harold & Kumar trilogy, Superman Returns) as Dr. Morgan Desai, Robin Weigert (Synecdoche, New York, Pawn Sacrifice, Bombshell) as Dr. Madeline Northcott, and Judy Reyes (Scrubs, Devious Maids, Claws) as Victoria Munoz. 

            Overall, Smile can be best described as the bizarro version of Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare movie from a few years ago because unlike that film, this is an unnerving and intelligent scary film. It has a lot of what people going into it are looking for, jump-scares, gory deaths, and horrific visuals, but it’s also very well paced, and the film takes its time to keep you invested and build up suspense. 

            It sort of continues in the tradition of other horror movies released this year like Bodies Bodies Bodies and especially Barbarian where the marketing makes it look more like a traditional horror/slasher movie or horror-comedy. But then you go see it and it’s not quite what the trailers and commercials made it out to be. 

            Don’t get me wrong, the film has its jump-scares, bloody kills, and ghastly imagery, but it’s more psychological and supernatural rather than a straight up gore-fest. Given that this is an evil entity we’re dealing with, Smile succeeds at unpredictability with its scares. 

            This film has brilliant buildup for scares, many of which involve long shots of dark rooms with a figure in the shadows, Sosie Bacon slowly moving towards it or turning her head to see what’s behind her, and even the fake-outs work where a character walks in and interrupts the tension without the loud SHUN often used for jump scares. 

            The music also plays a big part in building suspense and it’s a very retro and experimental score that I don’t hear that much in scary films. I can’t really explain why I loved the music so much, but it made the scary moments accompanied by it a lot scarier and it makes me want to find the soundtrack on iTunes, probably the best horror movie score I’ve heard since It Follows. 

            I’m not familiar with Sosie Bacon as an actress, but she is excellent in this movie as this troubled therapist trying to escape this evil entity that’s taken hold of her. Her performance reminded me a lot of Rebecca Hall from The Night House or Elisabeth Moss in The Invisible Man as these women who had rough pasts and are trying to confront them so they can fight back when very few people believe what they’re seeing, she owns every scene that she’s in and does an excellent job flipping back and forth from being terrified and sad to completely paranoid as her character slowly goes insane over this entity. 

            The climax is very hit-or-miss despite having a really unique design for the entity, it does rely on a lot of commentary that isn’t subtle at all. It doesn’t ruin the movie or anything, but I just felt the ending could have been a lot stronger if more of it was kept vague instead of being spelled out to the audience, also the final shot felt like an unnecessary sequel-bait. 

            Despite a somewhat weak climax, I had a really good time with Smile, I can’t guarantee a horror masterpiece, but if you’re looking for something creepy to sink your teeth into this Halloween, then perk up and “Smile”.