Rating: 8.2
(trailer at bottom of page)
Who would have thought you could make a horror movie about one of the most calming, comforting and positive human expressions? Well… they did it… and I no longer wish to see anyone smile again because that was utterly terrifying! “Smile” is such a great horror film with so many effective scares and a really great story! Don’t get me wrong— I watched most of it through my eyelids… but the parts I did see were so good and so scary!
I don’t know what has gotten into me. I used to absolutely hate horror, but now I seem to get cocky and think I can take it and it won’t be so bad. Well boy was I ever wrong with “Smile”, it was creepy, disturbing, unsettling, scary, and had some of the most effective jump scares in years. I would honestly say it hit as hard as “Hereditary” and "Sinister”, two movies that scared the shit out of me. This was no exception! Along with “Barbarian” that came out earlier this month, this is one of the biggest horror surprises of the year, possibly even the last few years! It felt like a mix of all the good ideas and best parts of “It Follows”, “The Happening”, “The Babadook” and “Drag Me to Hell”. This film does have very familiar curse elements and plot lines that we have seen in many horror films and even some I mentioned above, but it nicely finds ways to reinvent this idea and do something fresh with it, even if it isn’t always the story doing it. Parker Flynn’s direction really helps to give this movie its own identity. The concept easily could have fallen apart, but instead he created one of the most terrifyingly fun horror films of the year with so much tension to it! He is really good at finding lighting and camera angles that look interesting and motivate the scares in a scene. His cinematography and staging really were excellently done to fill audiences with so much tension and anxiety. He just directed the hell out of it! This is most clearly shown in the jump scares in the film.
These days it takes a lot to craft an effective jump scare, as many can just come off as cheap and cheesy, but somehow Flynn found a way to make so many horrific and shocking. There seemed to be a jump scare moment every 5-10 minutes, and not once did it get old or feel tedious - it was scary every single time! What was also brilliant to me is that there are a lot of moments where you know the scare is coming, and yet the way they stage it and execute it still managed to surprise me. Part of this is because Flynn loved to play with our expectations. He wisely put us in the shoes of the main character, who isn’t sure what is real or not, and by doing that made every moment and scene drip with tension. We are never sure if a scene is going to be “safe” or have a scare coming. There would be times Flynn would fake us out, and build up the tension only to reveal nothing there, and then times he would just dive right into a scare once he made us comfortable. I just thought the horror factor was so well done. It is moreso a jump scare movie over a psychological horror, but I did still love that the film found a way to tell a story about trauma and how we tend to smile our way through pain.
So yeah… this movie was scary. It has a very unsettling and anxiety-ridden atmosphere to it, and going back to some technical elements, I loved the slow panning shots across rooms, they were exceptionally unsettling and just really let some moments hit hard. There are also some extremely disturbing visuals in the film, some images which I will not be forgetting for a long time. The sound design is also incredible and really drove my discomfort through the roof. My only issue is sometimes the edit of the film would really rely on the sound to drive scene transitions and move the pace along rather than the editing itself. It doesn’t really detract from the film, just meant that the editing was weaker, but they made up for it with the sound! The acting in the film was okay, with many actors giving very one-note performances, aside from Sosie Bacon, daughter of Kevin Bacon, who delivered quite the unhinged performance! I really liked her as the lead and thought she was perfect for this film, really showing the insanity the character was going through.
“Smile” is a fantastic horror film. Sure, it has familiar elements, but it refreshes them in clever ways. It delivers all you could want from a horror film, and is very satisfying by the end, even though it will leave you very disturbed and unsettled. It is a huge surprise from first time director Parker Flynn, and I would love to see more from him in the future! Between this and “Barbarian” at least we know there will always be strong original films that genuinely surprise audiences in the horror genre! Also I found it weird that both films had a similarity to the design/look of a horrific element to them, I’m sure they didn’t mean to, it was just a funny coincidence for me. But I highly recommend checking out “Smile” if you love a good horror flick. I was so surprised how much this movie had to offer, and even more surprised at how much I loved it! There was a missed opportunity however; I was so sad they didn’t play the song “Smile” by Jimmy Durante over the end credits… but “Lollipop” by The Chordettes worked just as well!
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IMDb Rating: 6.9/10
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 75%
RT Audience Score: 79%
Metacritic Score: 68
CinemaScore: B-
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Paramount
Written & Directed by Parker Flynn
Cast: Sosie Bacon, Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Caitlin Stacey, Kal Penn, Rob Morgan
Runtime: 1hr 55min
Rating: 14A
Horror
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After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can't explain. Rose must confront her troubling past in order to survive and escape her horrifying new reality.
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Fun Fact: Paramount originally made this film as a streaming film, and planned to only premiere this film on Paramount+. But the film was screened for the test-screening audience and the scores were even higher than anticipated, prompting Paramount to give the film a theatrical release in the United States.
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