(At the time of writing (Oct 11, 2024) by sheer coincidence, it’s exactly two years to the day that I saw this movie at the multiplex. I wrote this and published it on the old site, which disappeared three weeks later. The web archive didn’t take a snapshot of the site during the time this was up, and as I stand by this review I thought I’d include it as part of Shocktober this year – especially as (spoiler alert) I have tickets for Smile 2 next week.
So yeah, a reprint – but hell, it’s still fresh.
Robin)
“It’s smiling at me!” – Laura Weaver
What’s in a smile?
A smile can be a welcoming gesture at best, we smile when we greet someone, or when we’re happy and content. But at worst it can evoke a primal, evil threat. A precursor to bad intentions. This is why the Joker works as well as he does as a fictional arch villain. Especially when deploying the gas that twists his victims’ faces into hideous exaggerated grins. Or look at the silent classic The Man Who Laughs (1928), or Mister Sardonicus (1961), both of which I covered in last year’s Shocktober. Not to mention clowns (shudder). The smile holds an esteemed place in nightmares and horror films. And this film makes certain that the tradition is upheld.
This is one of those movies that just crept up on me. The first I heard of it was when a trailer popped up on the multiplex screen while I was seated, waiting to watch the feature. It caught my attention because it seemed so simple, yet so effective – and so damned freaky, with the potential to be genuinely scary and tense.
I knew I was on the right track for a good horror when I was told by the cinema manager that they’d had people walk out of Smile because it was all too much for them. Proper horror then. Just the thing in the build-up to Halloween.
As I was trying to describe the film to my daughter this morning, I realised it’s not a simple movie to describe effectively, so I ended up sending her a link to the trailer that had hooked me and reeled me in. While I was watching the film – and it’s just shy of a two-hour movie, which is longer than average for a horror movie – I never questioned, I just followed the movie, totally engrossed. Yes, I jumped a couple of times and yes, I did succumb to the tension that seeps through the whole running time. But I never questioned. As with most horror films where something bad happens to an innocent just going about their business, be it a masked maniac who’s path they cross inadvertently, or a curse they innocently fall foul of by watching the wrong VHS tape as in The Ring, it all comes down to the simple concept – shit happens. Usually to good people.
And this is certainly the case here, as we focus on Dr Rose Carter (Sosie Bacon) who’s a psychiatrist on a psychiatric ward. She attends a new admission, a PHD candidate named Laura Weaver, who seems to be experiencing delusions. She sees an entity who takes the form of other people, and it smiles at her. In front of Dr Carter, she experiences another episode, convulses, then slowly slits her own throat, taking her own life.
That’s the scene setter. Dr Carter then starts experiencing hallucinations of her own, and begins her descent into trauma and mental illness. It’s a truly horrifying journey, perhaps more so because it’s seen through the eyes of a mental health professional, who is herself undergoing counselling following a trauma she underwent in her childhood.
As if a sudden onset of mental illness isn’t horrifying enough, there’s the actual thing itself. It’s not named, and it can strike at its victim any time, day or night. It can assume the form of someone you know, someone you’re having a conversation with – but you never know it’s a hallucination until the evil damn smile slowly manifests itself on their faces. You’re constantly lulled into a false sense of security before the rug is suddenly yanked from under your feet. In this respect, the film jangles the same nerves as It Follows (2014), which was a both startling and original, and one of the high points of horror for me in the last few years.
But having said that, I guess the means of transmitting the, well, I guess it’s a curse, puts me in mind of movies like The Ring and The Grudge – again, hugely effective movies.
I’m not going into the plot any further than that, for fear of spoiling it. Yes, there are jump scares, but they’re used sparingly – which makes them acceptable. I’m of the opinion that jump scares don’t make a horror film – they’re cheap. Horror films need a mounting sense of unease and tension, because that’s what horror is. A jump scare at the end of a tense stretch is a good release valve, but used repeatedly it annoys the hell out of me. I like horror movies, not startle movies.
Let’s talk about two huge talents that I encountered for the first time in this film. Sosie Bacon (whose name puts me in mind of a fried breakfast) really carries the film. Her portrayal of a cool professional whose relationships and her professional life are quickly and drastically altered is stunningly memorable as she loses control over what was previously a well-ordered life and succumbs to the onset of hallucinations.
Here's the most surprising thing about the film though. This is writer/director Parker Finn’s feature debut! Smile is based on a shot film of him. This guy obviously has an immense wealth of talent and is one to watch.
