DIRECTOR: Parker Finn
CAST: Sosie Bacon, Jessie T. Usher, Kal Penn, Rob Morgan, Kyle Gallner, Caitlin Stasey, Judy Reyes, Gillian Zinser, Kevin Keppy, Nick Arapoglou, Sara Kapner, Jack Sochet, Robin Weigert
RUNNING TIME: 115 mins
CERTIFICATE: 18
BASICALLY…: A mysterious demonic entity begins terrorising a psychiatrist (Bacon)…
NOW FOR THE REVIEW…
Does anyone remember Truth or Dare, that awful horror movie from 2018 which featured demonic smiling entities that looked like ridiculous (and horribly rendered) Snapchat filters blown up onto the big screen? For anyone still cringing at the mere memory of it, there’s good news: Smile, the debut feature of writer-director Parker Finn – and based on his award-winning short film Laura Hasn’t Slept – plays like a much better version of that, with smiling demons that actually look scary, and not too bogged down by distracting effects, all within a horror template that actually does make an effort to haunt the minds of its viewers.
However, Smile is much more of a half-and-half movie, in that half of it really does work, with some effectively creepy shots and a handful of interesting ideas about trauma and mental illness, but the other half sadly falls victim too often to its own genre trappings, and does quite a few ill-advised things with its plot and characters that you would expect to find in something like, well, Truth or Dare.
The film opens with Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), a therapist working at a psychiatric hospital, having an unhinged session with her young patient Laura (Caitlin Stasey) who is freaked by a strange shape-shifting entity that has been following her around the last few days, identified only by its devilish smile. The next thing you know, Laura – now with a sadistic grin to match the Cheshire Cat – is slitting her throat in front of a horrified Rose, who then begins seeing the same smiling entity at nearly every angle. Her fears are dismissed by almost everyone around her, including fiancé Trevor (Jessie T. Usher), her boss Dr. Desai (an underused Kal Penn), and her own therapist Dr. Northcott (Robin Weigert) who Rose had been seeing as part of dealing with her own childhood trauma. Nonetheless, an increasingly on-edge Rose seeks to figure out how to untether herself from this mysterious demon, before she too falls victim to its sinister game.
Since this is a half-and-half movie, it’s only viable to begin with the half of Smile that is pretty decent. For a first-time feature filmmaker, Parker Finn has quite a stylish grip on the camera, indulging in some ambitious editing that includes turning the frame upside down at multiple times, and at one point even transitioning to the next scene through a circular window that looks like a old-fashioned circle wipe. The cinematography can be chilling at times, as it makes an effective use of dark spaces that do elicit some seriously creepy vibes, especially with what may or may not be placed within it. This is also the kind of horror movie that, refreshingly, does not water down any of its horrific elements; often, it gets pretty gory, sometimes shockingly so, earning that 18 certificate just from the genuinely disturbing opening scene alone (it’s teased in the trailer, but is far more gruesome in the actual movie). The acting is also solid, with much of the film resting on Sosie Bacon’s capable shoulders, and the actor gives an impressive display of unnerved tension throughout, and you can just feel her falling apart at the bone whenever she’s terrorised by what she at first believes to be all in her head. This also forms one of the many intriguing themes about mental illness and psychological trauma that are played around with, discussed in a semi-intelligent manner, and allowed to be a legitimate part of the story instead of just being there for the sake of it.
All in all, Smile is a well-made, well-acted, and appropriately bleak horror film – but unfortunately, it also feels trapped by its own genre pitfalls, which make up the lesser half of this movie. It indulges in several horror conventions that are far too stale by this point, from the fake-out dream sequence (of which there are so many, that after a while you can start to tell what’s real and what isn’t) to jump-scares that add nothing to the atmosphere, and feel like they were strictly there just to appease the Paramount studio executives. Throughout, characters do and say really dumb things only so that the plot can conveniently move forward, and by the end some of their actions just don’t make much sense given what we know about them as well as what they know. It also suffers from a far too overlong running time; it runs at just under two hours, but you can tell which parts could be cut out to get it down to a more appropriate ninety minutes and still lose none of the main plot (basically, every scene with Jessie T. Usher as this pretty pointless fiancé character). You really do feel the bloated length, and after a while it leaves you impatient to get to the inevitable conclusion, which while suitably grim is telegraphed pretty hard, to where it’s not as shocking as it clearly wants to be.
So, there’s an equal amount to both like and dislike about Smile, a horror movie that certainly has ambition and drive behind it, but cannot muster the strength to wrestle itself away from all those tired genre tropes. It’s certainly a cut above some of the far worse horror movies released this year, but it’s not exactly something to smile wholeheartedly about either.
SO, TO SUM UP…
Smile is an ambitious but flawed horror movie, which boasts some strong filmmaking skills, a few effective scares, and strong acting by lead Sosie Bacon, but it too often falls victim to stale genre conventions to fully transcend beyond the typical spooky flick one gets around this time of year.
