From the moment I first heard of Parker Finn's horror film Smile, I knew it was something I just had to see. There is something that is effortlessly creepy about a misplaced smile, even more so when the face wearing the smile is otherwise devoid of emotion. This was Finn's debut feature length horror, following on from his short horror films Laura Hasn't Slept and The Hidebehind, and he also wrote the screenplay for this. I believe the director thinks of this as a spiritual successor to Laura Hasn't Slept, I would be interested in seeing that.
Sosie Bacon (Scream: The TV Series) plays Rose Cotter, a psychiatrist whose life becomes a living nightmare after witnessing the brutal suicide of a patient. The patient had spoken of being haunted by a smiling entity who was able to take on the appearance of anyone, and it isn't long before Rose too begins to witness her own hallucinations of a smiling figure. At first she puts it down to PTSD from her experience of the suicide, but she slowly begins to realise that there may have been something to what her distressed patient had said before her untimely death. She learns that whoever witnesses the death of the previous victim becomes afflicted with the same curse, and with no one having survived past a week, she is in a race against time to find a way to try and break the curse.
If you haven't seen any of the trailers for Smile then don't. I wish I hadn't seen the trailers as nearly every single moment of horror is present within them. It meant that I was forever in a situation where I knew something was going to happen, rather than get the pleasure of surprise. Due to the nature of the film I guess spoilers in the trailers were unavoidable. Unlike a typical horror where events would transpire at night, the horror here is more insidious and able to strike at any time. The most innocuous situation has the ability to transform into a nightmare, and that is helped by the film following an unreliable perspective. Every hallucination Rose goes through is shown to the viewer also. This led to some fun moments where entire scenes suddenly became warped and sinister, before the rug is pulled out from under you to reveal they only ever occured in the protagonists head. I got It Follows vibes from this, with elements also of Sinister and The Ring. While there was a mild feeling of fear throughout this one, it never reached the dizzying heights found in those. Outside of the twisted moments of terror come lots and lots of jump scares, most of which rely on sudden scene shifts or loud noises to achieve the effect. They were not bad for jump scares, but neither me, nor anyone in the row in front of me so much as shuddered during those parts. I did like that nearly all the horror occurs in broad daylight however, was a bit different.
I had feared that the plot would be generic, that this would feel like just another mainstream horror in the vein of The Bye Bye Man (my go-to film for horror based blandness). While the story doesn't go anywhere that exciting I enjoyed the ride. Of course there is the usual initial realisation and acceptance of the horror, and then the research segment, leading up to the finale. Again here, the use of hallucinations that can take over entire scenes worked in Smile's favour. It leads to a predictable end, but one which I was happy to see (you could say it put a smile on my face). The supporting cast were a mixed bag, I thought Rose's sister and her hen-pecked husband were fun mild comic relief, but I thought Rose's fiancé Trevor (Jessie T. Usher - Tales of the Walking Dead, Independence Day: Resurgence) was an almost pointless character, and one who got replaced by Rose's ex partner, Joel (played wonderfully by Kyle Gallner - Scream, The Walking Dead TV series) halfway through anyway.
Smile is rated eighteen, and that can be seen most in some of the gnarly special effects, such as the throat slash near the beginning, and some fun CG monster type effects.
While Smile might not have lived up to my lofty expectations, it certainly shows that director Parker Finn has a lot of promise. This was very nearly higher scored, if I did such ratings this would have gotten a strong 7.8/10. Smile was a competently made horror, which uses that horror as a metaphor for past traumas experienced. It may have a plot which has seen before in countless other films of this type, but I enjoyed the premise here, there really is nothing quite as creepy as a smile.
SCORE:
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