Smile

LOTS of jump scares and squeamish scenes as expected. Some original horror and a lot of "been there, done that" which is fun for a horror junkie like me. BUT. Weak conclusion. Seems like it literally just sets up for a cheesy sequel to come down the road. You'll see what I mean if you were looking for a more meaningful wrap to what could have been a great ending as this story builds and directs the viewer to what could bring to reason. Not worth a hefty price at the box office. Rent this one. Or wait till it hits one of the millions of streaming services these days. Actors were ok. Kal Penn is the most well known so that tells you how big these names are.

Sosie Bacon plays an incompetent therapist who mutters platitudes and stands about doing precisely nothing while bad things happen to her patients.

After demonstrating her inability to administer basic first aid to anyone within a fifty mile radius, she catches a case of the spooks. The spooks then follow her around being all creepy and not doing much, perhaps as an ironic form of mockery. None of the characters, supernatural or otherwise, seem to be any good at their jobs.

This is dimwitted nonsense, but it's excellently produced. Decent acting, good cinematography, tight editing and engaging direction. It's a good time, despite the braindead characters, copy-paste writing, appalling dialogue and endless cliches. It's an amusing and occassionally effective pulpy jumpy horror - a highly polished turd that is so shiny you stop noticing the smell.

Worth a watch, once, just for fun.

You never know when it's your turn, to watch another being squirm, as they shuffle off their coil, passing on to you turmoil, which will overwhelm and steal, all your passion and your zeal, just no way to grin and bear it, there's no escape, until you wear it.

A reasonably original take on a very generic horror theme with an often used metaphor, but the performance from Sosie Bacon is noteworthy and convincing, as is the escalation, with one or two genuine jump scare moments ratcheting up the tension and keeping you engaged enough to hope for more. The special effects are fine and the potential for parts 2, 3 and more in the near future left beaming right back at you as the titles role.

The plot was basically a mixture of Lights Out and It Follows, two fantastic horrors. SO.. the actual plot of this movie owes a lot to the tropes within the genre It shouldn't work, there's not much fleshed development behind "the why" of the monster so this movies spends a while figuring out "the how." It was a bit tedious to discover what was happening in terms of the curse, the way it jumps from person to person. The typical "main character is not believed because she's a hysterical woman" plot device. I mean, that's been going on since Rosemary's Baby, but that plot was much more developed and there was reasoning behind it.

There's a wonderful performance from Sosie Bacon at the helm. You really root for her character. But the fiancé is a cliche, you wonder why they're even together.

Overall, what makes this movie are the jump scares. They are effective and unpredictable. The cinematography is also very moody and atmospheric.

You will be frightened. A good effort and looking forward to more from the writer/director.

I was pretty hyped for this movie, not going to lie. I wasn't expecting some 11-time Oscar winning masterpiece, but I did expect an intense, edge-of-your-seat scarefest like that of 'Insidious' or 'Sinister', where the movie is dripping with creepy unsettlingness from start to finish. 'Smile' is not that. What 'Smile' does well is build up the jump scare, but unfortunately (and more importantly), 'Smile' forgets to deliver the scare in each of these sequences it repeats throughout its way overlong 2-hour runtime.

Example, the main character will be staring down a dark hallway while the music tenses and camera slowly zooms in, and then the phone will ring SO LOUD. This is NOT a scare! This is just lazy and, above all, annoying. These "jump scares" happen throughout the ENTIRE movie and are extremely obnoxious. I can respect jump scares if there's actually something scary at the end of the build-up, not just an obnoxiously loud noise that has nothing to do with the tension that was just wasted. An example of an ACTUAL jump scare would be like when the Lipstick Demon appears at the table for the first time in 'Insidious'. THAT is a warranted jump scare.

The plot of 'Smile' and the way the characters unravel it is almost identical to 'The Ring'. No new ground is broken, which was expected, but I at least expected a little more originality than a copy/paste story of 'The Ring' with a good amount of 'It Follows' copied as well, yet is far less than both those movies.

What I thought was pretty good was the ending, when the demon finally reveals itself. The design of the demon and what it does to its victims is actually pretty great/gruesome. Unfortunately, by the time we're introduced to the Smile demon, the movie's over. Such a shame, as this movie could have been a balls-to-the-wall nail-biting chiller. The score for this movie was hands-down the best and creepiest part. The music reminded me of 'Sinister's music, as in there was something off about it, making it unnerving.

Overall, this movie has been done before and done MUCH better. Has it's moments, but drags on without any scares for far too long.

6/10.