Smile

Pros: The plot had a purpose. It was mysterious and revealed itself at a good pace. The payoff was pretty good too.

Cons (numerous): Why do writers think that annoying characters make the story more compelling, especially when their annoyance is due to stupid behavior. This isn't really a spoiler, but the group is in a very remote town far from home and packing up for the next destination when one is missing. The pissed off character who knows the other one got on a train for home says, "I don't know where she is, how should I know". Does this idiot realize none of them are going anywhere until the other person is accounted for? That is the most idiotic reaction with zero upside. If he would have held out not telling the others, like the childish infant he was acting like, they'd be stuck in that town for weeks looking for her. That isn't compelling writing for an emotional character, that's dumb. Also, early on, some of the characters are so annoyed with each other I was thinking why would this group that apparently hates each other plan a vacation together? If they would have smoothed out the rough edges (idiotic ones) it could have been a satisfying low-budget movie.

Several students on a school holiday discover a mysterious camera, but after several of them start showing up dead after having their picture taken, they start to realize this camera is much more than they bargained for.

As a horror fan and especially a fan of Italian horror, I was hoping there would be something redeeming about this film. But, in short, there just was not much to offer and it seemed more inspired by 1990s American horror than Italian horror of any decade. A pity, really, because we are sadly lacking someone to pick up the reins from Bava, Soavi and Argento.

Not to say the film is a complete failure, but there is nothing that jumps out as must-see and it is a shame that such a good-looking film just has no soul.

Have you ever had a dentist drill into the nerve of a tooth when you had no Novocaine ? If so, then you've come close to how painful it is to sit through this appalling excuse for a movie...or at least for the first half (or so) of it ( that's all I could stand...and THAT wasn't easy !)

The plot,(young Americans on a trip abroad start dying off in increasingly revolting ways) has only been done about a thousand times, and in 99 of every hundred of those thousand times it was done better.

The "acting" is not just an embarrassment to the acting profession, to to the entire movie industry...no... to the entire ENTERTAINMENT industry...no...to ALL OF HUMANITY !!!

The dialog was well beyond ludicrous, and the direction seemed to be non-existent.

If you've ever seen a movie for free that was so bad you wished you had paid to see it JUST so you could demand your money back...I'm going to guess that it was THIS movie.

To sum it all up...at one point one of the characters says "This is the worst vacation I've ever been on.", and I swear that the first thing that came into my mind was "Yeah ? Well cheer up pal...you COULD be watching THIS piece of crap !!!"

Oh man, now I hate to talk bad about Harriet Macmasters Greens films because im such a fan but good gravy this movie is awful. The voice dubbing is bad, I mean really bad and very noticeable. Terrible acting, terrible script, the whole thing screams high school play. The group is referred to as "kids" but everyone looks like they're at least 40 lol Also, what is with the makeup? They're going camping and trakking through the desert but the makeup looks like theyre on the way to the club. Why is Armand Assante in this? He's way too talented to be wasted in this film. The kills in this movie are amateurish looking at best and this movie commits the worst offense a horror movie can commit, not being scary. Not scary, not even a little bit. I will say though that the locations filmed are indeed beautiful so there's that.

Recently I have been back to my hometown in Italy for a short vacation and just yesterday I decided to hit the cinema to watch this Italian production called "Smile", looking forward for some healthy summer thrills over my back (moreover yesterday I was the only spectator in the dark room to watch it so it could be really creepy!)

As an hardcore horror fan, I'm always hopeful to see the "reborn" of Italian horror considering that in the past several of our directors delivered to the world nice pieces of horror and, though I was not particularly amazed by Smile trailer, I decided to give it a chance.

The chance started to break down after the first 10-15 minutes and the situation worsened until the end of the movie. How to describe "Smile"? I would say it's a mixture of poor ideas (most of them already seen in other movies with a much better production), stupid dialogs and situations, even poorer "special effects" (if there are any...) and silly acting (sometimes I have the feeling the actors don't believe that much in what they are doing).

Anything to save? A few. The location, shot in Morocco, was potentially good and attractive, plus the actor Armand Assante was the only one who, with his few seconds presence, gave to this movie a bit of "horror feeling".

I give to this movie 2 instead of 1 because I appreciate the effort that, anyway, has been done to create a horror genre made in Italy but unfortunately there is still a lot of hard work to do to guarantee the audience with a more satisfying vision.