A group of college students go on holiday, the aspiring photographer in the group buys a camera that was used by a crime photographer. For years it captured violence and death, now it has a ... Read allA group of college students go on holiday, the aspiring photographer in the group buys a camera that was used by a crime photographer. For years it captured violence and death, now it has a new purpose and a new owner to work with.A group of college students go on holiday, the aspiring photographer in the group buys a camera that was used by a crime photographer. For years it captured violence and death, now it has a new purpose and a new owner to work with.
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I was having hopes at the beginning of this flick, the oriental flair in Morocco and setting was very appealing to me and created some atmosphere. Also, the appearance of Armand Assante kept my hopes up.
However all this vanishes when the group starts the trip on their own. You notice all flaws quite soon: Dialogue is often irrelevant and irrational. The acting was horrible, you don't root for any of the characters.
Then there's the stupid plot where the characters die after a picture has been taken by an old, doomed camera.
Special Effects? Well, they are special that's for sure. The death scenes and effects are probably the weakest part of this movie, they were all very goofy and just plain bad.
Assante is in the movie for like 5 minutes, he probably noticed what a piece of garbage he was acting in halfway through.
Don't waste your time. 1/10
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 !!!"
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.
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.
Did you know
- TriviaHarriet MacMasters-Green's debut.
- GoofsThe group are supposed to be lost in the woods, miles away from anywhere, but just after talking to the hunter a jogger can be seen on the path behind them.
- Quotes
Geneva: [looks at cell phone in discotheque] It's Simon!
[Angelica comes over]
Angelica: Wow!
Geneva: Yeah, really.
[goes to tend to her phone]
Tommy: Man, that guy calls a lot, huh.
Jameela: Jealous?
Tommy: No.
Angelica: Oh, please, Tommy, we all know you're still crazy about her.
Rasheed: [jumps in] What's the word? Whipped.
[laughter]
Tommy: Screw you guys!
[goes through crowd to walk away; dances with Angelica]
- ConnectionsReferences Star Wars: Épisode IV - Un nouvel espoir (1977)
- SoundtracksA Long Long Time
By Manuela Zanier
- How long is Smile?Powered by Alexa
Details
Box office
- Gross worldwide
- $260,150
- Runtime1 hour 24 minutes
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1