Smile: Movie Review
Welcome back, dear reader! I am here with a movie review for you today because I finally got around to watching Smile!
Before we dive in, just wanted to remind you that I am now involved in a podcast! I co-host it with author Carson Winter and we chat about the horror writing craft and the industry! It’s sometimes silly, sometimes raunchy, but we hope that listeners have fun listening! You can check out our episodes, which drop every Wednesday!
We are trying to get it on more platforms so bear with us. It takes a bit!
But onwards to the review! A little warning, there are some minor spoilers around the themes represented in the film below.
The Movie
Smile is a 2022 supernatural horror film written and directed by Parker Finn, based on a short film he made in 2020 called Laura Hasn’t Slept. It stars Sosie Bacon, Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Kal Penn, and Rob Morgan. Smile premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 22, 2022, and was released in the United States on September 30, 2022.
Smile follows a therapist named Rose who witnesses a gruesome suicide and then must race to find out the bizarre and haunting origins of an “infectious” supernatural experience that drives people to suicide.
After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can't explain. As an overwhelming terror begins taking over her life, Rose must confront her troubling past in order to survive and escape her horrifying new reality. — Smile website
The Review
This movie was fun! It gave me Ring or It Follows vibes with how the supernatural “event” is passed around. Besides the horrifying entity that is haunted Rose, the film also deals with the heavy theme of PTSD and guilt. Rose is haunted by the memory of her mother’s death and this ties into why she, among everyone, the entity chose her. I thought the supernatural aspect of the entity was well executed to achieve max amount of creepiness and I really enjoyed the lore built into the movie. As well, the acting was on point and the pacing was superb. The film kept me pinned in suspense the whole time, all the way to the shocking end.
Overall, I would definitely recommend this movie, if you haven’t watched it already. It was a great little grim horror movie and definitely went above what I was initially expecting from a movie that seemed to be about scary smiley people! If you have watched it, let me know what you think below, and don’t forget to check out my podcast!
8/10
x PLM
