Smile Movie Review

Rent Smile on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Parker Finn
Directed by: Parker Finn
Starring: Sosie Bacon, Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Robin Weigert, Caitlyn Stasey, Kal Penn
Rated: R
Watch the trailer

Plot
After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, a psychiatrist becomes increasingly convinced she is being threatened by an uncanny entity.

Verdict
It’s a serviceable horror movie, but it’s a bit too much like other movies in the genre that do this concept better. This creates a great mood, and if that’s what you’re after this delivers though it relies heavily on jump scares as an unseen monster torments the protagonist.
Skip it.

Review
In the last few years it seems that horror movies like having a curse that follows the protagonist around. This idea was done better in It Follows, and I couldn’t help thinking of that movie as I watched this.

The first scene is eerie and tense, setting us up for what will follow. This movie is designed to feel strange, and it’s not just because we know the genre and what will follow. The style, music and framing all play to horror movie queues. It’s supposed to make you uneasy, and this doesn’t waste much time getting into the plot.

Sosie Bacon plays Rose

Rose (Sosie Bacon) has a patient that sees something no one else can see. “It looks like people.” This scene keeps getting worse, but it’s a great introduction to this movie. Rose works at a hospital that focuses on profits more than helping patients. Later at dinner Rose’s sister and brother-in-law talk about money and how Rose could be making more. I thought this might have some kind impact on the plot, but it’s just to show how dedicated Rose is to her job and to show Rose’s isolation from family.

This thing, this curse follows Rose throughout the movie. Rose seems crazy to anyone in the movie, but it’s this thing that’s making her paranoid, mentally attacking her. This is in the vein of It Follows, The Ring, and likely many more horror movies. This creates a mood, but there are a lot of jump scares to get there. We get scenes where Rose drops a glass not once, but twice.

Sosie Bacon plays Rose

Rose discovers a death chain in which she has unwittingly becomes entangled. Luckily she knows a cop and manages to get a lead on the victims of this cycle. She meets the one person that doesn’t conform to this pattern and, true to most horror movies, he knows way more than he could or should. It’s hand waved as he researched it, but how would one research what’s happening in this movie? Movies often fail at the explanation, that or you have a scholar that has spent their entire life studying this phenomenon and happens to run headfirst into it. At least that’s not the case here.

Rose becomes increasingly more erratic. There’s the duality of what she’s experiencing and what everyone is seeing. If the movie explored this more, it could give the movie some depth. It falls short of being a commentary on mental trauma and the perception people have about that. Why the smile? I think it’s a great way to make any situation instantly an order of magnitude creepier.