I love the fact that it happened to a psychiatrist or whatever she is because she is so used to telling people that the mental trauma they go through can't physically hurt them but the mental trauma that she's going through literally killed her. It's like a metaphor for when people tell people with mental illness or trauma or depression to "man up" or "get over it" or "just be happy." Just because you can't see the thing that's killing me doesn't mean that I'm not being killed by said thing.
Yep- that’s what I thought too… no matter what you’re going through, “pull yourself up by your boot straps and SMILE!” Easier said than done & of course no one believes her! It all sounds nuts, but you can’t even be on her side, shut up & just listen to her? Let her say what’s happened? ------------/ NOW IM GOING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT A FEW THINGS I HATE IN ALL MOVIES: 1. I’m sick to death of scary movies which are filmed in the dark, with rain or fog or whatever, but they don’t allowed enough lights for the audience to even fully understand what we’re supposed to be looking at! Sometimes maybe they want it distorted but not every time. Good grief! We get it already “ it’s a dark & stormy night”… move on! 2. It kills me when they don’t resolve the ending! They say “we leave it to the viewer” as if they are doing us a favor when really they just didn’t know how to end it! Anyway, you’re giving me an ending I had no part of getting to! I probably would have done many different things in the story which would make the end different, so I don’t think so! I’m sure there’s more but that’ll do for now! Thank you for bringing some fun to these sad movies they make nowadays! I miss the days of stop action photo films! I do love the “Shudder” ap! Were they cheesy? 😂 💯 American but they were fun! Do you know these old movies?
I hated that, because after the first scene, the movie completely forgot she was a psych, and she acted like a complete idiot. A psych in that situation would lean on their training, and understand that they needed help. They definitely wouldn't be shocked to find the people around them don't automatically believe the story she's telling them. If she just didn't try to explain it, if she wasn't calling it an evil entity, if she was just describing her experiences, and provided the evidence that other people have the same experience, you could have gotten a whole lot of people to take it completely seriously and actually tried to figure it out. But instead, she just acts like a moron, everyone thinks she's nuts, and she completely blows it
I'm all for vengeance against psychs. What drives me nuts is, a situation that's totally communicable if you frame it correctly, and someone that should have been able to frame it correctly, because they were a shrink, but they just don't, because the fact she's a psych plays absolutely no part in her characterisation after the first scene.
@@lulairenoroub3869 Well she does try to explain it. She uses her psych studies to help her during the therapy sessions. But I'm guessing as the visons kept getting worse the more her sanity got worse. So she probably was at the point where she wasn't thinking straight and was just dead Set on trying to make it go away. Along with the fact that people witnessed her dead cat being pulled out of a box. So there's already too much stuff against her for them to even understand even with the help of her degree in psychology.
@@aidasalazar9702 I gotta be honest, that explanation doesn't work for me. It's not really in the text. You can explain any writing choices by saying "She's going crazy", but from my perspective, there's almost no difference in the script between, her being written as a shrink, or her being written as a baker. That fact should have had a bigger impact on her choices and her expectations in whole bunch of particular moments, but it didn't, because they wanted scenes to follow a structure that would have been interrupted, if the character was written with any real depth or history or consistency
I think the birthday scene didnt get enough recognition. It just kept going and going like they really wanted to traumatize her and everyone around her I felt so bad lol
@@renmochizuki464 definitely, I felt faked out 😂 me and my boyfriend went in expecting something a bit shite and left in silence like "that was horrible.... was that really just that horrific?"
I personally thought the ending twist of her not defeating the monster made perfect sense. I think the whole issue was that she was focusing on the wrong trauma (her mom) rather than the suicide of the grad student. I think this was partially due to her psychologist wanting to psychoanalyze her and try to force a connection between that suicide and the guilt she felt about the death of her mother. When the prisoner guy didn’t mention any previous trauma of himself (other than witnessing the suicide), I immediately started thinking that she was heading towards the wrong path of focusing on old traumas rather than remedying new ones. I also loved the monster design because it perfectly showcased how the mom became so oversized in Rose’s head that she allowed the death to take over and influence her entire life. I personally hated the trailers and expected some corny popcorn flick, so I was pleasantly surprised by the interesting amount of depth the film had. Definitely one of my favorite films of the year!
Oh this perspective just completely changed it for me. When I first saw it, the ending had me like HUH? But this makes perfect sense. Man now it’s sad lol rip.
As someone who is dealing with active depression i think this ending really spoke to me and made me appreciate Smile way more. I feel like the metaphor for this curse is that depression cannot be fixed with just a smile, and with Rose’s sister expecting her to be as put together as her it enforces the theme of family not understanding trauma and mental health or taking it seriously, which is why in the end Rose is successful at letting go of her trauma with her mom, but unsuccessful at overcoming the curse or in my interpretation her battle with depression, just like the curse, her mental state deteriorates as she is sent on paid leave for a week and isolated from the distractions she used to use to keep her mental health stable. Great movie
I do not get scared easily at all. This movie had be clenching my jaw the entire time. I was very surprised how effective the tension was for me. There wasn’t one jump scare that annoyed me. It was seriously creepy and I loved it.
Honestly I think her failing to beat the monster was refreshing, she didn’t do what she needed to do to stop it. The entity isn’t a manifestation of trauma, it’s just a thing that wants to torture and possess her. I loved how it never gave her hallucinations around her ex to make him fully trust her. Then it made her second guess the killing option and go out to the house where it could get a feast on her trauma before positioning her for her ex to see her and pass on to him.
If she had just killed the person she wouldn't have died but somebody else would have and when you're in the mental state of not sleeping for four days and being haunted by a demon you can't think properly
Failing to beat the monster is bread and butter for supernatural curse horror movies, every influence that inspired it ends with people either passing on the curse or dying, besting the monster is extremely rare in this subgenre
I actually thought maybe she would be able to break the curse at first. The ending was still terrifyingly satisfying. Maybe the ex bf will be able to figure out how to overcome it. Or the circle will just continue on forever
I think the problem is that she refused to take the therapists advice. Whenever her mother was mentioned she shot it down. She instead ran off to fix it herself when really she needed help processing it and coping with it. She didn’t sleep either so that only made it worse. Did her ex truly help her? I feel like he fed into her delusions. The therapist knew from the start but she didn’t want to hear it. Her boss knew too. That’s what they do. They never wanted to harm her or lock her away. She just didn’t believe them.
@@amazontiger1568 I instantly came up with a solution to break the curse, it's literally spelled out, you just kill yourself without a witness, no one left to pass it on the difficult part is the choice to actually kill yourself
Personally I didn’t think the message was you can’t ever win with trauma but that she simply went about it badly, she spent most of her life ignoring it, and then with the curse it proceeded to isolate her from everyone, getting put on leave at work, scaring off her sister, and cutting her off from her fiancée, and even when she did go to her therapist, it was to ask for drugs to get rid of the symptoms and not to actually discuss any of her trauma potentially causing them. And because she knows the curse could be passed on to someone else she decides to go it alone and confront all of her issues head on by herself. And the way she does this is by basically telling her self that she is going to move on now, it doesn’t really work like that, so it seemed more like she lied to herself about moving on and that only allowed the curse/trauma to take over.
I don't know... considering this movie definitely feels like it aligns more with demonic possession/forces feasting on trauma than how actual trauma/ptsd works. Like it's assumed that she blames herself for not helping her mom out of her suicide because her mother presumably was abusive and/or incredibly mentally ill, so her deciding to overcome that fear of being found out as basically 'a second degree murderer' makes sense. And in terms of the logic in the movie, the demon would take over the entirety of mankind because Trauma is passed around us every day lol History is full of traumas, and not to mention, we all have something we may feel guilty about, even small stuff. So I don't entirely believe, especially as a mental health professional, that she lied to herself in the end, because that's ultimately (and what is repeated throughout the script) eating her up inside, even to the point of her keeping that info away from her future husband and her ex. Imo too, she did try to talk about the suicide lol Like, there was literally nothing no one could do because everyone kept calling her crazy or psychoanalyzed her and didn't believe in any of the supernatural things she was seeing. Plus, her and the Ex didn't go to any pastors, witches, or any sort of supernatural professionals at all to get some sort of idea on how to stop it. Like if you go back and watch the film, ignoring was the least most thing she did towards the climax of the movie, and honestly they didn't win because... it's a demon movie in my eyes without any conjecture of supernatural help lol Yes, there are allegories to mental health, etc. but ultimately this for me doesn't entirely work as a psychological horror movie because we knew what was the villian the entire time and there were probably other possibilities of dealing with it/fighting it than just talking about whatever traumas they recently went through. This is especially because the guy in the Prison states that one of the ways to stay alive is to unalive someone lol Like I'm guessing the Entity needs a physical body, idk. But as a movie about mental health, I don't think it works that well... more about a struggle between believing in what is beyond our physical world and what is in our head. Mental illness is the wrong trajectory for a film like this because of the ending imo. It just says that it'll succumb to you and you to it, no matter what you do, unless you become homicidal or suicidal and are left wounded (thus making you want to k******* yourself) and/or wound others. Ig, it works with a message of how much our world is in a mental health crisis and how damaged (or damaging) society is, but idk, I feel like even that's reaching.
I felt like it wasn’t as predictable as you’re leading on. As someone who really enjoyed it, the jumpscares in her home felt pretty basic, but there were only 2 or 3, that didn’t ruin the film at all. I think it was less about “BIG NOISE SCARY!” and more about Rose’s reactions to everything, and her psychological breakdown as the film continues, which makes the ending so much more impactful
I agree with you, only one jumpscare got to me but everything was supposed to be scary bc Rose was unhinged, she was not reliable at tall, she kept hallucinating during the whole movie, that makes you question and fear everything.
I think one of the best scenes that wasn't mentioned was the birthday party. I don't know if I just haven't seen enough scary movies but I was really shocked by what happened and the acting was great.
The fact this movie is the director's directorial debut, I find amazing. Encase no one knew it's based off of the directors short film called "Laura hasn't slept." It's a great movie for someone's first ever directed movie, like yeah there's some predictable moments in it for sure, but overall the plot, the casting, the performances of the actors involved are all really good imo 😊
Sarah, please take this as the compliment that it is- but in this video you EMBODY 1999-2001. I could see you coming out of a showing of Urban Legend looking just like this. You look like yourself ❤️
Personally I really liked the jump scares - I didn’t think they were cheap because they actually followed through with the ending and there was horror outside of the jump scares. But I totally understand that if you don’t like jump scares in general then this movie is no different 😂
@@langstonjames6224 Smile is a good example that you can pull of multiple jump scares if the movie was already terrifying prior. I think jump scares work better when treating like an optional cherry on top
i love them if they're done well, if it's not like a cheap scare in a truly serious movie tackling a difficult issue or whatever. my mom loves suspenseful movies but she gets startled by everything so jump scares always remind me of being a kid sitting on the couch next to my mom dramatically gasping and jumping out of her skin lol
This is one of those movies where I absolutely don't mind there being jumpscares because they factor into what's happening in the film. They're used for more than just scaring the audience for a second, they're for ruining Rose's psychological willpower. I enjoyed this movie a lot more than I thought I would and I felt they handled the mental illness angle more sensitively than I expected. Overall, a good movie, but I felt that it went on just a bit too long. For a feature directorial debut, this was very good. 4/5 from me!
A few doors down from where I live, they're was a brutal murder-suicide. The crowds were....horrifically dense. For me, the message of this movie harkened back to that experience.... trauma, the more traumatic the better, seems to invite an audience. Like how we always slow down when passing an accident to get a good look. That trauma can follow us, whether we realize it or not.
SPOILERS AHEAD: The reason the vision of her mother grows into this disgusting tall woman is because that’s how Rose saw her when she was younger. Because her entire childhood was ruined by her mother’s addiction, Rose still views her mum the same way she did when she watched her die. A disfigured, tall thing. She’s so tall because the scariest thing to Rose when she was young was adults- _tall people_
I’m here earlyyy. I watched Smile yesterday and it was so good, I really enjoyed it. And Sosie Bacon is an incredible actress. Smile is definitely one of my favourite horror movies of this year so far
I watched it last night and I see what youre saying about the tropes and the formulaic ness but I think they really refreshed the genre for me. I think there are so many movies that do this formula very predictably and very blandly where the acting doesn’t live up to what they are trying to achieve but I think smile did all of these things incredibly well. The acting and the score was sooo effective for me. The psychological horror hit every beat for me. I feel that they film is a really unflinching horror and the length and tension in some of the scenes as well as the taunting score acted how they evil entity would act. It was like yeah we’re not playing around. It was so dark and it really surprised me how disturbing it was. I think that these tropes and formula are only bad when they’re not done believably and I think this movie did it excellently
I really enjoyed it , I especially enjoyed the stuff with her therapist and the phone calls. The prisoner talking about another one in Brazil was interesting and I’d love to see another movie if they made a sequel . It does potentially feel like a problematic message though saying that “you can’t overcome your trauma and you’re going to spread it to someone else.”
Another thing that I really enjoyed was there were several times when she was with Someone and the camera focused on her with other people nearby her going blurry , I felt like it really built tension cause I was expecting to see the smile as it refocused .
What I think would be a better ending for this movie is when she's back at Joel's place after she burns the monster, the viewers are fooled with the idea that it's gone and as Joel takes a shower before going to bed, he sees Rose smiling and then killing herself brutally as the movie cuts to black. The way they did it here feels kinda weird to me, because Joel could've turned and ran, knowing what was coming next if he stays but he just stands there staring at her burning.
i didn’t like the ending.. i think she should have escaped as she tried so hard to face her trauma. for me, it would have worked better if her nephew had started killing at the end because he got traumatized by Rose’s behaviour. and there are two very strong scenes that showed especially him witnessing the breakdown of his aunt. just as Rose was traumatized by her mother when she was a child. i think this would have been a very clever way to end the movie and it wouldn’t have had the message that you can never process your trauma, no matter how hard you try… i think that’s not a good message for people who are actually dealing with mental health problems.
I agree with you, but not about the messaging. Every single film should not be a message. This is a horror film, so I could care less about any "message". I just hated the ending.
I think the underlying message is that if you unalive yourself it doesn't just affect you but stays with the people that witness what happen or are left behind. But also not just the unaliving issue in the movie - if you as an a parent like her mother are going thru tough times it isn't just what you are dealing with but your loved ones that are seeing what you are going thru and how it sticks with them forever
SPOILER i actually wished it ended on a good note. it was just really sad to see her go through all this trauma , get gaslighted by the entity to make everyone think she’s crazy, and gets the balls to go through with everything and go to that scary ass house and seek closure. she deserved to live. in my opinion.
That’s interesting that you and other people enjoyed the ending more. (spoilers) I loved the ending up until they personified the “smile” entity- the scene of her facing her trauma in her childhood home where her mom died was chilling, but frankly, I just thought the monster looked bad and corny, like a man wearing a bunch of special effects makeup. The curse was scarier when it focused more on her psychotic breakdown and when the entity could turn into anyone at any moment. The best scene in the movie that shows this was the birthday scene, showing how isolated and crazy the entity made her look to others, causing her to spiral. The giant scary monster at the end kind of ruined it for me. And to be honest, I thought the jump scares were pretty good, lol 😭 especially that audio scene. Also, the jump scares that seemed to be reality at first, but quickly turned nightmarish- for example when she was talking to her therapist and the phone rings and it’s her actual therapist. CREEPY!
i also went to see this in the theatres and i’m someone who gets easily scared by loud noises so the jump scares worked on me. but i will say the whole idea of trauma and it being passed on was very evident in this movie. when holly (main character’s sister) was talking to her on the porch and told her that she traumatized her nephew, i kinda thought it was going to be the nephew that ended up getting the curse(which would’ve been even sadder but definitely an interesting idea for a sequel)
At the beginning of the movie when she was talking to her therapist one of them made mention of the idea that we can not resolve the trauma we suffer but only gain control of our reaction to it. So I felt that not just working through that trauma making it all better actually stayed very in line with the message. Further - I really liked what the demon said about her mind being so inviting - the idea that having faced prior trauma makes you more open to new trauma... almost like grooming you and marking you in a way that other predators can link onto.
I feel like this movie didn't really have a "message" at the end, but rather tried to lean into pure horror. I would've liked to see the trauma overcome (don't we all root for survivors?), but appreciated the commitment to all-out terror. The scene with the tall man in It Follows made the hair on my arms stand up, I liked seeing an homage to it
Favorite movie of the year. I hope you liked it lol I'm nervous to hear your thoughts. I loved the jumpscares lol but after a while I did say "oh my God can they stop" lol and the end was amazing. That THING was terrifying.
I KNOWWWW!!! This was also my favourite film of the year! AHHH!!!!! The creature was BEAUTIFULLY designed, and you can tell so much care was put into that animated sequence 😭 ugh, so good
I went in expecting a cheesy fun time and was surprised at how deep this movie was and enjoyed the emotional pull it had on me. Great acting. Unpredictable third act which was *chefs kiss*.
I personally loved the sound elements. Especially viewing in theater, is was uncomfortable dissonance and weird timing in the music to make you uneasy. I love when sound is used like this
You didn’t feel tension until the end? I felt it from the moment she got latched onto until the end. The scenes like the phone call from the security and the therapist were brilliant and sent chills. I also felt like the jumps and fake jump scares did a great job at showing how on edge rose got, not only for us. The being doesn’t just kill rose it lets her life fall apart first. Also the music was my favorite😧 I loved the mood it built. The weird camera angles matched with music built this dreadful feeling that never dropped. One of my favorite horror movies now
When I first watched the trailer it caught my attention cause it gave me it follows/truth or dare vibes and the movie did but it felt sm more than that. I liked this movie and it had effective jumpscares. This movie was mostly practical which is a good thing with some obvious cgi stuff. The lead actress did such an amazing job like she was serving psychotic breakdowns and being terrified so good. Overall I give this movie an 8/10.
LOVED the jump scares. Every. Single. One. 🤣 Totally respect your point of view too. 😉 Favorite horror of the year, hands down. Awesome, creepy fun! The only letdown was the jump scare in the trailer deflated it for me in the theater. Other than that, loved it!!
Who else is waiting for Sarah's review of "The Midnight Club"? I just finished watching the whole series. Loved it! Another memorable Mike Flanagan hit.
i watch your videos after watching scary movies because you help me to calm myself. All scary movies have a lasting effect on me but you really help me snap back
one part that stuck with me and i thought was actually quite scary was when she FIRST gets cursed, she was i. her house and saw the smiling girl in the dark in the corner and that was quite good. i love when horror movies show you something in the dark and it’s just very unsettling and it makes me not wanna look at dark corners in my own house lol
also while i agree there were TOO MANY jumpscares and a lot of them were predictable, i think some of them were done quite well! i wish we hadnt seen the dangling head one from the trailer bc that wouldve made me jump for sure. i also like how the smiling people she sees cant be seen by anyone and it’s in her head, that’s such an inescapable thing and a big reason why she wasnt able to isolate herself in the end bc she couldn’t differentiate what was real or what was truly happening
I loved this movie so much I went and saw it again the next day!!!! I loved the music.. it creeped me out as much as the horror elements.. i agree the ending was the scariest part.. but I enjoyed the whole thing!! ❤
Yeah, I see that comparison a lot because of the posters for both movies and of course because of all the smiling. I initially thought Smile was also made by Blumhouse but it's not. I haven't seen Smile yet but it seems like a much better movie from the trailer alone. Truth or Dare had a great concept and trailer but it was just terrible for countless reasons imo.
Spoilers: The end gave me very A24 vibes like Men with the visuals of the monsters mouth and skin and the burning herself part was very St. Maud! I liked those two movies and liked this 🤣
Our opinions were really in sync for this one! I actually didn’t want to see this movie because the constant media bombardment made me think it was going to be lame, but my husband really wanted to see it and I’m so glad we did. I was in awe with how much I enjoyed it.
My boyfriend and I were counting the jumpscares in this movie and it ended up being less than 10, which was surprising. By the way, we loved it! It was like The Night House but extreme. This was scary as heck for me.
I agree! Most of my friends didn’t like this movie but I thought it was a little unsettling and fun even with the jump scares. I also saw it in theaters so the loudness really got to me in a way that jump scares don’t get me at home. 2022 has been a fantastic year for horror and even as we revisit many of the same tropes and concepts, there’s a freshness to the way 2022 has done it!
I was so pleasantly surprised by this, one of the best new horror films I've seen in ages! I found the cinema experience really great and loved all the tricks with sound to build up the tension 😅🖤
I happened to not see a single trailer or know anything about the movie before watching it, so I was so pleasantly surprised by Smile and wound up loving it!
I completely get what you mean on the marketing. There's some businesses that I refuse to ever deal with because I hated their ads. On the other side of it, having people smiling creepily during the sports ball was cool imo. I really want to see this movie.
I'm definitely watching this movie !! An old 1961 gothic horror film titled "Mr. Sardonicus" also incorporates grotesque, frightening smiles as an important element in its storyline.
I agreed with a lot of what you said! It was so scary! I could see jumpscares coming but the imagery made me still jump out of my skin even when I saw it coming, the car jumpscare you could probably totally see coming, but her face scared the fucking shit out of me
Like Barbarian the trailer had me feeling like I had everything figured out. Wrong! Fingers crossed all major theatrical experiences are as interesting this year. 🎃
I LOVED IT!!! Definitely in my top 10 horror movies, there was so much to pull from this film, the main character was SOOO refreshing! I also adored the character design, which is a big plus for any horror film to do with the supernatural 😋
I watched this last night at the cinema and I was honestly pleasantly surprised. I have not felt fear from a horror film like this one for a while. I thought the jump scares were terrifying, the images were terrifying, and the theme of trauma and mental illness just added to the horror and misery of the film. I could feel the frustration and hopelessness from sosie bacons character and think it’s so sad how trauma can isolate a person so much. I agree with you on the music cause I thought it was a bit much. The ending for me was very unexpected but I thought it worked very well.
Smile is a familiar concept but it’s done right, the ending is extremely well done. Sosie Bacon delivered a great lead performance and truly made this movie better than it should have been.
I’ll say Sosie the best part of the film. But not everyone agree with her being defeated on the end. But hey if there’s a sequel the new protagonist just might stop this villain
This is definetly one of my fave videos from you. Don't know why it made me laugh but I had a great time! Cant believe you didn't like the music!! It was one of the aspect I enjoyed most about the film. I do get what you say about the jumpscares but I enjoy some good jumpscares so didn't mind about that. It might be one of my favourites of 2022!
I think it's a decent horror movie, personally though I'd want to see more of the backstory and origin rather than so many jumpscares, don't get me wrong, I do love a good jumscare but it got to a point that made the movie so cheesy..
Everybody talks about the It follows, and the Ring references but people are actually overlooking the obvious IT references also. Think about it. This evil entity is the Jester version as Pennywise is the clown version of an evil entity. And the scene where her therapist turns into the evil entity is identical to Mrs. Kersh in IT.
I think the message referred to what the therapist had said to her during the movie, about learning to live with your trauma (tho she doesn’t right lol) and that you never really fully heal? That was what I got out of it because I,too, was like…it didn’t work even though she faces her trauma??? Lol but also if she did escape I think I wouldn’t have liked it as much
I found that to be the main source of horror! The confusion of doing all you can and still failing - that's definitely what stuck in my head the longest from this movie
Yah well Rings 2017 they didn’t do well on anyway. Just rehashing from older Ring films. The promo behind it was great tho. Yes the villain in Ring franchise has not been defeated yet. Though she’s my #1 fav horror villain, she must be stopped for there to be resolution . Even in Ring 2 when she was trapped” Rachel and Aiden were relieved but not necessarily happy. In Smile if she did what the prison guy told her, the villian likely would’ve been defeated. Whereas in the Ring franchise, even if all tapes were destroyed, Sam could still create more. Samara is a nearly invincible villian; so the writers would have to be clever about a resolution without changing certain rules at the last minute or contradicting past plots.
That’s why I like your reviews because I’m sensitive to certain types of horror and I can get an idea if I wanna actually take the leap or not. For this one, however, I’m on the fence about. Some of it sounds beyond by comfort zone while still being intriguing to me. I’ll just have to wait and see. But Thank you 😊 always 🎉
I'm new to your channel but can I say I've totally been binge watching all of your videos over the last week! I can't even watch horror movies but your videos give me the spooky fix I need :-) I love the way you talk about films and books, so detailed but also so accessible. I've learned so much! (also random but hello fellow norcal pisces who's also had dental implants...such a small world!)
Was waiting for you to drop the review since I watched it. Went in with no prior knowledge and assumed the movie was gonna be like “Bye-Bye Man” and “Truth or Dare” and was astonished of the quality after every scene. Had a great time, and awesome review bae ❤
I enjoyed Smile a lot. More than I expected to. I am overly critical of most horror (probably cause it’s my favourite genre). Immediately I was getting ‘It Follows’ vibes (which I love). I felt Smile was quite believable and I was legit on edge the whole time. A few scares came off as forced/cheesy (the swinging neck/ the shrink when she made the house call). However the ending was so fucking wild that I forgave any and all previous flaws and nitpicks. I have to say tho, A-Train was a frustratingly loathsome character in this by not believing and supporting Rose and turning his back on her/gaslighting her like a worthless douchebag. I would have gone back to my sexy discount Robert Pattinson ex bf, too.
Your style is exactly what I look for to find a horror film to watch or not to watch. I find myself thinking "good to know" if I haven't seen a movie you tackle. And I'm grateful for the spoiler warnings. 👍 I'd love to know what you know think about Cold Prey (Fritt Vilt). Group dynamic, character build-up, thrills and suspense and bloody. Snowy landscape and no animals. It's a Norwegian horror with a good sequel, as well.
I honestly thought halfway through the film the “curse” would have been ended with Rose and she would have tried to get forgiveness from her sister. After the acceptance, HER NEPHEW has the smile and either “ends it” and continues the curse to Rose or kills his mother.
I was even going to watch it because the trailer looked dumb but then I started seeing all the positive reviews. Saw it in Dolby theater and loved that especially with the audience reactions. The ex was a great character.
I'm usually not easily scared by horror movies but after seeing this movie i was so terrified. My heart was racing and my hands were sweating. Overall a really good movie totally didn't expect this movie to be like this
I find it interesting that we share the same thought of wondering what was the point of the movie because of the ending, but still land on different sides of it. I personally thought the ending was what killed the excitement for me, but maybe it’s because I became so emotionally invested into the scene where Rose confronts her mom that it become more of a drama than horror movie - I agree that the horror at the end definitely was effective. I suppose I could give it a second thought, I just thought it was very demoralizing to have a movie like this showcase how despite all avenues the protagonist takes, she still ends up the same as the rest - the little flicker of hope in me for her to be the one to survive was put out and it saddened me. But that maybe that’s the point. All in all, definitely a surprise.
Yeah, I thought the ending was a little weird, too. Not horrible, and at least Joel has a leg up on everybody else on how the curse works 😬 It's too bad that confronting the trauma doesn't work but killing somebody else does ?? I actually thought her original plan would be to kill herself without a witness to stop the chain.
The ending message was effective but I will never watch it again for personal reasons. It makes it really hard to recommend too without upsetting someone I know. 😅
---- SPOILERS ---- I felt that as a doctor, she should have thought in a medical standpoint to simply admit herself into a mental institution in order to not hurt herself or anyone else. She can be strapped down so she can't physically hurt herself. Strange that for someone in the medical field to not think of that, considering I'm in the medical field too and that's one of the first things I thought of. Also when she thought of isolating herself at her mother's place, she didn't even prepare anything like bring toiletries, food, or flashlights. As a doctor she didn't seem that bright....
Something that bothered me about the "I saw her face..." recreation was that they did the reveal on the wrong beat. Instead of it being (paraphrasing) "They asked me to identify the body" (cut to the face reveal) "... and his face..." it should have been "They asked me to identify the body... and his face-" (cut to face reveal). It was such an odd editing choice. ANYWAY, I'm glad you reviewed this because your love of The Ring is so well-known, so I was interested to hear your take. This movie wasn't for me (like you said, the movie didn't really have a point, and it wasn't fun enough for me to forgive that) but I'm glad it's doing well because it shows the appeal of horror movies for theater goers.
I think a good twist would have been that she remembers that she purposefully and with malice killed her mother, who actually wasn't a bad mom at all. I think it would have been a lot more interesting. But as it stands, I found it quite predictable and way too similar to the superior It Follows, as you mentioned. I did enjoy the practical horror effects though!
I don't think she killed her mother with malice, she was 10 years old and clearly scared of having to deal with the situation at hand. At that point, she didn't even had her sister. It's clear Rose tried to repay the what the she acted with her mom/guilt in committing 100% to her patients bc at the beginning they do point out how overworked she is.
I really liked it. The scares were solid, the main character was relatable and it felt like it actually had an interesting story to tell as opposed to other "cursed" movies in the genre. I immediately thought it was going to be a run-of-the-mill generic horror movie like Bye Bye Man, Wish Upon or The Countdown and was pleasantly surprised to get something much more effective in terms of scares and a compelling narrative. On a side note, I loved the score and sound design. It's hard to believe this is the directors debut film considering how well made it is. Very technical and not amateurish at all.
I think just how smart the “virus” was was what got me. Like in It Follows, there is only one version. Yes it could be anyone, however, you can have a pretty good understanding of where it was. This movie did not have that what so ever. You were never allowed to just relax. The phone and therapist scene I think got me the most in that regard. Also the computer scene early on. It got to the point it almost became unbearable for me as I was in constant fear. It was an amazing movie but not one I will watch again for my own sanity haha
I agree with this! The way that the entity could turn into anyone at anytime was really scary. I think another excellent scene from the movie was the birthday scene- the way that scene played out was so nightmarish. I was not expecting it 😭. I also feel like it was one of the best scenes that showed how much the curse wanted to mind fuck her and isolate her from others.
Your review is spot on. I got so frustrated with the jump scares, then angry with the cat scene that I actually left to use the bathroom when I normally would hold my pee. Then I started to actually love it when I came back and fully plan to give it a re-watch when it releases to streaming. Heck, I'm actually working on a fan-fic.
My son and I have seen almost every theatre-release horror movie this year and last (Barbarian didn't come to my local theatre, so I'll have to wait for streaming and I anticipate we'll LOVE it) and this was one of our favorites. I would rank this right up there with Pearl and The Night House.
So I normally don’t like jump scares either, but I thought it worked really well in the framing in a way of someone who went through trauma. You’re constantly in fight or flight mode, so having those hit you over and over seemed really realistic as someone who has been through trauma what living like after can feel like. That and the obvious why don’t you smile? As a women etc or even just as anyone with trauma everyone just wants to fix you and you to be happy
I find this really interesting because I had the complete opposite experience watching the movie. I was thinking at first that it was very clever and somewhat avoided cliches by showing the character's reaction to most of the scares first (making it more about her trauma and less about just generically trying to scare people with an image), not always having jump scares in the places I was expecting them to be and by shooting characters off-centre and consistently drawing the viewer's eye to whatever was in the background of a particular scene (I was pretty sure that the pay off would be that as the film went on they would start to place random extras in the background doing the smile but I guess not). The jump scares seemed sort of scarce and often the music would build with no scare so I again expected the pay off to be that as the film went on they would become more and more and really make the most of how on edge the fake-out scares would make the audience, but again that didn't really happen. When it got to the end and became really supernatural that just killed any fear that I was feeling. It felt like a movie, it felt very obviously fake to me and like it was trying way too hard. I had been really invested in the character's slow breakdown and the psychological horror of the beginning and middle of the film so having it suddenly turn into 'look at this actor wearing spooky make-up!' it was just a big let down really. When she ultimately kills the monster I thought to myself, okay this can go one of two ways: either the film will end here and I'll leave thinking how stupid it was that all that build-up lead to such a quick and easy payoff, or there'll be a 'twist' and the main character will still die from the curse. It left the ending feeling quite predictable for me because it was clear that this powerful supernatural being, who had been tormenting and killing people for seemingly years and years, would not be killed off by something temporal like fire and put up such a pathetic fight. Also I couldn't help but think that the guy was so stupid for going to the house to 'save' her since he was the only other character who actually knew what was really going on and should have known that she would kill herself and pass the curse to him! A better ending could have been if she had gone to him, thinking that the curse was gone, and then unexpectedly started smiling at him and killed herself.
Smile reminds me a lot of the 2017 movie, Clinical. At the time, I think I really enjoyed Clinical because it's expected but done in a way that you're still not disappointed. I'm not big on predictable jumpscares, but I did actually enjoy the ending of Smile with her not defeating the evil. I don't really know if I'll watch it again, but it was good for what it was, and I love that a horror movie is doing so well in the box office!
I just got done seeing it and I really liked it. Jump scares don’t bother me too much. Personally I think they add to the fun. For me, this was my favorite between Barbarian, Don’t Worry Darling and Smile. 😀
I 100 percent think everything was intentional In it, but I do think you were spot on. My review was pretty similar to yours. It’s funny after wathing this I was thinking about you because I know The Ring is your jam, and this took A LOT of inspiration from it 😂
Yup. I was upset at first and took it personal because I also love the Ring but all it does is make the 2002 film look that much better 😂. Plus I appreciate Parker paying homage to that classic which obviously influenced a generation of horror. I wonder if he’s a fan of It Follows as well.
I finally watched this movie today! I agree with this review because it felt the same way for me & the moments of subtle horror definitely did it for me specifically the phone call she got from the house security system team
