“Smile” is a psychological horror film following Dr. Rose Cotter, a therapist, as she is forced to confront her traumatic past and escape her terrifying new reality. After watching the bizarre suicide of one of her patients, she begins to experience strange happenings like those her patient saw leading up to her death. What ensues is a suspenseful 4 days as Rose spirals trying to fight the mysterious entity that haunts her. The movie grossed about 140 million dollars internationally, a good profit for its 17-million-dollar budget. Reviews of this movie are mixed but are more on the positive side with a 78 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango. Many people have regularly hailed this film as one of the scariest films they have seen in a long time, so let’s look at this sadistic fright film. 

“Smile” pulls off what many fans of horror are looking for in a horror film good scares. Yes, a good portion of the frights in the film were cheap jump scares but many moments had me squirming around in my seat. The creature itself is basic in nature. It jumps from person to person in a dramatic, gruesome fashion leaving its previous victim dead, and its new one on a horrifying path of psychological torment. The movie gives the audience no information on the creature’s backstory, as it needs none. David Fear from the Rolling Stone puts it best, “It simply is the manifestation of a viral evil that jumps from host to host, stretching the lips of a victim’s ghostly tormentors — and, eventually, those belonging to the unlucky soul being tortured as well — so far it appears their heads with horizontally cleave itself in half.” (Fear). There is also something to be said about the artsy, clean look of the movie coupled with the gorefest that the movie is. This creates an uneasy atmosphere well suited to its thriller-esque plotline. The movie’s visuals and use of music create an aesthetically appealing picture. Overall, “Smile” did a wonderful job creating a suspenseful atmosphere for the duration of the story. 

However, the film also failed in a lot of important aspects, especially in its storyline. Immediately after watching, parallels between movies like “The Ring” and “It Follows” are noticeably clear. “Smile” doesn’t have any added terms to its basic skeleton that many other films follow. While a good horror movie doesn’t always need to reinvent the genre, this movie has only offered slight change to its already cookie cutter plot. Chris Evangelista on /Film offered this on the film’s only unique trope, “It exists in the shadow of everything that came before it. Even worse, it latches onto one of the laziest recent horror tropes — trying to explain all the horror away under an ill-defined blanket of “trauma.” (Evangelista). This movie does not handle the topic of mental illness with much grace, if any at all, as it’s used as a plot device to blur the lines of reality for our main character Rose. Speaking of Rose, the story often glosses over and leaves out crucial details about her relationship with her mother, which caused the initial trauma in her life. In a nutshell, this film is very bare bones and only every can stand in the shadow of its more famous predecessors. 

I personally think “Smile” is much more enjoyable for a casual watch instead of being the subject of intense analysis. It’s not egregiously derivative or offensive in its presentation. However, it’s not a film that will leave an impression, which is what makes an exceptional story in my opinion, but it works simply fine for casual watches if you’d like some gory jump scares.