Smile Review

        Happy Halloween! As always with every year that I talk about horror, it’s always a sight to see how the genre has evolved to more than just frights. Especially when it involves some form of dramatic or involves elements that don’t involve a copious amount of gore. Horror is more than explicit elements that give it the R rating, it can involve any fear and exacerbate them to a degree where the character goes through the ringer. Giving them the journey to conquer their fear or confront it. That’ s why there’s a spectrum of any direction to take horror films. With the long-winded defense of horror already established, let’s wrap it up with my favorite horror film of this decade so far. 

1. Laura Hasn’t Slept

        As of now, the horror genre is still in that golden age continuing from the 2010s. A24 and Neon studios have been releasing potential classics of their horror films. Of all the studios that are releasing their slate, Disney is the surprising one due to their acquisition of 20th Century Fox. The recent releases of the classic sci-fi horror franchises have reinvigorated new life as well as releasing some original films through Hulu. 

        Just the production history of the film is one of those rare wins for the studio where it practically caused a shockwave which I will get into in the legacy tab. Although it’s important to note that with Smile, it was originally going to be released straight to Paramount Plus. Surprisingly, the studio did a test screening and was impressed with the positive reaction that they pivoted from the small screen to the bigger one. For a film that cost just 15 million and went on to gross nearly 200 million is a success story regardless. 

        Lastly, this isn’t the first time director Parker Finn has tackled with an invisible threat. Prior to Paramount giving him the money to direct his feature debut, Finn had directed the short film Laura Hasn’t Slept. While it doesn’t have the basis of this film, it’s a precursor to have Finn expand more on the concept and to establish a whole new threat that is plaguing the main character. Instead of one recommendation you’ll get two, Laura Hasn’t Slept is a great companion piece to Smile. 

        So with all that, we follow Rose who’s a therapist who works at a psychiatric ward. She tries to help her new patient Laura who tells her she sees smiles everywhere and is in danger. Laura soon succumbs to the threat as she kills herself and displays a menacing grin at Rose. From there, Rose soon encounters the various grins as the invisible threat closes in on her. The film is straightforward from both a psychological angle and the supernatural angle to it. If there’s one thing where the film really exceeds is when it does a red herring so well. 

        Throughout the whole film, we follow Rose as she tries to lead a normal life but with how the camera operates and well what we don’t see, shows us that the actions that Rose does is seemingly normal until it isn’t. For instance, Rose goes to buy a present for her nephew for his birthday. We see that she’s wrapping the gift but after, she can’t find her pet cat. At the party, the level of shock and dread of what I saw just messed me up since her nephew opens the gift and scares everyone. I’ll give Finn credit where he’ll throw a curveball as showing us something innocuous but never giving us the full moment. 

        Everything is in Rose’s perspective; we see what she sees and it can be the most unsettling part due to how the smiles come in. It really is ingenious to have a facial expression that’s supposed to be positive and comforting be twisted into something where it spells imminent doom to the main character. It works in favor of the psychological angle due to this one plot point where her family has a history of mental illness. I feel that it would’ve been a copout to have that be the catalyst of Rose’s vision instead of the threat being very real. 

        In one way, that aspect works in favor of the film. Since it’s established that Rose’s family has that history, we know that her sister Holly believes that she is crazy due to how unbelievable her story with what she’s going through. And it’s dialed up even more as we have those moments where Rose is seemingly in control and to turn it upside down where this entity is portraying the people that Rose is talking to when they are not there in front of her. 

        I might as well talk about this new threat. Much like the thing from It Follows, we don’t have the faintest clue as to how this smiling threat comes from. Or which religion this creature is associated with. It’s seemingly unstoppable since Rose takes it upon herself and with her ex to find the connection among the past victims. I’m glad that there’s rules for this thing to at least not make it too unstoppable, albeit Rose can’t take it upon herself to pass on the thing to someone else. 

        With the films that I covered this month, most of them have a downer ending and I was not expecting or planning that. This one is no exception as we see that Rose tries to stop the demon but ultimately succumbs to it. The design is the most grotesque and freakish thing I’ve seen and it’s unreal how the puppetry and special effects manage to make it freakier than what it is. I would honestly believe that this film would be a one and done thing, but of course one would strike when the iron is hot. 

2. Legacy

        As I mentioned before, the film did phenomenal as far as it’s box office gross. Paramount made more money than they would had they decided to ship the film straight to streaming. In some way, I think it altered the trajectory to some horror films being featured in a theater first then released digitally. One example I can think of is when Disney released Prey on Hulu and it’s sci-fi cousin Alien: Romulus to theaters as a response to both Smile’s and Prey’s critical reception. 

        Of course, you’re aware that the film has a sequel that is already out and the word on it is that it’s a worthy sequel to this one. I haven’t seen it yet, but I can imagine that this new franchise will spawn a third entry that will either end the series or find some way to continue the smile demon’s onslaught. It’s very rare to start a franchise and one where it’s easy to step onto the holes that damage the franchise due to unoriginality or suck. I feel that Parker Finn will stick close to his guns with either finding a conclusive end or perhaps start a new horror entry. Either way, I’m hooked on him and I will love to see his career bloom. 

3. Overall

        Smile is the rare success film of the 2020s and easily one of the best horror film of the decade so far.