Miss Flicks

Smile: Film Review

I am such a scaredy cat when it comes to horrors and I wasn’t sure if Smile was going to be too much for me. But I gave it a go and it was an intense experience!

The film follows Rose (Sosie Bacon), a therapist working in an emergency psychiatric ward. One day, a patient is admitted as she is convinced she is being terrorised by an evil force that presents itself in people with creepy smiling faces. When the patient kills herself in front of Rose, the ‘curse’ moves onto her and she has mere days to find a way to stop the chain of deaths.

Smile is one of the most effective horrors I’ve seen this year. There are a few legitimate jump scares that got me good – and one, in particular, made me jump so hard that I had to laugh afterwards! The sound design is spot-on in these moments. Plus, there’s lots of horrifying imagery (some of which are quite bloody and violent) and a seriously intense and terrifying showdown that had me hiding behind my coat.

The scares increase in intensity as the film progresses and the tension builds and builds. It starts off as quite unsettling and unnerving but becomes genuinely quite nerve-shredding and stressful by the end. It can’t be scary all the time though because that wouldn’t be effective and we also need to have a story to become invested in. So naturally, as we’ve seen from many other films of this nature (It Follows, The Ring), we follow Rose as she learns the history of the curse and tries to find a way to break it. So there are a few lulls on the scare front but it usually resumes with a bang.

The script isn’t amazing and I’m not convinced that it portrays mental health in a positive light. Its handling of the subject is definitely questionable. Also, it feels repetitive at times because Rose has to keep insisting to everyone that she’s not crazy – something which falls on deaf ears with her fiance Trevor (Jessie T. Usher) and sister Holly (Gillian Zinser). There are also some ‘scary’ moments which are so OTT and ridiculous that I had to laugh, which I’m sure isn’t the intended reaction!

Regardless of what you think of the movie, there is no denying that Bacon (Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick‘s daughter) throws everything into her performance. She is so convincing as this haunted, on-edge woman who seems to be slowly descending into madness. I also loved Kal Penn as her kind boss and Kyle Gallner as her helpful ex-boyfriend Joel.

Smile is one of the most effectively creepy horrors I’ve seen this year. If you’re a horror fan, definitely check it out.

In cinemas from Wednesday 28th September