A low budget horror fest from which nobody expected much. Yet SMILE, bolstered by gimmick-based marketing that included the stationing of performers sporting creepy smiles at events promoting the film, was the movie of October 2022, handily beating out HALLOWEEN ENDS, which was supposed to be the season’s major horror hit.
SMILE was an expansion by writer-director Parker Finn of his 2020 short LAURA HASN’T SLEPT, which starred Caitlin Stasey as a young woman telling a psychiatrist about the nightmares she’s been suffering, only to realize that she’s currently trapped in just such a nightmare. In expanding his short to feature length Finn borrowed quite heavily from RINGU, as should be obvious by the following plot summary.
Caitlin Stasey reprises her LAURA HASN’T SLEPT role in SMILE.
Caitlin Stasey reprises her LAURA HASN’T SLEPT role in SMILE, which opens with her ranting to one Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) about an “it” that “wears people’s faces like masks.” The next thing Rose knows, her patient is staring at her with a creepy smile on her face and slashing her own throat. A day or so later Rose finds another patient named Carl (Jack Sochet) wearing the same ominous smile, before repeatedly shouting “You’re going to die!” and becoming quite aggressive. From there Rose loses touch with reality, becoming convinced she’s being stalked and inadvertently offering a present containing the corpse of her pet cat to a friend’s young son.
SMILE (Trailer)
Rose attempts to research her condition, uncovering a virus that (RINGU-like) is transmitted from person to person. The creepy smiles and violent behavior occur, it seems, a week after transmission—and by the time she makes this discovery Rose has but a day or two to go after first making contact with one of the afflictees.
LAURA HASNT SLEPT (Short Film)
In an era of mass shootings and widespread anxiety, it’s appropriate that SMILE, which pivots on insanity and reality displacement, should capture the cultural zeitgeist. Certainly there exist better, more artful examples of cinematic insanity (I wonder what 2022 audiences might have made of SHUTTER ISLAND), with Finn relying overmuch on loud jolts and a vast overabundance of it’s-only-a-dream reveals (in which category SMILE nearly outdoes THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE).
Yet the film boasts sleek visuals, burnished lighting and imaginatively wrought sound design, which combine to convey a brooding and ominous mood. Another undoubted asset is Sosie Bacon in the lead role.
Yet the film boasts sleek visuals, burnished lighting and imaginatively wrought sound design, which combine to convey a brooding and ominous mood. Another undoubted asset is Sosie Bacon in the lead role; an actress with longstanding industry connections (as evidenced by her last name), Ms. Bacon has a captivating screen presence and offers a convincing incarnation of sustained insanity. It’s not enough, though, to render this vastly overrated film worthwhile.
Vital Statistics
SMILE
Paramount Pictures/Temple Hill
Director: Parker Finn
Producer: Marty Bowen, Wyck Godfrey, Isaac Klausner, Robert Salerno
Screenplay: Parker Finn
Cinematography: Charlie Sarroff
Editing: Elliot Greenberg
Cast: Sosie Bacon, Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Robin Weigert, Caitlin Stasey, Kal Penn, Rob Morgan, Judy Reyes, Gillian Zinser,Jack Sochet, Nick Arapoglou, Perry Strong, Matthew Lamb, Dora Kiss, Meghan Brown Pratt, Jared Johnston