the smile horror movie review

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When the horror histories of the 2010s are written, the decade will be associated with trauma metaphors the way the ‘80s are with slasher movies. And although it comes on the cusp of a new decade, the new Paramount wide-release horror movie "Smile" fits right in with its PTSD-induced kin. The difference here is that the monster is barely a metaphor at all: The demon, or evil spirit, or whatever it is—the movie is vague on this point—literally feeds on, and is spread by, trauma.

Specifically, the vague something that dogs Dr. Rose Cotter ( Sosie Bacon ) throughout “Smile” likes the taste of people who have witnessed someone else dying by suicide—gruesome, painful, bloody suicide, by garden shears and oncoming trains and the shattered fragments of a ceramic vase in a hospital intake room. That’s where Rose briefly meets Laura ( Caitlin Stasey ), a PhD student who’s brought to the psychiatric emergency ward where Rose works, shaking and terrified that something is out to get her. “It looks like people, but it’s not a person,” Laura explains, saying that this thing has been following her ever since she witnessed one of her professors bludgeoning himself to death with a hammer four days earlier. At the end of the extended dialogue scene that opens the film, Laura turns to Rose with a psychotic grin on her face and proceeds to slit her own throat.

This would unsettle anyone, but it especially bothers Rose given that Rose’s own mother died by suicide many years earlier. That lingering trauma, and the fears and stigma that surround it, form the film’s most intelligent thematic thread: Rose’s fiance Trevor ( Jessie T. Usher ) admits that he’s researched inherited mental illness online, and harsh terms like “nutjobs,” “crazies,” and “head cases” are used to describe mentally ill people throughout the film. The idea that she might not actually be plagued by the same entity that killed Laura, and that her hallucinations, lost time, and emotional volatility might have an internal cause, seems to bother Rose more than the concept of being cursed. The people around Rose, including Trevor, her therapist Dr. Northcott ( Robin Weigert ), her boss Dr. Desai ( Kal Penn ), and her sister Holly (Gillian Zinzer), certainly seem to think the problem is more neurochemical than supernatural—that is, until it’s way too late. 

The only one who believes Rose is her ex, Joel ( Kyle Gallner ), a cop who’s been assigned to Laura’s case. Their tentative reunion opens the door to the film’s mystery element, which makes up much of “Smile’s” long, but not overly long, 115-minute run time. The film’s storyline follows many of your typical beats of a supernatural horror-mystery, escalating from a quick Google (the internet-age equivalent of a good old-fashioned library scene) to an in-person interview with a traumatized, incarcerated survivor of whatever this malevolent entity actually is. Brief reference is made to a cluster of similar events in Brazil, opening up the door to a sequel.

“Smile’s” greatest asset is its relentless, oppressive grimness: This is a film where children and pets are as vulnerable as adults, and the horror elements are bloody and disturbing to match the dark themes. This unsparing sensibility is enhanced by Bacon’s shaky, vulnerable performance as Rose: At one point, she screams at Trevor, “I am not crazy!,” then mumbles an apology and looks down at her shoes in shame. At another, her wan smile at her nephew’s birthday party stands as both a bleak counterpoint to the sick grin the entity’s victims see before they die (thus the film’s title), as well as a relatable moment for viewers who have reluctantly muddled their way through similar gatherings in the midst of a depressive episode. 

Sadly, despite a compelling lead and strong craft behind the camera—the color palette, in shades of lavender, pink, teal, and gray, is capably chosen and very of the moment—“Smile” is diminished by the sheer fact that it’s not as fresh a concept as it might seem. This is director Parker Finn ’s debut feature as a writer and director, based on a short film that won a jury award at SXSW 2020. To spin that into a non-franchise wide-release movie from a major studio like Paramount within two years—in a pandemic, no less!—is an impressive achievement, to be sure. 

But in padding out the concept from an 11-minute short into a nearly two-hour movie, “Smile” leans too heavily not only on formulaic mystery plotting, but also on horror themes and imagery lifted from popular hits like “ The Ring ” and “ It Follows .” David Robert Mitchell ’s 2014 film is an especially prominent, let’s say, influence on “Smile,” which, combined with its placement on the “it’s really about trauma” continuum, make this a less bracing movie experience than it might have been had it broken the mold more aggressively. It does introduce Finn as a capable horror helmer, one with a talent for an elegantly crafted jump scare and a knack for making a viewer feel uneasy and upset as they exit the theater—both advantages for a film like this one. But fans excited to see an “original” horror film hitting theaters should temper those expectations. 

This review was filed from the premiere at Fantastic Fest on September 23rd. It opens on September 30th.

Katie Rife is a freelance writer and critic based in Chicago with a speciality in genre cinema. She worked as the News Editor of  The A.V. Club  from 2014-2019, and as Senior Editor of that site from 2019-2022. She currently writes about film for outlets like  Vulture, Rolling Stone, Indiewire, Polygon , and  RogerEbert.com.

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Film Credits

Smile (2023)

Rated R for strong violent content and grisly images, and language.

115 minutes

Sosie Bacon as Dr. Rose Cotter

Kyle Gallner as Joel

Caitlin Stasey as Laura Weaver

Jessie T. Usher as Trevor

Rob Morgan as Robert Talley

Kal Penn as Dr. Morgan Desai

Robin Weigert as Dr. Madeline Northcott

• Parker Finn

Cinematographer

• Charlie Sarroff
• Elliot Greenberg
• Cristobal Tapia de Veer

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‘Smile’ Review: The Demons Grin Back at You in a Horror Movie With a Highly Effective Creep Factor

A therapist looks like she's losing her mind in a shocker that puts a happy face on trauma.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

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“ Smile ” is a horror film that sets up nearly everything — its highly effective creep factor, its well-executed if familiar shock tactics, its interlaced theme of trauma and suicide — before the opening credits. In an emergency psych ward, Dr. Rose Cotter ( Sosie Bacon ), a diligent and devoted therapist, is speaking to a woman who sounds like her soul went to hell and never made it back. Her name is Laura (Caitlin Stasey), and she describes, in tones that remain rational despite her tremulous panic, the visions she’s been seeing that no one else can.

Popular on Variety

The smile, as a signifier of maniacal fear, goes back a long way. Just think of Jack-’o-lanterns and the Joker, or the leer that flashed across the mottled face of Linda Blair’s Regan MacNeil, or the rictus grins in a movie like “Insidious” or the movie that inspired it, the great 1962 low-budget freak-show classic “Carnival of Souls.” In “Smile,” the first-time writer-director Parker Finn, drawing on films like “Hereditary” and “It Follows” and “The Strangers,” turns the human smile into a spooky vector of the shadow world of evil. The movie has a shivery quality that I, for one, thought “Black Phone” lacked. Yet I wish “Smile” were more willing to be…suggestive.

If you’re haunted by visions of people smiling at you, but no one else sees them, the world is going to think you’re crazy, and much of the drama in “Smile” revolves around Rose looking like a therapist who’s lost her mind. Sosie Bacon, who’s like a taut neurasthenic Geneviève Bujold, creates an impressive spectrum of anxiety, tugging the audience into her nightmare. It makes sense that Rose, teaming up with her police-officer ex-boyfriend (Kyle Gallner), turns herself into an investigator, because that’s what therapists are (at least the good ones). And she’s got a primal trauma of her own: the suicide of her mother, which we glimpse in the film’s opening moments. “Smile” lifts, from “Hereditary,” the idea that the emotional and psychological demons that are passed down through families are our own real-life ghosts. But in this case it’s a megaplex metaphor: literal, free of nuance, illustrated (at the climax) with a demon who sheds her skin, all the better to get inside yours.

There’s a good scene set at Rose’s nephew’s seventh birthday party, where the usual tuneless singing of “Happy Birthday” melts the film into a trance, and the kid unwraps a present that stops the party dead in its tracks. But I would have liked to see three more scenes this dramatic — especially in a movie that lasts 115 minutes. “Smile” will likely be a hit, because it’s a horror film that delivers without making you feel cheated. At 90 minutes, though, with less repetition, it might have been a more ingenious movie. (And why is “Lollipop,” the 1958 hit by the Chordettes, played over the closing credits? It’s one of my favorite songs, but it has zero connection to anything in the movie.) Yet let’s give “Smile” credit for taking a deep dive into the metaphysics of smile horror. The nature of a smile is that it draws you into a connection with the person who’s smiling. That’s why the forces who come after Rose are more than just bogeywomen. That’s why it feels like they’re meant for her.

Reviewed at Regal Union Square, Sept. 26, 2022. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 115 MIN.

• Production: A Paramount Pictures release, in association with Paramount Players, of a Temple Hill Entertainment production. Producers: Marty Bowen, Wyck Godfrey, Isaac Klausner, Robert Salerno. Executive producer: Adam Fishbach.
• Crew: Director, screenplay: Parker Finn. Camera: Charlie Sarroff. Editor: Eeliott  Greenberg. Music: Cristobal “Christo” Tapia de Veer.
• With: Sosie Bacon, Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Robert Weigert, Caitlin Stasey, Kal Penn, Rob Morgan.

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‘Smile’ Review: Grab and Grin

A young psychiatrist believes she’s being pursued by a malevolent force in this impressive horror feature debut.

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By Jeannette Catsoulis

A relentlessly somber, precision-tooled picture whose frights only reinforce the wit of its premise, “Smile” turns our most recognizable sign of pleasure into a terrifying rictus of pain.

And pain is something that Rose (Sosie Bacon), a young clinical psychiatrist, understands, having witnessed her mother’s suicide many years earlier. So when a hysterical patient (Caitlin Stasey) claims that she’s being stalked by a murderous, shape-shifting entity — and that this specter appeared only after she saw an acquaintance brutally kill himself — Rose is immediately empathetic. What happens next is so horrifying it will not only resurrect old terrors but engender new ones, destabilizing Rose and everyone close to her.

Increasingly convinced that she, too, is going to die in some horrible fashion, Rose is plagued by gruesome memories, nightmarish hallucinations and lost stretches of time. Her friends and family — including a distracted sister (Gillian Zinser), distant fiancé (Jessie T. Usher) and concerned supervisor (Kal Penn) — presume psychological damage. Only her ex-boyfriend (Kyle Gallner), a sympathetic police detective, is willing to help her research anyone who might have had a similar experience. And, crucially, survived.

In its thematic use of unprocessed trauma and, especially, its presentation of death as a kind of viral infection passed from one person to another, “Smile” embraces an immediately recognizable horror-movie setup. In the past, this has centered on cursed pieces of technology, like the videotape in “The Ring” (2002 ) and the cellphone in “One Missed Call” (2005) . Here, though, death is dealt simply by witnessing an act, and in that sense the movie’s closest cousin may be David Robert Mitchell’s immensely creepy “It Follows” (2015) . In that film, the malevolent virus was transferred through sex; here, the medium is suicide, and the bloodier the better.

Yet this first feature from the writer and director Parker Finn (expanding his 2020 short film, “Laura Hasn’t Slept”) doesn’t feel like a retread: Even the familiar luckless pet seems included more as a wink-wink to the audience than a lazy crib. The jump scares are shockingly persuasive, gaining considerable oomph from Tom Woodruff Jr.’s imaginative practical effects and Charlie Sarroff’s tipsy camera angles. An unexpected color palette sets a dolorous tone without being suffocatingly gloomy, and Bacon’s performance , both shaky and determined, ensures that the very real agony of mental illness and its stigmatization register as strongly as any supernatural pain. Like the emotional injury they represent, the smiles in “Smile” are — in one case, quite literally — bleeding wounds that can’t be stanched.

Smile Rated R for scary teeth and shocking deaths. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. In theaters.

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‘Smile’ Is Pure, Uncut Arthouse Horror With a Grin (and a Killer Gimmick)

• By David Fear

You have to admire a commitment to a bit, especially if you’re a film like Smile and in the possession of a simple, genius, creepier-than-thou conceit. Let’s cut to the chase: Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) is a therapist working in the psychiatric wing of a hospital. A patient comes in and says that, even since she witnessed her college professor take his own life, she’s been seeing…something only she can see. “It’s not a person,” the young woman says, though whatever “it” is, the entity seems to take the appearance of both strangers and loved ones. “It’s like it wears people’s faces like masks.” She hears voices, too — and these voices have been telling her that she’s going to die very soon.

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The one thing that truly is surprising in Parker’s impressive first movie — here’s hoping that there are many more to come — is the studio logo that opens it. He’s made a scary movie that balances psychological shock therapy with old-fashioned fright, shadowy dread with blunt splatterfest FX, an artsy-fartsy sense of stylistics slapped on to a twisty B-movie scenario. It may open with Paramount name slapped on the beginning, but this is textbook A24 horror by any other name. A cynic might think this is another example of a corporate behemoth trying to suck the life blood out of a successful formula concocted in an indie-boutique lab, but we prefer to think of it as spreading the arthouse-spookiness gospel via different avenues. Curses get passed on like viruses. So do blessings.

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Smile Reviews

It's not the most original film of recent years... [but] it uses a familiar box of tricks rather well.

Full Review | Jan 3, 2024

If the sight of a person grinning like an idiot is enough to unnerve you, then you might well be the target audience for Smile -- me, I’ll stick with Jack Nicholson’s Joker for my maniacal grimaces.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 28, 2023

“Smile” works on its own terms immersed with Cotter, wound too tight and with people closest to her turning superficial and nonreciprocating; the care and support she shows them and others is unavailable to her.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 16, 2023

Smile got right under my skin in a way I didn’t expect… anxiety inducing moments, & an a completely unhinged performance from Sosie Bacon! This movie really will make you afraid of smiles

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

Smile is nothing revolutionary, but it is creepy, and sometimes that’s enough. It’s more memorable than any recent iteration of Paranormal Activity and will certainly be a hit at sleepovers.

Full Review | Jul 24, 2023

There were some aspects that were interesting but a lot of moments made me roll my eyes. The last twenty minutes got my attention but it was too little, too late at that point.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 30, 2023

I did not have fun watching this. Relying too much on jump scares and not enough pay-off.

Don’t look away. Just keep smiling through it.

Full Review | Apr 25, 2023

Smile shows itself as a strange mixture of goldsmithing and cheap jewelry: the more unconscious it is of its own message and the further it is from giving its monsters a total shape (physical or metaphorical), the closer it is to saying something real.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Apr 25, 2023

... Its formal technique transforms a film full of clichés into an average story that manages to make an impact at the right moments. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Mar 20, 2023

Even with the similarities to other films in mind, Smile proves itself to be its own beast of a horror.

Full Review | Jan 28, 2023

Finn uses the strength of his conceit to turn the screws, raising tension through the Ring-like timeline Rose faces and the sheer relentlessness of her supernatural tormentor.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 19, 2022

Building a horror film that feels both familiar and invigorating at the same time, Finn’s Smile delivers enough chills to satisfy.

Full Review | Dec 15, 2022

I watched the entire movie through my fingers. Starring Sosie Bacon her constant panic is operatic. She was terrifying in her out-of-control hysteria.

Full Review | Dec 5, 2022

Smile is an intense horror film dealing with survivor’s guilt that exceeds all expectations. By the film’s end, I found my palms sweating — something I’d never experienced.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 30, 2022

A bone-rattling, brain-flipping chiller sure to be ranked highly by true fans of the genre.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 30, 2022

We see and hear the stifling moods of fear and frustration Finn can evoke and we wish they weren’t yoked to such a nothing-special story.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Nov 22, 2022

I think I can speak for all of us when I say, no one expected Smile to be quite as good as it turned out to be, but it’s such a joy to watch a truly exciting new horror film on the big screen.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 19, 2022

Finn is a strong visual director, tilting and pivoting the camera and using shadows, upsetting bits of body horror and distortion effects to generate some potent atmosphere. But he struggles in other ways...

Full Review | Nov 16, 2022

A disturbing and visceral descent into a chilling and tragic nightmare. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Nov 9, 2022

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‘smile’ review: sosie bacon stars in a genuinely frightening horror debut.

The actress leads Parker Finn's film about a woman haunted and hunted by her trauma, co-starring Kyle Gallner, Robin Weigert and Kal Penn.

By Lovia Gyarkye

Lovia Gyarkye

Arts & Culture Critic

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Parker Finn ’s disquieting debut Smile transforms a congenial gesture into a threat. Smiles — warm and inviting by nature — mask deeper, more troubling intentions in this harrowing film about a demonic spirit that latches on to its victims’ traumas. The adage about grinning through hard times here takes on a sinister tone. 

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Rose supplies understanding nods in response to this information, but it’s clear to Laura that the doctor isn’t listening. She’s forming a diagnosis, searching for professional language to rationalize her new patient’s palpable fear. Suddenly, Laura is muted by an unseen entity. The frenzied atmosphere conjured by the young woman’s pleas gives way to a disturbing silence. Laura grabs a shard of a broken ceramic vase and slices her flesh open. The camera (the DP is Charlie Sarroff) doesn’t flinch in the face of this suicide, which is soundtracked by Rose’s blood-curdling screams; it moves in, steadily meditating on the lacerated skin. 

Smile is filled with grim scenes like this one, unnerving sequences that lodge themselves into your psyche as you follow Rose’s panicked, and sometimes labored, adventure. The film, which works in the same supernatural and psychic traditions as The Ring , relishes in fashioning frightening kills and setting a menacing mood. Lester Cohen’s production design, marked by a calculated austerity, builds serene scenes just waiting to be disturbed. Meanwhile, Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s score creeps throughout the narrative, adding depth to already ghastly corporeal sounds — teeth gnawing on nails, labored breathing, bones breaking.

Finn and Sarroff portray Rose’s heightened mental state and increasing insecurity with a whimsical visual language. Upside-down shots, quick flashes that translate as tricks of the eye and a predilection for close-ups firmly place us in Rose’s perspective. The film never lets up on the anxiety, using the stomach-churning, heart-racing feeling of an anxious spiral to sustain viewers.

Smile ’s screenplay, which Finn wrote, confidently sketches Rose, but doesn’t demonstrate the same assurance when it comes to other characters like her fiancé, Trevor (Jesse T. Usher). The gallery of supporting figures struggles to shake off its utilitarian impression. Then there’s the reliance on pop psychology — lines that feel culled directly from a social media post diagnosing banal habits as trauma responses — that make the scenes between Rose and her patients or Rose and her own therapist ( Robin Weigert ) feel unbelievable.

Some of these contrivances can be ignored as Rose grows increasingly desperate. Bacon deftly transforms the character before our eyes: The once poised and coolheaded doctor unravels as the gravity of her situation dawns on her. She tries to explain her experience to Trevor and her sister, Holly (Gillian Zinser), and attempts to get a prescription for anxiety medication from her therapist, who feeds her platitudes about the nature of trauma. 

For all its wandering in predictable territory, Smile could easily have been consigned to the mounting pile of contemporary work exploring trauma; clichés about hurt people hurting others and healing one’s inner child do at times claw their way to center stage here. But the movie also teases a far more interesting truth about the lengths people will go to in order to distance themselves from mental disorders or perceived instability.

Rose, just like Laura before her, insists that she isn’t crazy. She rejects the loaded term, which, along with its metonyms, gets thrown around a number of times. But when she tries to confide in her loved ones, they avoid her reality and instead attempt to apply familiar labels to her experience. Her boss ( Kal Penn ) spews pithy statements about mental health and employee happiness, her fiancé harshly wonders what this will mean for his life, and her sister compares Rose to their mother, who also suffered from mental disorders and committed suicide. They stop listening and, therefore, stop seeing Rose — leaving her to face her demons alone. 

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‘Smile’ Review: Parker Finn’s Supernatural Take on Trauma Will Make You Grimace and Grin

Marisa mirabal.

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The phrase “ smile through the pain” takes on a menacing new meaning in “Smile,” as Parker Finn uses an internationally recognized symbol of happiness to elicit fear and evil as part of the film’s exploration of trauma. A smile is nothing more than a mask, and the real horror arises from the true intention behind it.

Sosie Bacon stars as Rose Cotter, a doctor who works in an emergency psychiatric unit and has carried a heavy burden since she witnessed her mother’s suicide at ten years old. Her mental health begins to deteriorate after she assesses a young woman named Laura (Caitlin Stasey) who is brought in for witnessing a suicide. Frantic and begging for someone to believe her, Laura tells Rose that she is being taunted by a being that only she can see; one that smiles and changes its appearance all while delivering a death threat. She then kills herself right in front of a frozen Rose, who later discovers that whatever entity influenced this patient has now latched itself onto her.

Finn fleshes out Rose’s character with backstories and glimpses into the relationships with her boss, her mother, her fiance, and her older sister. Rose’s emotional turmoil is visually engrossing as a result of Bacon’s impressively frenetic performance. As Rose grapples with disturbing hallucinations and the inability to trust those around her, she fluctuates between moments of mania and disconnection. This spectrum of vulnerable paranoia and fear allows Finn to tackle the multilayered complexity of mental health as Rose attempts to convince those around her that what she is experiencing is real.

While this is a tiresome (although realistic) trope in horror, these rapidly changing emotional states allow Bacon’s acting to shine. Feeling alone, despite the care from her therapist (Robin Weigert), Rose finds a sliver of solace in a police officer and former flame, Joel (Kyle Gallner), who helps her piece together the unsettling lineage of this supernatural being’s victims. While the specifics of the monster are hidden, its execution method and purpose are both revealed within a storyline that is sadly traditional and insipid in its structure.

In order to convey Rose’s mental and emotional downward spiral, Finn utilizes an array of strong camera angles that suggest the lack of consistency in her newfound reality. Slowly rotating the camera ninety degrees, inverting the camera completely upside down, invasive close-up shots on the characters’ faces, and beautiful aerial shots all provide an ominous tone with the eerie feeling of being studied and hunted.

The minimalist production design, courtesy of Lester Cohen, focuses on the horrific mental state of its characters instead of painting a typical horror film aesthetic with gothic or dark features. However, there are certain color palettes that nicely symbolize the instability of Rose’s inner mind and physical surroundings. For example, the hospital where she works dons light pink walls (a nod to an old study that found the shade Bake-Miller Pink to reduce aggression) while Rose often wears blue outfits, a color often representing sadness

The plot of “Smile” is exhaustingly reminiscent of other horror predecessors such as “It Follows,” “The Ring,” “Oculus,” and even “Final Destination.” Finn elaborates on a contagious approach to death by factoring in trauma and how grief and depression can have a ripple effect, but the story does not entirely feel like its own beast. To enhance the film’s already heavily pronounced themes, composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer creates a strong soundscape of playfulness and dread which perfectly compliments the juxtaposition used throughout the film’s 116 minute running time.

The sound design and music are as unnerving as the graphic death scenes, but unfortunately come with excessive amounts of jump scares. And the special effects team from Amalgamated Dynamics constructs truly searing imagery that will both shock and delightfully disgust, especially in the third act. Their grisly prosthetic work and creative monster design have a corporeal surrealism which will have horror fans grinning from ear to ear.

“Smile” navigates unhealed trauma through a supernatural lens and mischievous juxtaposition, despite feeling like a shadow of other stories. With rare moments of dark comedy and irony, he is able to expose the forceful nature of society’s expectation to be happy and presentable despite the suffering that may lurk under one’s skin. Overall, “Smile” delivers a captivating and claustrophobic mental hellscape that will cause one to both grimace and grin.

Paramount will release “Smile” in theaters on Friday, September 30.

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Smile Should Smile More

Smile has such a visually powerful concept that it might take a while before you realize the movie is blowing it. After all, what’s more menacing than someone intently staring at you with a big, toothy, frozen, creepy smile? Parker Finn’s debut horror feature, which he based on his own 2020 short film, Laura Hasn’t Slept , recognizes this basic, uncanny concept. And initially, it delivers: Early on, the film is filled with plastered smiles, and Finn uses the motif in interesting ways. Then the inspiration vanishes and Smile settles into the wan, pro forma genre-flick form it so astutely evaded early on.

The premise is generic horror, but the execution, at first, is anything but. The film follows Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), a young doctor working for an emergency psychiatric unit, who one day meets with a highly agitated patient who has witnessed the grisly suicide of her college professor. The professor, we’re told, had an eerie smile on his face before killing himself. Then, sure enough, the patient suddenly starts to grin creepily before promptly slitting her own throat. Rose is spooked, and it’s not long before she starts seeing terrifying visions of smiles and sinister figures lurking in the dark corners of her house. (There’s some sort of buried trauma in her life involving the death of her mother, so we know that will figure into the proceedings eventually.)

The terrifying smile is, of course, not a new idea for the genre: Paul Leni’s 1928 drama The Man Who Laughs worked the motif so effectively that the film was retroactively classified as horror and wound up influencing any number of proper genre flicks. (It also inspired the Joker.) And although Leni’s picture was based on a Victor Hugo novel, this is an inherently cinematic concept. A film built around smiles — in particular a specific type of smile — has to be able to use the human face well.

Smile , for a while, does exactly that. Bacon stands out in particular. The daughter of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, she’s a terrific actor, but there’s a certain malleability to her visage, which director Finn embraces visually. When she’s at work, made up and put together, Rose seems cool and delicately featured. As the story proceeds, the makeup disappears, furrows appear on her brow and bags under her eyes, and Finn seems to shoot her with wider lenses and harsher light — as if to exaggerate her features. Some sort of increased agitation like this is nothing new in horror, of course, but here, the transformation is so extreme that it captures the imagination. It suggests that Rose becomes a different person when she no longer has to put on the proverbial face.

For a film called Smile , which is all about repressed memories and buried horrors, this is a fascinating stylistic idea. And on the evidence solely of the first half hour or so of this movie, Finn will surely be a director to watch. Direct close-ups, with characters basically looking straight at the camera, both add to the unsettling tone of the picture and focus our attention on the slightest movements of their faces. To put it another way, the film teaches us how to watch it. That’s a nifty accomplishment. If only the film didn’t eventually forget its own lessons.

Even a basic glance at the plot gives you some idea of where it’s all headed, although it takes an agonizingly long time before our heroine realizes that she’s being It Follows -ed by smiles — that this is a chain of viral hauntings with each carrier witnessing one ghastly suicide, then, soon enough, unwittingly committing their own. (This is only a spoiler if you happen to be a character in the movie.) Even more irritating is the fact that nobody around Rose — not the doctors, her ex-boyfriend the cop (Kyle Gallner), her seemingly helpful fiancé (Jessie T. Usher), nor her busybody sister (Gillian Zinser) — seems capable of putting two and two together despite the fact that all these suicides appear to be happening in a fairly small community and are well documented. Everybody is so conveniently lunkheaded. Meanwhile, as Rose gradually loses her grip on reality, the film devolves into a series of dream visions, each of which serves to make what’s happening onscreen less and less interesting. (Every time something suspenseful or scary was interrupted to show Rose waking up in her car or whatever, a little piece of me died.)

These are, perhaps, minor narrative gripes. Horror is the one genre in which the audience is allowed to be one step ahead of the characters and things are allowed to not always make sense. But in Smile , it often feels like we’re one whole act ahead of everybody, and that can lead to tedium. More important, the real disappointment comes in the way that the film discards its visual principles and its most exciting conceit: Smile all but abandons the whole smile thing. That feels downright unforgivable.

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Smile director Parker Finn unpacks the movie’s many endings

‘Horror audiences have gotten so savvy, so I tried to put myself in their shoes’

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Share All sharing options for: Smile director Parker Finn unpacks the movie’s many endings

In some ways, Parker Finn’s feature debut Smile is a standard horror movie, where a central character (hospital therapist Rose, played by Sosie Bacon) falls prey to a supernatural phenomenon and spends most of the movie dealing with the increasingly terrifying battle to understand, resist, and survive what’s happening to her.

But Smile takes an unusual tack at the end, with Finn’s script going in directions designed to shake off horror fans who think they can see the twists coming. After the movie’s world premiere at Austin’s Fantastic Fest, Polygon sat down with Finn and asked him to walk through the movie’s ending: What went into it on a practical level, how to interpret what we see on screen, and why he left out one detail that seems particularly significant.

[ Ed. note: Ending spoilers ahead for Smile .]

How does the movie Smile end?

Rose first learns about the smiling monster that takes over her life when a distraught young woman named Laura Weaver (Caitlin Stasey) is brought to Rose’s hospital in a state of near-hysteria. Laura explains that she’s been seeing an “entity” no one else can see, a creature with a horrible smile that sometimes appears to her in the guise of other people she knows, alive or dead. Then Laura collapses screaming, clearly something over her shoulder that Rose can’t see. As Rose calls for help, Laura stands up calmly smiling, and slits her own throat.

From that moment on, Rose keeps seeing Laura, in public and private, smiling at her. She has visions and nightmares that feature other people she knows, smiling and screaming at her. Rose tells other people about the entity, including her fiancé Trevor (Jessie T. Usher) and her sister Holly (Gillian Zinser), but they believe she’s having delusions brought on by the stress and trauma of Laura’s death. Eventually, Rose and her ex, a policeman named Joel (Kyle Gallner) discover a chain of similarly grotesque suicides stretching back into the past. The pattern suggests that the entity haunts someone until they’re deeply traumatized, then forces them to kill themselves in front of a witness, who is traumatized by the death. Then the entity starts over with its new victim.

Rose and Joel find one person who broke the chain and survived, by grotesquely murdering someone else in front of a witness and passing the entity on to that witness. That sets up a few likely possibilities for the end: Rose can either sacrifice someone else to survive, like Naomi Watts’ character Rachel does with a similar passed-on curse in The Ring ; she can fail to break the curse and the entity can win, meaning Rose dies in front of someone else who takes on the trauma; or she can find another way to confront and fight the creature.

In the end, Smile has all three of those endings. Rose brutally stabs a terrified patient to death at her hospital in front of her screaming boss, Morgan (Kal Penn). But that turns out to be a dream she’s having while passed out in her car in front of the hospital, and she flees the hospital and Morgan in horror.

Then she drives to her abandoned, disintegrating childhood home, where her addict mother died of an overdose — which Rose potentially could have prevented if she’d called an ambulance as her mother begged her to do, instead of fleeing in fear. The original repressed trauma and guilt over her mother’s death is what drew the smiling entity to her in the first place. Rose faces the creature first in the form of her mother, then in the form of a giant, spindly creature. But she forgives herself for failing to help her mother when she was 10 years old, and sets the creature and the house on fire, symbolizing her willingness to finally let go of the past.

But when she returns to Joel to apologize for pushing him away when they were dating, and admit that he scared her because he was getting past her psychological barriers, he reveals himself as the entity again. Rose realizes she’s still at her childhood home, and never actually fought the entity or left — the entire confrontation she experienced was another one of the creature’s hallucinations. Joel arrives, and Rose runs from him, recognizing that the creature means for him to witness her forced suicide and become its next victim.

Inside the house, the tall, spindly creature rips its face off, revealing something raw and glistening with a series of toothy grins all down its face. Then it forces Rose’s mouth open and crawls inside her. When Joel breaks into the house, he just sees Rose, dumping kerosene on herself and turning to smile at him. She sets herself on fire and dies, completing the chain and setting Joel up as the creature’s next prey.

What does the end of Smile mean?

Smile suggests there are many ways of dealing with trauma, by passing it on ( as abuse victims often do by abusing others ), coming to terms with it, or collapsing under its weight. But Finn says the intention with the nested series of fake-out endings was to get ahead of an audience that might have been trying to get ahead of the movie.

“Horror audiences have gotten so savvy, so I tried to put myself in their shoes,” he says. “What would I be expecting? What would I be anticipating? And I tried to subvert that and do something that might catch them off-guard, and kind of flip them on their heads.”

At the same time, the “It was all a dream” ending is a notorious fake-out in movies, so Finn had to make sure he justified that route early on, by making it clear that the creature could provoke elaborate hallucinations in its victims — and that it specifically used those visions to manipulate their behavior and heighten their fear.

“The movie all along teaches you how to watch it, and teaching that you can’t trust Rose’s perception,” Finn says. “It’s in the DNA of the movie to mess with the viewer a little. So I wanted to really pay that off with how the movie ends, how what might feel like an ending might not be an ending. I leaned into that. From early on, I knew I was always interested in following the story to its worst logical conclusion. But I also wanted to have an emotional catharsis. So I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. Hopefully [the ending] delivers on that.”

Finn says he’s looking forward to viewers picking the movie apart, asking questions about what’s real and what isn’t. “But I also really love the idea that if something is happening in your mind, it doesn’t matter if it’s real or not,” he says. “For that person, the experience is real.”

What happened to Rose’s father?

The film’s opening sequence pans across a series of portraits of Rose’s family, with her mother, father, and her sister Holly all happy together. Then Rose’s father disappears from the pictures. It’s unclear whether he died or abandoned the family. Viewers could theorize that whatever happened to him set off Rose’s mother’s decay and led her to spiral into depression and addiction — but it could just as well be possible that he fled because he couldn’t deal with what was happening to her and how her mental health was breaking down. Finn says it was important to him to leave it as an open question.

“I wanted Smile to pretty much be a mother-daughter story. There’s so much in the idea of [Rose’s] isolation, of it being just her and her mom, alone. I like that there’s the tiniest hint that there was a father, clearly, at some point, but it’s deliberately ambiguous.”

Finn says that too much detail about what happened to Rose’s father might have shaped viewers’ expectations or responses in ways that he didn’t want to bring into the story. “I didn’t want it to have undue influence,” he says. “Just the absence, that was the important thing to me — that the absence spoke volumes and really amplified the mother-daughter relationship.”

Connections between Smile and a short that inspired it

Finn previously made a short movie set in the same world, Laura Hasn’t Slept , which was meant to debut at SXSW in 2020. The festival that year was one of the first events to be shut down due to the spread of COVID-19, but Finn was still able to make a deal with Paramount to make Smile based on the strength of that short.

Unlike some short films that evolve into features, Laura Hasn’t Slept doesn’t tell the same story as Smile . “I like to think of them as like spiritual siblings,” Finn says. “Pieces of DNA from the short film are threaded through the feature, and little Easter eggs here and there. And then Caitlin Stasey, who plays Laura Weaver in Smile , is the titular Laura in Laura Hasn’t Slept as well.

“While the two roles, there’s a parallel running through them, they go in quite different directions. So I think it’s very fun. I’d be curious for people who have seen the feature first to go back and watch the short. They might see how the feature could almost be a sequel to the short.”

Audiences currently can’t see Laura Hasn’t Slept — it isn’t available for streaming or purchase at all — but Finn expects that to change soon.

“Paramount’s got it,” he says. “It will be coming back into the world soon. I think they’re gonna try to make sure that it’s out there and accessible in a lot of different ways.”

Will there be a Smile 2?

Finn doesn’t immediately have an idea for a sequel, at least not one he wants to admit to. “I wanted the movie to really exist for its own sake,” he says. “I wanted to tell this character’s story. That was what was really important to me. I think there’s a lot of fun to be had in the world of Smile . But certainly as a filmmaker, I never want to retread anything I’ve already done. So if there was ever to be more of Smile , I’d want to make sure it was something unexpected, and different than what Smile is.”

Instead, he’s currently developing other horror projects. “I’m working on a few different things, but nothing I’m talking about yet,” he says. “But genre and horror is always my first love. And I want to make genre films that are character-driven, that are doing some sort of exploration of the human condition, and the scary things about being a human being. That’s the stuff I really love. And if I can take that and twist it up with some sort of extraordinary genre element, that’s the lane I want to live in.”

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Smile review: A cruelly scary studio horror movie

The alarm has been tripped. The backdoor is wide open. And who or whatever’s impersonating the security-system operator on the other end of the phone line has just croaked three words that no horror movie character would ever want to hear: “Look behind you.” The command puts Rose (Sosie Bacon), the increasingly petrified heroine of Smile , between a rock and a hard place. She has to look, even if every fiber of her being would rather not. And so does the audience. We’re locked into her campfire crucible, forced to follow the hesitant backward tilt of her gaze, and the anticipatory creep of a camera that’s slow to reveal what that disembodied voice has invited her (and us) to discover.

Smile is full of moments like this. It’s a nasty, diabolically calibrated multiplex scream machine — the kind of movie that sends ripples of nervous laughter through packed theaters, the kind that marionettes the whole crowd into a synchronized dance routine of frazzled nerves and spilled popcorn. Turn up your nose, if you must, at the lowly cheap sting of a jump scare. Smile gives that maligned device a workout for the ages. It rattles with aplomb.

The first big shock arrives before the delayed opening credits, at the emergency psychiatric ward where Rose works as a therapist. A patient, quaking with fear, screams of being haunted by a malevolent force. And then the distraught woman seizures into a blankly beaming trance state, as if dosed with Joker toxin, and methodically cuts a gushing wound across her throat to match her ear-to-ear smile. It’s a horrible thing to witness, and Rose isn’t just shaken by the incident. She’s cursed by it, too, as her own life is slowly invaded by a ghoulishly grinning psychological phantom — an unholy aftershock of tragedy that only she can see, and which can take the form of people she knows and loves.

Genre buffs will now note that the premise echoes one of the great horror movies of the new millennium, David Robert Mitchell’s dreamily sinister suburban creepshow It Follows . (Here, again, are figures planted in the ominous distance, and stretches of unoccupied background space you begin to fear will soon be occupied.) That’s not the only corpse Smile scavenges. The film also picks from the bones of The Ring , the Elm Street movies, and Drag Me to Hell , and even disposable Blumhouse junk like Truth or Dare . Yet from these leftovers, it cobbles together a satisfying meal; scares that are this fiendishly effective are scarcely diminished by knowing what inspired them.

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Expanding his acclaimed 11-minute short, Laura Hasn’t Slept , into a full first feature, writer-director Parker Finn establishes a prodigious talent for riding our nervous systems like a rollercoaster. He’s internalized and nearly mastered a lot of tricks of the trade: foreboding establishing shots that peer from a severe overhead vantage or turn the world on its seasick head; transitional cuts so hard and sharp they approximate someone lurching out of a nightmare. Smile has little mercy. It jolts with electrical precision. At the same time, Finn varies the tactics, knowing when to take less crude routes under our skin. There’s a birthday party scene that distorts the cheerful serenading into a spooky reverberating incantation, before unwrapping a very sadistic surprise. And the great character actor Rob Morgan drops by for a terrific one-scene cameo that proves how much simulated terror can goose the real kind; his raw emotion is insidiously infectious.

Plotwise, the whole thing’s rather stock. It has its clunky, obligatory elements, including a lopsided love triangle that just fills up space between superlative bursts of funhouse mayhem. And the story eventually shades into one of those amateur expository investigations horror heroines so often embark upon, as Rose traces back a string of suicides, uncovering what the audience will figure out a few reels earlier. Will it surprise anyone to learn that the real monster of this 2022 monster movie is trauma itself? In Smile , that cobwebbed conclusion moves from subtext to explicit text: The threat, rather literally, is PTSD as a transmissive hex, while the climax hinges very bluntly on confronting demons of a personal, childhood variety. Yet Finn hasn’t put the cart before the horse, as some highfalutin horror films from the past decade have. He’s made a mainstream fright flick too genuinely, unpretentiously scary to be confused for a therapeutic exercise.

Maybe too darkly funny, too. There’s a touch of midnight-black humor to a mental health professional stubbornly rationalizing her supernatural misfortune. Rose has, after all, been on the other side of such paranoia. What would she tell a patient seeing visions after a traumatic experience? Bacon, daughter of Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon, finds the drama and the comedy of this ordeal. Her Rose has an amusing habit of managing her mounting distress, tagging a sheepish “Sorry” onto the end of each freak-out.

Smile ends up drawing some grim conclusions. It’s “actually about trauma” in a rather unsparing way, with little interest in regurgitating comfortingly cathartic platitudes. One might even identify, in its apocalyptic haunted-house climax, a cruel rebuttal to the Babadook Recovery Plan. But if this studio shocker ultimately proves a bitter pill to swallow, it’s been sugarcoated in almost joyously energetic craft, the plain delight Finn takes in dousing us all in gallons of premium goosebump fuel. Horror fans, at least, will walk out with an exaggerated rictus of their own.

Smile opens in theaters everywhere Friday, September 30 . For more of A.A. Dowd’s writing, please visit his  Authory page .

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Since its release nearly a decade ago, the film has become one of the most beloved foreign films ever to come to America, and it's easy to see why. Here are three reasons you should be sure to check it out on Prime Video before it leaves at the end of March: It's a horror movie and an action movie Train to Busan Official Trailer 1 (2016) - Yoo Gong Movie

In 1995, a psychological thriller premiered that would unexpectedly become a massive hit and change horror movies forever. Se7en followed two detectives (Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman) as they tracked down a serial killer who murders people in ways that mirror the seven deadly sins like lust, greed, and gluttony.

Though Se7en was intended to be more of a crime thriller, its grotesque and morbid deaths combined with its sadistic killer placed it firmly in the horror genre -- and it even served as a precursor to the "torture porn" craze that horror experienced in the 2000s. But what separates Se7en from many of the horror films it inspired is its focus on character and suspense rather than gore and the macabre. If you loved Se7en, check out these three other serial killer movies that are guaranteed to make your skin crawl. Saw (2004)

The 2024 Oscar nominations were announced nearly a month ago, with very few surprises in the lineup. There were the usual snubs and surprises, although the whole affair was remarkably predictable considering the narratives formed by that point in awards season. Even so, there was a truly heartbreaking omission across every major category, and that was Andrew Haigh's powerful, sorrowful fantasy drama All of Us Strangers.

Now, don't get me wrong. Few, if any, of us were expecting All of Us Strangers to make the cut — it's too quiet, too insightful, and too esoteric for the Academy's tastes. The thing is, it should've absolutely dominated the ceremony. It might not be an overstatement to call it the best movie of the year, give or take a Poor Things. And while the Academy paid All of Us Strangers no mind, you really shouldn't. It's a modern masterpiece deserving of your time and appreciation, and I'm about to tell you exactly why. The superb acting

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Smile – Movie Review (4/5)

Posted by Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard | Sep 29, 2022 | 4 minutes

SMILE is a new horror film that can be seen in theaters. And we are in for a real horror treat with a fantastic sound design and visuals that just work perfectly. Classic horror with a focus on both story and entertainment. Read our Smile movie review here!

SMILE is a new horror movie in which the classic horror smile plays an all-important leading role. This creepy smile has also been used in marketing in the US, where people appear here, there, and everywhere with grim smiles.

While I did not scream while watching the movie, I did jump in my seat several times. Also, I came close to hurting both myself and my Heaven of Horror co-conspirator when one of the first jumpscares hit me hard. I even sat and waited for it, because I knew it was coming, but the timing was just so perfectly cruel.

Kind of like that scene in episode 8 of The Haunting of Hill House where I almost didn’t breathe until a minute later. 

Continue reading our Smile review below. The film is out in US theaters on September 30, 2022.

The Ring meets It Follows with a touch of James Wan

Oh no, now I’m starting again with all the big comparisons, but they’re all quite valid. The plot itself deals with a curse in the style of The Ring . However, the big difference is that only the cursed person can see what is chasing them – just like in It Follows .

The comparison with both movies and plots ends there, but the common denominator is still effective horror.

And then there’s the James Wan touch. I kept thinking of James Wan movies because the framing and shots are used in the most cunning James Wan way. We are dragged around in this world, where the camera moves around and often tilts a little or comes completely upside down.

Personally, I get a bit squeamish about this sort of thing every now and then (a touch of motion sickness, probably), but it works quite effectively in Smile .

That grim sound design. I loved it!

In addition to having the horror smile as an absolute force, Smile wins by having a fantastic sound design. It is so violent that people with slightly frayed horror nerves will probably be in doubt as to whether they should cover their eyes or their ears.

We experienced the same intense audio attack in the Danish horror movie Speak No Evil and also in Thelma . It really is terribly effective!

In fact, we stayed during the end credits only because of the sound that continued until the last second. Just as I was about to leave, new (and rather strange) noises came from the screen [or rather, the surround sound], so most people in the theater stopped in their tracks.

But don’t start thinking that the sound design is the only violent thing. Because there’s a lot of intensity coming from the visuals as well. The last act in particular is a very extreme experience. In a good way. We are talking good old classic cinema horror, where it all spills out of the screen and assaults the audience, who sit quietly pressed back into their seats.

Let’s talk about the cast

The all-important leading role in Smile is played by Sosie Bacon ( Mare of Easttown ) as the psychiatrist Rose Cotter. After a violent experience with a patient, she begins to see many strange things. At first, she thinks it’s “just” post-traumatic stress of some kind. However, she quickly discovers that there is something much bigger (and darker) at play.

In other words, we are indeed dealing with a horror mystery. In the same way as The Ring and It Follows .

As her rather indifferent fiancé, we see Jessie T. Usher (A-Train from The Boys ) and as a helpful cop, we get Kyle Gallner ( Scream ). In addition, there is Kal Penn ( Clarice ) as her concerned and well-meaning boss, and then Robin Weigert ( American Horror Story , Castle Rock season 2) as her therapist.

Let’s just say that there is a lot of terrible childhood trauma in Rose Cotter’s (Sosie Bacon) past. And I’ll leave it at that! The entire cast delivers exactly what they need and in some cases a little more. Jessie T. Usher doesn’t have much to work with, and what he does create isn’t impressive anyway. Unfortunately.

Go watch Smile  in a theater!

Smile is written and directed by Parker Finn, who makes his feature film debut in both areas. And what a wonderful debut to begin one’s career with. I have to be honest and say that I expected a nice 3 star-movie from Smile . In other words, a good horror film with solid entertainment, but not much more really.

However, we are much closer to an effective 3½, and since we don’t give half stars, we round up to a solid 4 to pay tribute to the good theater experience it offers.

I don’t think this is on an Ari Aster or Jordan Peele level, but we’re not that far off either. Not when it comes to the love of, or talent for, telling a horror story in a way that really hits all marks. A bit like we saw in The Black Phone , but I think the running time is better used here. At least I didn’t notice that it lasts just under two hours (1 hour and 55 minutes).

The audio alone is more than reason enough to watch Smile in a movie theater. In addition, there is also something more supernatural towards the end that really does well on the big screen.

Smile  is out in US theaters on September 30, 2022. And around the same time in most other countries.

In Theaters: September 30, 2022 Director: Parker Finn Writer: Parker Finn Cast: Sosie Bacon, Caitlin Stasey, Kyle Gallner, Jessie T. Usher, Rob Morgan, Kal Penn, Judy Reyes

Rose is a psychiatrist plagued by what she believes to be something supernatural. After a bizarre incident with a patient, she begins to experience inexplicable phenomenons that only she can see. Throughout the film, Rose grows more paranoid that what’s pursuing her is something malevolent and, possibly, supernatural.

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About The Author

Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard

I write reviews and recaps on Heaven of Horror. And yes, it does happen that I find myself screaming, when watching a good horror movie. I love psychological horror, survival horror and kick-ass women. Also, I have a huge soft spot for a good horror-comedy. Oh yeah, and I absolutely HATE when animals are harmed in movies, so I will immediately think less of any movie, where animals are harmed for entertainment (even if the animals are just really good actors). Fortunately, horror doesn't use this nearly as much as comedy. And people assume horror lovers are the messed up ones. Go figure!

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‘Smile’ Review – A Scary Grin Exposes a Familiar But Effective Horror Movie

Bloody Disgusting’s Smile review is spoiler-free.

Reality begins to blur, then quickly unravels at the seams for the unlucky in  Smile . One ghastly grin followed by a traumatic event causes those who witness it to succumb to its influence slowly.  Smile takes the concept of the cursed object to a new level with a mental health-focused threat that bides its time, tormenting its victims through isolation and past traumas. While it wears its influences proudly and follows a familiar path, Smile  offers compelling, affable leads and a few scary tricks up its sleeves to appease mainstream audiences.

Rose Cotter ( Sosie Bacon ) works 80 hours a week at her hospital’s emergency mental health ward. She’s a workaholic that uses her job as a means of avoiding, or perhaps even repressing, painful childhood memories. That changes when she attempts to speak with a brand new patient that tells of a relentless entity pursuing her, smiling as it confronts her with horrible visions. Then that patient shockingly commits suicide in front of Rose. Shortly after, Rose begins to suffer horrific visions from what she saw, and it slowly escalates. The more Rose realizes time is running short as something is closing in around her, the more others become convinced she’s unwell.

Sosie Bacon and Kyle Gallner star in Paramount Pictures Presents in Association with Paramount Players A Temple Hill Production “SMILE.”

Writer/Director  Parker Finn  picks up where he left off with his short film “ Laura Hasn’t Slept ” for his feature debut. The continuation passes the baton of mental health-related horror from the eponymous Laura ( Caitlin Stasey ) to Rose, who has her own history with mental health to wrangle. Framing  Smile  as more of a sequel rather than a longer adaptation is a smart choice to build upon the ideas introduced while centering the story on a different side of mental health.

Bacon makes for a capable lead. Her Rose is a convincing and put-together professional who comes undone in the most empathetic ways. Despite the supernatural chills, it’s a credit to Bacon that she makes us question Rose’s sanity almost as much as Rose does.  Kyle Gallner also instills rooting interest in a smaller capacity as Joel, a detective invested in Rose’s case for multiple reasons, some personal. Their chemistry goes far in propelling the narrative.

Finn bides his time in doling out the scares, keeping the focus instead on Rose’s slow unraveling. That’s not to say there aren’t any; expect quite a few chilling moments that’ll induce goosebumps. But there’s a careful restraint to the scare crafting. Finn wants to make you invested in Rose’s plight, first and foremost, as her loved ones slowly turn their backs on her.

But  Smile  might be a little too restrained in the scare department. Savvy horror fans will likely also recognize some of the scare tactics and influences, which could dampen some of the impact. It makes it easier to guess where Rose’s story might be headed. The third act picks up the pace and packs in some potent horror imagery, making for a grand finale that’ll leave you wanting more.

Overall, Parker Finn presents some interesting ideas about trauma and its insidious, parasitic nature on our psyche, using horror in effective ways to convey it. Bacon deftly maintains our attention even in the lulls between unsettling scare moments. There’s a familiarity to the curse’s nature and formula, drawing easy comparisons to several beloved horror films. Even still, it’s well crafted and introduces a fresh feeling mythology, with some genuine scares along the way. Smile makes for a solid enough crowd pleaser heading into the Halloween season.

Smile releases in theaters on September 30.

Bloody Disgusting’s Fantastic Fest coverage is presented by The Callisto Protocol. Fight to survive the horrors locked within the walls of Black Iron Prison in this immersive, next-generation take on survival horror –  The  Callisto  Protocol . Pre-order now to be one of the first to experience this terrifying new story-driven, single-player, survival horror game.  https://bit.ly/BD-TheCallistoProtocol

Horror journalist, RT Top Critic, and Critics Choice Association member. Co-Host of the Bloody Disgusting Podcast. Has appeared on PBS series' Monstrum, served on the SXSW Midnighter shorts jury, and moderated horror panels for WonderCon and SeriesFest.

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Culinary thriller ‘what you wish for’ is a dish worth dying for [review].

Who among us hasn’t secretly yearned for someone else’s life? Whether it’s a famous celebrity or just a well-to-do friend, coveting someone else’s seemingly perfect life is commonplace.

The concept takes a dark twist in writer/director Nicholas Tomnay ’s feature, What You Wish For . And while the title may eschew the first few words of the well-known saying, the missing words from the warning loom large over the film.

The film begins as protagonist Ryan ( Nick Stahl ) steps out of the airport in an unnamed South American location (the film was shot in Colombia, but the location is deliberately unnamed). He’s greeted by a professional driver who promptly delivers him to an empty, isolated villa.

It’s luxurious, opulent, and very, very rich feeling. These are all things that are completely unfamiliar to Ryan.

He is a talented, down on his luck chef who is stuck working in an airport hotel kitchen. As several threatening texts confirm, Ryan also owes a substantial gambling debt to some very bad people. It’s unclear if the trip is an attempt to escape or a last-ditch Hail Mary to secure funds from a well-to-do College friend, but What You Wish For opens on a desperate note.

Ryan’s friend, Jack ( Brian Groh ) is also a chef, though the pair haven’t seen each other in years. Clearly Jack has done well for himself, but when Ryan presses him for details or asks for an “in” with The Company, Jack either deflects or acts dejected.

The details about their history, as well several other character backstories and plot points, are never fully clarified. Technically Tomnay’s screenplay provides everything that’s required to follow the story, but there are lingering questions deliberately left unanswered.

Following a night of eating and drinking with single tourist Alice ( Penelope Mitchell ), Ryan wakes up to discover that things taken a turn for the worse. In a moment of panic, Ryan makes an impulsive decision: he assumes Jack’s identity and attempts to gain access to his friend’s bank account. But before he can plot his next move, two representatives from The Company, Imogene ( Tamsin Topolski ) and Maurice ( Juan Carlos Messier ), arrive and mistake Ryan for Jack.

With dollar signs in his eyes, Ryan seizes the opportunity to cook dinner for a small group of high-end clients, but very quickly realizes the stakes are much higher, and more dangerous, than he ever anticipated.

At its core, What You Wish is a tense thriller that has a twist I won’t reveal. Thankfully that revelation doesn’t bog the film down (it comes out approximately halfway in). As a result, the film’s pleasure derives from watching Ryan dig himself deeper and deeper into trouble, as well as Tomnay’s ability to ratchet up the tension as things snowball out of control.

Many of these developments require the suspicion of disbelief, not the least of which is that Imogene and Maurice have never worked with ‘Jack’ before, nor have they seen a picture of him. Over time this becomes easier to forgive, especially since both Topolski and Messier offer hints in their respective performances that they’re not entirely fooled by ‘Jack’s obliviousness about the job and its various protocols.

The other reason it’s easy to forgive the plot shenanigans is because once What You Wish For gets going, it’s a non-stop thrill ride to the finish. Each time it seems as though things can’t get worse for Ryan, a new wrinkle is introduced that makes things even more dire. This ranges from the lack of produce for the meal, the unexpected reappearance of Alice, or the arrival of Detective Ruiz ( Randy Vasquez ) and Officer Gallo ( Ariel Sierra ) in the middle of dinner.

As the film’s anchor, Stahl is perfectly cast. His performance ensures the audience empathizes with Ryan even when he’s making terrible, impulsive decisions and the genre vet has the uncanny ability to register barely contained panic on Ryan’s face at all times. His only saving grace is that Ryan can actually cook; it’s his inability to lie convincingly or to roll with the punches that threatens to spoil the ruse and get him killed.

The break-out star of the film, however, is Topolski. If Maurice is the intimidating French muscle, Imogene is the business manager who keeps the train on the track at all costs. Topolski works wonders with the character’s clipped dialogue delivery (think Alison Brie) and simmering frustration, and the fact that neither Imogene or Maurice ever raise their voice only makes them more threatening.

Framed against a beautiful exotic background, What You Wish For begins as an idyllic rich escape, quickly spirals into a nightmare, and ends on a darkly comedic ironic note. The film’s dubious morals offer plenty of food for thought, including a capitalist critique that would play well alongside other thrillers like The Menu .

What You Wish For is hugely entertaining, tense, and (often surprisingly) funny film that risks getting lost in the glut of horror and thriller releases. Don’t miss this culinary delight; it’s one of the best of the year.

What You Wish For is now available on VOD outlets.

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Review: Is horror movie ‘Smile’ so dumb that it’s actually smart? Who knows!

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Writer-director Parker Finn’s feature debut, “Smile,” boasts the thinnest of premises based on a laundry list of horror movie trends and tropes, from the historical to the contemporary. Expanding on his 2020 short film “Laura Hasn’t Slept,” Finn inserts the latest hot topic in horror — trauma — into a story structured around a death curse chain, as seen in films like “The Ring,” “It Follows” and “She Dies Tomorrow.” All that’s needed to pass along the curse is a mere smile, but it’s the kind of chin-lowered, eyes-raised toothy grin that communicates something far more devious than friendly.

That’s pretty much the movie right there, but Finn fleshes it out with some dizzying cinematography by Charlie Sarroff, a creepily effective score by Cristobal Tapia de Veer, and a believably twitchy lead performance from Sosie Bacon . Oh, and jump scares, a whole lotta jump scares.

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Back in 1942, horror producer Val Lewton pioneered a technique in the film “Cat People” that’s now referred to as the “Lewton Bus.” If you’ve ever seen a horror movie, you know it: a moment of slowly building tension that culminates in some shrieking noise from a source that is revealed to be harmless but sends the popcorn flying nevertheless — a ringing phone, a home alarm system, the brakes on a bus. It’s a technique that Finn liberally abuses in “Smile,” almost to comedic effect.

In the way that “Smile” takes on trauma as a source of horror so literally, one wonders if Finn is skewering the trend of ascribing all meaning in horror films to “it’s about trauma” (see: every interview original Final Girl Jamie Lee Curtis has given in the past few years about the “Halloween” franchise). The main character in “Smile,” Rose Cotter (Bacon), is a therapist who catches the curse from a young woman (Caitlin Stasey) in the throes of a debilitating mental health crisis after witnessing a suicide. The death curse is like contagious PTSD: Anyone who witnesses the suicide of the person compelled to kill themselves by this “evil spirit” catches the curse and has to pass it on.

Finn continually walks a line in “Smile” making us wonder if the movie is just dumb, or so dumb it’s looped back around to smart again. Finn casts Robin Weigert , the preeminent portrayer of therapists (see: “Big Little Lies”), as Rose’s own therapist, who speaks to her in soothing, infuriating tones that eventually take on a menacing quality. When Finn delves into the childhood trauma that Rose has yet to make peace with, it is visualized and rendered so literally it’s laughable. But is “Smile” smiling with us as we chuckle at the on-the-nose dialogue, imagery and themes? That’s the biggest question in sussing out its quality.

Ultimately, that we never really know the answer to that question, and that the ending settles for a sequel possibility that betrays the film’s own interior logic, indicates that no, “Smile” isn’t entirely in on the joke, or at least willing to show that it is. However, Bacon’s performance as well as Finn’s detailed craft manage to hold tension, and the audience’s attention, for the nearly-two-hour runtime of this horror curio, which is as opaque and somewhat silly as the smiles that drive it.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes Rated: R, for strong violent content and grisly images, and language Playing: In theaters Sept. 30

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Smile review: horror film thrills & terrifies, but falters when exploring trauma.

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A smile can have many meanings. It could be sardonic, kind, forced, and — in the case of Smile , the horror film written and directed by Parker Finn — downright terrifying. Based on Finn’s 2020 short Laura Hasn’t Slept , in which the protagonist refuses to sleep because of the smiling man she sees in her dreams, Smile takes that concept and expands on it, often to great effect. The horror film boasts a strong central performance and, even while its exploration of trauma and mental illness remain at surface-level, the jump-scares and intrigue are haunting enough to keep the story afloat.

Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) is a therapist who watches as one of her patients, who claims she’s seeing visions and is being haunted by a smiling entity that wears people’s faces like masks, die by suicide. The patient in question had, just four days prior, witnessed her professor die by suicide as well. After the incident, Rose starts seeing visions herself. Sometimes, the entity appears as people she knows; in other instances, it shows up as complete strangers. Rose’s mental health deteriorates and, though she begins to think she is cursed, no one — not even her friend (Kal Penn), sister Holly (Gillian Zinser), fiancé Trevor (Jessie T. Usher), or therapist (Robin Weigert) — believes her. The more Rose sees the smile, the more she grows desperate, seeking out Joel (Kyle Gallner), her ex and police officer, for help in the hopes that she could find a way to stop the curse before it’s too late.

Related: 10 Best Horror Movies Like Smile

Smile is one of the scariest mainstream horror films in recent memory. It brings audiences into its web of terror, leaving them on edge as they await for the next grisly image or jump-scare. To that end, the film’s jump-scares are magnificently staged, and sometimes unexpected as Finn tricks viewers into thinking things will be as they look. Since the entity haunting Rose can take many forms, these grim moments become more and more unsettling as the story goes on. The film goes for a lot of shots where the camera, focused perhaps on a vast, empty landscape, begins to tilt before fully righting itself in an upside down view. This works to enhance the uneasy, and quite stressful, moments as Rose’s downward spiral escalates. Amplified by the score by Cristobal Tapia de Veer and the eerie cinematography by Charlie Sarroff, the horror aspects masterfully come together.

Where Smile falters is in its examination of mental illness and mental health. Most of the characters, at some point or another, refer to Rose as a “headcase,” and even Rose’s sister and fiancé seem to want to distance themselves from her instead of helping her (or what they perceive as helping her). It siloes Rose, to be sure, which makes her ordeal all the more terrifying as she’s forced to face things alone. However, the film, in its attempts to offer commentary on mental health — and suicide especially, as it affects Rose, whose own mother died by suicide when she was ten — doesn’t have much to say. It offers a surface-level reading of trauma, in that it is a cycle that continues to the point that it takes over Rose’s life, affecting her relationships, work, and mental state. The finale suggests she must face it head-on, but Smile doesn’t delve any further than it has to in its exploration of Rose’s past trauma. By the time Rose realizes she’s never truly been happy, the horror film is reaching its end.

That aside, Sosie Bacon gives a stunning performance as Rose. Bacon’s portrayal is believable, conveying Rose’s internal struggle, as well as her fear and anxiety through haunted looks and emotive eyes. As Rose’s mental health deteriorates, Bacon adjusts her body language to showcase the changes her character goes through — from put-together medical professional to a woman who is being psychologically taunted and retraumatized. Smile is already an overall enjoyable horror on its own, but it’s supremely elevated by Bacon’s performance, and viewers will no doubt find the film to be effective and terrifying.

Next: What To Watch: Horror Movies – Best of 2022, Streaming Guide & New Releases

Smile released in theaters Friday, September 30. The film is 115 minutes long and is rated R for strong violent content and grisly images, and language.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Lots of gore and noisy jump scares in disappointing chiller.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

No messages here: This is just about a "curse" tha

The main character is a psychiatrist who loves hel

Movie focuses on a woman, although she's largely a

Extreme blood and gore. Character slices own face,

Women in bra and/or panties. Woman taking shower,

Strong language, with uses of "f--k," "s--t," "god

Main character tries to get a prescription for a m

Parents need to know that Smile is a horror movie about a psychiatrist (Sosie Bacon) who falls under a mysterious curse; unless she can find a way to break it, she's destined to die by suicide while passing on the curse to someone else. It has chilling moments but is mostly a collection of borrowed ideas and…

Positive Messages

No messages here: This is just about a "curse" that randomly happens to a person. The movie tries to explain that the curse feeds on trauma, but it doesn't do anything interesting or useful with this information (i.e., What is trauma? What kinds of trauma are "deserving" of the curse? Doesn't everyone have trauma of some kind?).

Positive Role Models

The main character is a psychiatrist who loves helping others but hasn't dealt with her own issues. She descends into an unstable state and acts erratically as she struggles with hallucinations and nightmares.

Diverse Representations

Movie focuses on a woman, although she's largely a victim. An interracial relationship falls apart in a way that paints a Black character as unsympathetic. Black supporting characters include a nurse, a prison guard, and a man incarcerated for murder; none have much agency.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Extreme blood and gore. Character slices own face, with blood gurgling out. Oozing blood puddle. Blood stains. Blood spurts. Dead cat wrapped inside child's birthday present. Multiple stabbings. Character rips own face off more than once. Several jump scares. Extremely gory crime scene photos. Gory surveillance footage (person spears own head with gardening shears). Character falls, crashing through a glass coffee table and slicing up wrists (lots of blood). Person's neck bends in an unnatural way. Character bites off own thumbnail, bleeding wound. Scary monster. Monster on fire. Burning cabin. Unsettling imagery. Creepy drawings. Screaming, panic. Nightmares, hallucinations. Suicide is discussed. Dialogue describing violent events. Arguing.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Women in bra and/or panties. Woman taking shower, her back to the camera.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong language, with uses of "f--k," "s--t," "goddamn," "shut up," "head case," "nutcase." "Jesus Christ" as an exclamation. A character is labeled as and called "crazy."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Main character tries to get a prescription for a medicine used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc. Character gulps glasses of wine to ease stress. Wine at dinner.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Smile is a horror movie about a psychiatrist (Sosie Bacon) who falls under a mysterious curse; unless she can find a way to break it, she's destined to die by suicide while passing on the curse to someone else. It has chilling moments but is mostly a collection of borrowed ideas and loud jump scares. Expect extreme amounts of gore and violence, with face-slicing, face-ripping, gurgling blood, blood stains, blood spurts, a dead cat wrapped inside a child's birthday present, stabbings, gory crime scene photos, someone crashing through a glass coffee table, a scary monster, a neck bending in an unnatural way, fire, screaming, panic, nightmares, and more. Language is also strong, with uses of "f--k," "s--t," "goddamn," etc. A woman showers with her back to viewers, and women are shown in bras and panties. There's social drinking, and a character gulps wine after a stressful day and asks for a prescription for a medicine used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and more. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (26)
• Kids say (80)

Based on 26 parent reviews

MENTAL HEALTH CONCERNS!

Very scary horror, what's the story.

In SMILE, Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), a psychiatrist, has been working a long shift and is just about to go home when she agrees to see a distraught patient, Laura Weaver ( Caitlin Stasey ). Laura claims that she's being followed by some malevolent force that appears to her in different bodies, all of them smiling sinister smiles. While talking, she suddenly screams and then goes quiet. A smile appears on her face, and she slices her own throat. Not long after, Rose starts seeing things herself. She enlists the help of her ex, Joel ( Kyle Gallner ), the police detective assigned to Laura's case, to learn more. They discover that there's a pattern, going back 20 victims, each a witness to a previous suicide. Then Rose gets the idea that, as long as she's alone, no one can witness her death by suicide, so the curse won't get passed on. She heads up to a remote cabin in the woods for a showdown with the thing that's responsible.

Is It Any Good?

The image of a creepy, sinister smile is so primal and so chilling that it might have inspired something truly penetrating, but, sadly, this horror movie is content to fall back on noisy jump scares. The feature writing and directing debut of Parker Finn, Smile isn't without its spine tingles, but they're few and fleeting as the movie treads through a collection of well-worn clichés. The idea of a curse passed from one person to another has been better used in Final Destination , The Ring , It Follows , and more; when that idea succeeds, it's because the evil force remains a mystery. Here, it's explained and detailed down to the last bit, revealing the monster as a stringy-haired thing (just like in The Ring ) that's up to no good. Cheap, cacophonous jump scares accompany its every move.

The typical, frantic race against time to find a way to break the curse is here, too, but the long overnight drive to a prison to speak to the one man who managed to survive is a complete waste of time; nothing is learned that viewers didn't already know. (The movie's bulky 115 minutes could have used some trimming.) It even uses the old upside-down-drone-shot driving footage that was featured in Midsommar and other movies. Most of the heavy lifting in Smile is handed to Bacon, whose descent into madness -- everyone she encounters calls her "crazy" -- is ultimately more wearying than touching. Even the smile itself, used so effectively in the movie's opening sequence, is wasted throughout the rest of it. Smile leaves off with the potential for a sequel, but this entry is already pretty sparse, like a mouth without teeth.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Smile 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

Is the movie scary? What's the appeal of horror movies ? Why do people sometimes enjoy being scared?

It's said that the monster in the movie feeds on trauma. What is trauma? Are there different degrees of trauma? Does everyone experience it at some point?

How can a smile be so scary when its typically intended to convey joy and happiness?

Movie Details

• In theaters : September 30, 2022
• On DVD or streaming : December 13, 2022
• Cast : Sosie Bacon , Kyle Gallner , Caitlin Stasey
• Director : Parker Finn
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Gay actors
• Studio : Paramount
• Genre : Horror
• Topics : Monsters, Ghosts, and Vampires
• Run time : 115 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : strong violent content and grisly images, and language
• Last updated : April 20, 2024

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‘Smile’ review: This abuse of horror tropes borders on traumatic

Movie review.

Writer/director Parker Finn’s feature debut “Smile” boasts the thinnest of premises based on a laundry list of horror movie trends and tropes, from the historical to the contemporary. Based on his 2020 short film “Laura Hasn’t Slept,” Finn inserts the latest hot topic in horror — trauma — into a story structured around a death curse chain, as seen in films like “The Ring,” “It Follows” and “She Dies Tomorrow.” All that’s needed to pass along the curse is a mere smile, but it’s the kind of chin-lowered, eyes-raised toothy grin that communicates something far more devious than friendly.

That’s pretty much the movie right there, but Finn fleshes it out with some dizzying cinematography by Charlie Sarroff, a creepily effective score by Cristobal Tapia de Veer and a believably twitchy lead performance from Sosie Bacon. Oh, and jump scares. A whole lot of jump scares.

Back in 1942, horror producer Val Lewton pioneered a technique in the film “Cat People” that’s now referred to as the “Lewton Bus.” If you’ve ever seen a horror movie, you know it: a moment of slowly building tension that culminates in some shrieking noise from a source that is revealed to be harmless, but sends the popcorn flying nevertheless: a ringing phone, a home alarm system, the brakes on a bus. It’s a technique that Finn liberally abuses in “Smile,” almost to comedic effect.

One has to wonder if some of the other choices in the film are deployed to comedic effect. In the way that “Smile” takes on trauma as a source of horror so literally, one has to wonder if Finn is in someway skewering the trend of ascribing all meaning in horror films to, “it’s about trauma” (see: every interview original Final Girl Jamie Lee Curtis has given in the past few years about the “Halloween” franchise). The main character in “Smile,” Rose Cotter (Bacon), is a therapist who catches the curse from a young woman in the throes of a debilitating mental health crisis (Caitlin Stasey) after witnessing a suicide. The death curse is like contagious PTSD — anyone who witnesses the suicide of the person who is compelled to kill themselves by this “evil spirit” catches the curse and has to pass it on.

Finn continually walks a line in “Smile” in which one constantly wonders if the movie is just dumb, or so dumb it’s looped back around to smart again. Finn casts Robin Weigert, the preeminent actor of therapists (see: “Big Little Lies”), as Rose’s own therapist, who speaks to her in soothing, infuriating tones that eventually take on a menacing quality. When Finn delves into the childhood trauma that Rose has yet to make peace with, it is visualized and rendered so literally it’s laughable. But is “Smile” smiling with us as we chuckle at the on-the-nose dialogue, imagery and themes? That’s the biggest question in sussing out its quality.

Ultimately, that we never really know the answer to that question, and that the ending settles for a sequel possibility that betrays the film’s own interior logic, indicates that no, “Smile” isn’t entirely in on the joke, or at least willing to show that it is. However, Bacon’s performance as well as Finn’s detailed craft manage to hold tension, and the audience’s attention, for the hour and 55 minute runtime of this horror curio, which is as opaque and somewhat silly as the smiles that drive it.

With Sosie Bacon, Caitlin Stasey, Robin Weigert. Directed by Parker Finn from a screenplay by Finn. 115 minutes. R for strong violent content and grisly images, and language. Opens Sept. 30 at multiple theaters.

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• Cast & crew

Plot under wraps. Plot under wraps. Plot under wraps.

• Parker Finn
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