Smile 2022

Brief_Lives

looks like a decent trailer...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcDK7lkzzsU

(I didn't see a thread for this)

Mr Crispy

Early reviews have been decent so far. I must admit, I like the silly viral marketing campaign they had going on;

https://twitter.com/ErikDavis/status/1573670514110889986?s=20&t=O0HFWVUxlAhAa-KWh7Z4nQ

https://twitter.com/ErikDavis/status/1573742265213849600?s=20&t=O0HFWVUxlAhAa-KWh7Z4nQ

https://twitter.com/JomboyMedia/status/1573497932292177927?s=20&t=_E0Va9mjwoFExLQ81klcaA

pixelburp

That's rather fabulous viral marketing; kudos.

As to the movie? Sounds like a really good premise but it'll all be in the execution; that little scare at the end of the trailer was quite good.

For some reason this reminds me of It Follows; this idea of an otherwise innocuous person in the background suddenly possessing a malevolence.

artvanderlay

I predict it'll be underwhelming. It started life as a short film, and these kind of things do well at that length but lose something when stretched out to movie length (I'm thinking of Lights Out). Hope to be wrong about this though; I like a good scary movie.

Brief_Lives

Has Anyone seen this yet?

Space Dog

Yes, I saw it today. I was actually surprised about how much better it was than I expected. I was expecting something trashy and shlocky à la Countdown and Truth or Dare based on the bits that I saw in those stupid trailers, but it's not that kind of film. Well it is, but it isn't. It borrows heavily from The Ring, It Follows, Oculus and The Babadook, yet manages to use these tropes to create an effective little horror film. It's sufficiently creepy and has something to say about grief, trauma and guilt. I also found the sound design great, especially during the beginning and the climax. And it has a jump scare that really got me although I saw it coming a mile off.

There's also some very good acting by the lead and her sister. Sosie Bacon really sells her character.

Spoiler Warning

Forgot to mention that I had to watch the birthday scene through my fingers! Kindertrauma galore...

Brief_Lives

cool... might go tomorrow...

santana75

Saw it earlier and It is genuinely scary. I'm certain there'll be multiple sequels.

Homelander

I thought it was brilliant, easily the best horror film I've seen in the cinema in quite a long time. Anyone who likes films like It Follows, Relic, The Ring, etc would definitely enjoy it. Creepy and unsettling.

Lead actress is excellent and really sells it.

RickBlaine

I'm a little colder on this than the previous posts. I didn't think it lived up to the very strong opening, unlike something like It Follows which I thought was consistently excellent. The lead actress is indeed very good though and she's Kevin Bacon's daughter.

johnny_ultimate

I thought it was pretty so-so, honestly. Heavily reliant on LOUD NOISES and jump scares, and the effects are a mixed bag. Bacon is good and it’s directed relatively well (if a bit clinical in the way a lot of modern horrors are). I like the underlying idea of the curse as a manifestation of trauma. But there’s not much originality on display here.

It’s eerily similar to Ringu - the most obvious inspiration - in structure and tone. The whole basic formula of a ‘person who has been cursed sets out to stop the curse before it kills them’ is a pretty well-trodden path at this stage, and while this has just about enough fun and creepy scenes to get away with it there are long stretches where the deja vu is pretty inescapable. And while that central smile motif is effective, overall I’d say it lacks the distinctive directorial sensibilities that allow the likes of Ringu and It Follows to stand out.

A decent October watch with a game crowd, but needed that bit more of a spark of its own to rise above that.

Homelander

If you appreciate the use of trauma in Smile, you should check out Relic.

It's creepy and unsettling, but also hauntingly effective in dealing with the central theme which is ultimately more relevant to the plot and has a clearer message.

The problem often is with films of that kind, they get unfairly slated by a large portion of the audience because in many cases, what they exactly want and expect from a "horror", is a formulaic, jump-scare feature.

Smile though, does a particularly admirable job of appealing to everyone by telling a simple story extremely well, I think it's just crafted so well that it negates the need for the story to be particularly original or unpredictable.

It's a bit like two people telling an identical story - the delivery can lead to vastly different perceptions of how good that identical story actually is.

Padraig Mor

Saw this last week and honestly thought it was one of the best horrors I've seen in a long time. Yeah it may be a bit predictable etc but no harm in that if it's done well. One jump scare in particular actually made me blurt out with the surprise in the cinema - and that hasn't happened since The Descent many years ago (and that was one bloody scary film...).

ancapailldorcha

I've never seen so many people with their phones out as yesterday when I went to see this. Had to move 4 times to get a decent seat.

I liked it. No classic but it's perfectly serviceable stuff.

Brief_Lives

tell them to shut the phone down... or get security, whatever you are comfortable with...

if you are moving so much, its just as easy to move to security..

Fysh

Watched this tonight on streaming and thought it was decent but over-reliant on borrowing from other good horrors. The premise is a variation on It Follows crossed with Ring, with elements of Babadook and The Relic in the mix (not to mention what seemed like a riff on Saint Maud near the end). There are several shots that felt very much inspired by It Follows, Candyman 2021 and Midsommar - but both narratively and stylistically while there's nothing wrong with any of these elements (I liked all of the films in question!), it rarely feels like it's aiming to be more than a grab-bag of elements from other films. (Although the party scene is a welcome exception). There's also a bit of a tonal mismatch between some of the jump scares (plenty of which are lazy "loud-noise-sudden-movement" jumpscares) and the moments that try for a more psychological horror.

The main thing that stands out as a "doesn't really hold up to scrutiny" aspect of the plot is

Spoiler Warning

there are these chains of suicides but the authorities don't notice or investigate. It's one thing in It Follows or The Ring where the connection between victims was something like "they exchanged videotapes" or "they had casual sex", but here the link is "witnessed a traumatic suicide within the last week", which seems like a much more visible and obvious link.