Entertainment Article:
By Adalene Didier News Writer 10/12/22 TRIGGER WARNING: MENTION OF SUICIDE
Smiles are meant to connect people together; they’re meant to be contagious, but sometimes smiles are just a little off. Parker Finn’s new movie Smile takes the typical smile and twists it into a disturbing image that makes your skin crawl. Dr. Rose Cotter's, the main character, life become plagued with smiles after watching one of her patients, Laura Weaver, commit suicide during one of their sessions. This wasn’t a normal suicide in any way; Laura smiled the entire time, staring at Dr. Rose while she died. This tragic incident leaves Dr. Rose traumatized. All she wanted to do was help people, but now, memories from her past are coming back to haunt her. Soon, she starts to become just like her patient Laura; she can’t escape this supposed entity that won’t stop smiling at her. Rose’s life starts to fall apart. Her friends and family don’t believe her. Everyone thinks she’s finally going through a breakdown, just like her mother did. She’s left to figure things out on her own, but she doesn't have much time left. Will she survive? Or will the smiling entity win? There’s nothing inherently bad about this movie, but it’s full of cliche plot points plucked from other movies. The short period of time to live after witnessing the last victim die, reminds watchers of The Ring, where there was only a week to live after watching a video. The skin crawling smiles reminds viewers of Truth or Dare, where the entity also possessed people with a disturbing smile. |
The plot is nothing new. It’s just bits and pieces of other movies put together with a little bit of a spin. Though, just because it’s cliche doesn’t mean that it wasn’t good. There’s plenty of good jump scares and filming techniques used, that itself adds something that has been missing from horror movies for quite some time. Sure theres been good horror movies, but none that have stood out with great jump scares, the most recent movies have been geared towards being psychological horror. It’s nice to actually watch a horror movie that makes you jump and makes you’r skin crawl.
The recent increase in horror movies steering away from psychological horror and back into creepy jumpy horror has been a change for the better. Smile is a perfect example of this, it’s definitely worth the watch for anyone interested in horror movies, or other people looking for an adrenaline rush. Smile is only currently available in theaters, so if you wanna watch it check out show times at Golden Ticket Cinemas Reel at the mall. |