If you’ve been hankering for some high concept horror to take you into the Halloween season, look no further than your local multiplex, as Smile is in cinemas now.
Written and directed by Parker Finn, who adapted his own 2020 short Laura Hasn’t Slept for this, his feature debut, Smile stars Sosie Bacon as Dr. Rose Cotter, a trauma therapist working in a busy ER. When a disturbed young woman (Australian actor Caitlin Stasey of Tomorrow When the War Began) insists she is being haunted by visions of a horrific, unnatural grin before killing herself, she chalks it up to psychosis—but then starts seeing the same rictus smile on the faces of those around her.
Things get steadily worse and more grotesque from there, not just for Rose, but her fiancé Trevor (Jessie T Usher of The Boys), cop ex-boyfriend Joel (Kyle Gallner of Veronica Mars), and pretty much anyone we meet over the course of the film.
The idea of a curse or a haunting being passed on to fresh victims is not a new one, but it’s a fun one. You’ve seen it in It Follows, The Ring, and more, but the original riff might very well be the M.R. James short story Casting the Runes, which was adapted into the 1957 horror classic Night of the Demon by Jacques Tourneur).
Finn milks the set up for maximum tension, with some spectacular jump scares sprinkled throughout to really keep us on our toes. On a deeper level, Smile is dealing with themes of mental illness and stigma, particularly the way mental health issues can be viewed (wrongly, be assured) as “infectious” and “catching”, driving sufferers into social isolation. We like a bit of commentary with our filmic frights. If you do too, this one will have you smiling.
