“Smile” is a new horror movie recently released on Sept. 30, 2022. The film was originally supposed to be featured on Paramount Plus only for streaming but was met with esteemed audience acclaim which caused the movie to be released in theaters.

The film follows a young woman named Rose who works in a mental institution and witnesses a traumatic event from one of her patients. She is then haunted by a mysterious curse that causes terror in her life and makes her see mysterious things that aren’t there. In order to survive, she must confront her inner demons and delve into her traumatic past.

Overall, the movie is very well done and is an entertaining horror movie. The film contains many effective horror techniques including jump scares and psychological horror in order to create an all-around horrifying experience. While sitting in the theater, I felt very on edge and scared the whole time because of the effective use of tension-building.

While the plot can sometimes come off as unoriginal and sometimes predictable, it was made up by the use of the horror elements previously talked about, especially the jump scares. Many of the jump scares were very unique within the horror genre and were often unpredictable. Effective jump scares are very common in horror movies these days. This made the tension in the movie more horrifying. Although, some of the jump scares did fall into the typical horror movie trope of being repetitive and almost predictable. A lot of the horror in this movie relies on jump scares, and this can often cause predictability to the horror trying to be conveyed.

The best part, in my opinion, was the plot events that come towards the end of the movie. Without saying what the ending was, I can convey that the twist definitely made the movie stand out and defined it as an individual horror movie. The rest of the movie felt like it could be a typical unoriginal horror movie being released in this day and age. However, the ending really made the movie stand out and was not predictable at all.

This movie is a fun horror movie, but it also goes into extremely interesting and horrific places, and I was genuinely shocked and disturbed by many different scenes in the movie. That being said, many people could find this movie disturbing or almost tone-deaf to the issues it seems to be trying to reflect upon.

For example, the opening scene in which the patient kills herself in front of the protagonist due to the mysterious curse was extremely disturbing and almost made me feel gross and queasy. The violence in this scene was extremely graphic and can genuinely shock even the most seasoned horror fans. There are a lot of scenes like this that contain graphic images and shots of people harming themselves, which can be triggering to certain people.

Also, the message of this movie can be unclear as it deals with the issue of confronting your trauma but wraps it up in a way that goes against this message. I believe if the metaphor for this had been clearer, it would have made the message a lot more effective.

“Smile” is an exciting and effective horror movie that would be perfect for any type of horror fan or anyone looking for a good scare. While it is not perfect at all, it still allows for a good horror movie experience, especially if you are viewing the movie in the theater and in RPX or IMAX. However, it is a very violent and shocking movie, so take caution when viewing it if you are sensitive to those sorts of things.

4/5 Torches