Smile

Gore. The gross-out. Jump scares. There are many tricks and strategies that can go into the making of a horror movie. All of these can be successful if done well, but for me, nothing works better than the genuine building of dread – that slow-burning sense of impending doom. Smile, from first time writer-director Parker Finn is a film that excels at dread, and one of the more genuinely scary new horror films I’ve seen recently.

The film opens in a hospital – a psychiatric unit with an emergency care ward. Working in this ward is Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), who according to her boss Dr. Desai (Kal Penn) has been putting in 80 hour weeks and seems almost to live at the hospital. During the early scenes of the film, we learn that Dr. Cotter is haunted by her mother’s suicide when she was a child, and that the trauma of that has led her to a life of trying to help the mentally unwell. Based on an early interaction with a patient named Carol (Jack Sochet), it appears that Rose is good at her job. Before leaving the hospital for the day, Rose takes one final emergency call and is assigned to help Laura Weaver (Caitlin Stasey), a PhD candidate who witnessed a professor at her university brutally kill himself with a hammer, and now claims to be seeing something. Something that won’t stop smiling and telling her vile things. Something that no one else can see. Rose tries to settle Laura, but instead is forced to watch as Laura cuts her own throat as she smiles.

From here, Rose begins to see and hear things as well. At first, it is just images of the smiling, bloodied visage of Laura Weaver and barely audible whispers. Her fiancé Trevor (Jessie T. Usher) is at first sympathetic, but soon becomes troubled by Rose’s behavior. When Rose sees Carl with the smile the next day at work, her fear leads her to call for physical restraints, an action Dr. Desai sees as an overreaction. He puts Rose on leave to “get your head sorted”. After a nightmarish birthday party for her nephew, Rose takes it upon herself to learn more about what is happening to her. When Trevor’s primary concern seems to be if Rose’s mother’s mental illness is hereditary, Rose goes to her former therapist (Robin Weigert) and her police officer ex-boyfriend Joel (Kyle Gallner) for help. With Joel’s connections, she discovers that she is now caught in a chain of violent acts going back through at least twenty suicides and one murder – each victim having witnessed the death of the one before. Rose’s plans to escape the cycle take up the remainder of the film.

This is a very good film, and a major component of its success is Sosie Bacon’s performance. She is in nearly every scene of the film, and her fear, confusion, and desperation all always play as genuine. If her performance didn’t work, the film would not work. The audience has to care about what happens to Rose, and I did. The supporting performances are all mostly solid (Weigert, Gallner, Penn, Judy Reyes). Two standouts in the supporting cast are Stasey’s Laura Weaver and Rob Morgan in a late moment as Robert Talley, a man who paid a heavy price to be the only one to break free of the Smile curse. They both do excellent work in single scene roles.

The screenplay is also a success. It’s an excellent mix of old-school jump scares, tension, and the trauma-based focus that is increasingly at the forefront of modern horror. It’s a film that provides genuine edge-of-your-seat thrills at many moments. I also very much appreciated Finn’s ability to stick the landing an ending that’s darker than expected. If there are complaints to be found, the film is probably 10-15 minutes too long (2 hours is too long for most horror) and it wears certain influences on its sleeve (It Follows and The Ring as examples). But these are relatively minor issues in an overall successful film. Finn’s direction is primarily positive, especially for a first feature. There is a shot near the end of the film that is unforgettable. Taken as a whole, there are some very interesting and creative moments, though Finn goes to the well of upside-down shots a few too many times. 2022 has had a wealth of very good horror films, and Smile stands with this group. Highly recommended.