My Smile review

So I just saw Smile and it was pretty good. I was expecting something more like Blumhouse where it’s just scary things are happening because I say so. It was more like Blumhouse and A24 had a child. It definitely had a deeper message but because of its insistence on being a mainstream horror film it failed to commit. The jump scares were good and it was a tense movie through out. I thought the main actress and the patient did a great job…everyone else kinda sucked though.

My two biggest gripes were

1. My suspension of disbelief was broken 10 minutes in when an emergency psychiatry ward had a fricking ceramic vase. Predictably the shards it produced was used by someone to immediately kill themselves. There was no reason for this scene to take place in the hospital so just lazy writing.

2. the ending really cheapened it. Spoilers btw but Rose kills herself and passes on the curse after finally giving in to the monster. If I was allowed to write the ending I would have Rose leave the house only to find out she had not killed the monster, only weakened it significantly and show that she’s still living with trauma and that it’s something you’re always fighting.

Overall it was pretty good but it needed to commit to its themes. Also I really hated the weird camera angles the director kept pulling.