Smile - A Family Movie Night Selection
It’s been a long time since I watched a horror movie that wasn’t antique. My little girl, for whatever reason, wanted to watch the recently released movie Smile form 2022. It’s October and we’ve been doing a family movie night on the weekend. We decided to hit play on Smile thanks to Amazon Prime for our scary-themed choice this weekend. I don’t really have a lot to say about this movie but, we’ll talk about it regardless. Maybe it will make you smile but certainly not in the fashion presented in this movie.
My Big Takeaway from Smile
A takeaway from this movie that my wife and I discussed the morning after we watched it was the potential representation made in Smile. She practices in the medical field, I have a background in Psychology, and we are both very familiar with anxiety from personal life experiences. As we are also spiritual people, the conversation went to these places. I wonder if Smile in some ways is a good representation of what people who deal with severe anxiety, major depression, or suicidal tendencies feel like. Here’s what I mean. No matter who you talk to, they don’t believe you. A second point is that you can see it but no one else can. Finally, it follows you wherever you go, and you never feel safe. No matter what room you’re in, no matter what conversation you’re having, it smiles and reminds you that it’s still present.
Smile Was Actually Creepy...Until the End
As usual, I’m not going to discuss the plot. You can read all of that you want to here. Smile was a creepy movie all in all. It offered several surprises for me. First, because it’s the quickest, there was very little bad language (compared to other current films) in it and no sex scenes or nudity. Now, the second surprise was that it didn’t have a lot of jump scares to it. There were a couple of them but very few. Smile relied more on making you think to frighten you than something jumping out of a dark corner as the music ramped up. The tactics of making you think to scare you worked until the end. Sorry folks, the ending of the movie ruins this potentially good scary movie. Warning – spoilers ahead.
Spoiler Alert - The End of Smile Sucks
Up to the last 10-15 minutes of this movie, I must admit that I was a little creeped out. Don’t get me wrong, they didn’t do a great job of hiding things in Smile. You see everything coming but, that doesn’t really matter. So, here I am creeped out because I’m thinking like the film wants, and the special effects seem to plummet. I suppose they spent 99% of the budget on the first 1 hour and 30 minutes of the movie. It surprised me how poorly the last scene was done. It reminded me more of a high-quality horror-themed video game than a full-production movie with a 17 million dollar budget. The effects were so bad that all the creepiness vanished for me. There was no real surprise in the end either – predictability also took some edge from Smile.
Great Ratings Online - Leave Your Thoughts
Smile is getting decent ratings from IMDB at 6.5 and 80% on Rotten Tomatoes but, it’s not getting a good rating from me. Well, I mean overall the film is well done and worth watching if you like psychology thriller-type movies. It really does make you think but, the poorly done ending takes away from it for me. I would watch it again but only as background noise/distraction. I’d rather find another B-rated sci-fi garbage movie to give my attention to. I get it — that doesn’t make sense but, that’s me and my taste in movies for you. What are your thoughts on Smile? Is anyone else out there let down by the ending? Let me know in the comments.
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