There is something fundamentally unsettling about being on the receiving end of an unprovoked happy face; that uncanny creepiness is maximised many times over in Smile, the feature debut of writer-director Parker Finn. An expansion of his 11-minute short film Laura Can’t Sleep, it shares a lot of horror DNA with the likes of It Follows, Hereditary, The Ring, and others. But what it lacks in originality, it makes up for with scares that are effectively calibrated to earn your respect — and cold shivers — almost every step of the way.
In large part, that’s due to star Sosie Bacon. As Rose, she spends much of the movie in hysterics, but it’s believable and gradual, never feeling like she goes from 0-100 in two scenes flat. As she desperately tries to convince her friends, family, and therapist (a game Robin Weigert) that she’s not crazy, while teaming up with her cop ex-boyfriend (Kyle Gallner) to investigate the origin of her boogeyman, Bacon skilfully modulates her performance to become increasingly unravelled has her life falls apart around. It’s a journey that examines the impact childhood trauma can have on our adult selves — a rich emotional vein mined especially well in Rose’s conversations with her self-absorbed sister, Holly (Gillian Zinser).
There’s less clarity in what Finn is trying to say about mental health and the stigmas attached to it, but Smile’s primary focus is on terrifying its audience, and it does that well and often. Characters twisting their faces into grotesque smiles before killing themselves in shocking, graphic fashion is not the only striking imagery that Smile manages to conjure up — even pets aren’t spared Finn’s wrath. The jump scares mount quickly but the hit rate is high, and Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s suitably haunting score only adds to the sense of dread. It’s enough to make you want to turn that frown upside down. After you’re done squirming.