'Smile' Is Pure, Uncut Arthouse Horror With a Grin (and a Killer Gimmick)

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REVIEW: SmileMovie somehow turns a simple gimmick — a curse that announces itself via psychotically joyful grins — into one killer arthouse-horror hook.

It’s also part of a curse, you see, that gets passed from one person to the next. Why this particular curse announces its presence via a unnervingly happy, extremely toothy expression remains a riddle. The Smile was never burned to death by angry parents in a boiler room, or came back after drowning because camp counselors were too busy making out, or plagued people because a demonic artifact was unearthed in Iraq, or crawled out of TV thanks to a static-y videotape.

What we do know is that this thing thrives on people witnessing something that leaves a psychic scar, thus turninginto one big elaborate metaphor for the impact of trauma on daily lives; should you think that’s some eggheaded reading of a genre movie, a character literally says, “This thing thrives on trauma” at one point.

The one thing that truly is surprising in Parker’s impressive first movie — here’s hoping that there are many more to come — is the studio logo that opens it. He’s made a scary movie that balances psychological shock therapy with old-fashioned fright, shadowy dread with blunt splatterfest FX, an artsy-fartsy sense of stylistics slapped on to a twisty B-movie scenario. It may open with Paramount name slapped on the beginning, but this is textbook A24 horror by any other name.

 

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sort your typos out words matter right?

Even scarier are perverts.

That last sentence is difficult to read.

Typo

APHEX Twin ish..

BuzMartinSC Now I'm impressed.

i thought it was NICKIMINAJ !

Stay happy my friends...

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