Smile is the single worst horror movie I have seen in my life and I am so so incredibly fucking disappointed. For multiple reasons. Tw: suicide mention
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1. It is just not scary.
For all the people who walked out of the theatre terrified and going and making tik tok videos abt how "omg Smile was so scary I'm never gonna recover" I was expecting to be shaking in my boots, I was expecting to piss my pants, I was expecting to not even be able to get through the movie. And yet, 90% of the time was spent with a completely blank face. The other 10% was spent rolling my fucking eyes. The only time I was even MILDLY scared was in that one scene in the car with her sister, and that was just a cheap jumpscare.
There's no atmosphere in the movie, I'm not on the edge of my seat, I'm not watching at every moment for fear of something scary popping up. No. I genuinely did not give two shits actually. I was just waiting for the movie to just end. You can not cut this tension with a knife because there was none. Tension? More like tension headache. Cause that's what this movie gave me.
2. The story is stupid
Smile follows this lady who gets infected by this... virus? Bacteria? Fungus? No, yeah, it's never actually explained what exactly the Smile monster is, it just... is. She gets infected by watching someone who has the virus thing die, therefore transferring it to her. This virus causes her to have weird creepy hallucinations typically with a recurring theme of people smiling eerily.
These hallucinations cannot actually harm her, but they sure can harm her FUCKING CAT. So yeah. For all the "scary" shit going on on screen, the MC is actually completely perfectly safe, just incredibly paranoid and with gaps in her memory. She's also a danger to those around her. The MC is, effectively, the villain against her own will. She's also going fucking crazy.
So she finds out that there is no way to kill this thing and the only way to transfer it from one person to another is if the person who has the disease thing commits suicide and someone watches them do it. The person who watched it happen is now the one who is affected. So she's got this genius idea of "what if I just live all alone out in the middle of nowhere and not talk to anyone ever and just never kms then I've trapped the virus and when I die of old age instead of suicide, this thing dies with me." Which would be pretty smart... IF SHE ACTUALLY STUCK TO THE PLAN.
No. The end of the movie is her killing herself in front of someone. Good fucking job. 10/10. You fucking failed you stupid ass baby loser.
The idea in and of itself is not exactly super duper shit. It's the way it's shown in the story. The way it plays out.
The MC is never in any actual danger throughout the film.
You never really care about any of the other characters except for vaguely.
Unnecessary cat death. (I'm very fucking pissed about it I will never not be pissed)
They come up with a good plan to kill the monster at the end, and it would have at least ended the movie nicely if they stuck with the plan, but it's just the fact that she, in her big smart brain decided "what if I just... didn't do that."
The entire movie is just "ooh she's seeing creepy shit" yeah okay I see creepy shit all the time, she's not special.
Psychosis can be terrifying to the people experiencing it. But on the outside looking in, the person just looks crazy. With a monster that is essentially just severe psychosis... 🤷♀️
It's just kinda shit and the ending is the absolute shittiest part of it and it will never not piss me off because WHY THE FUCK DID SHE DO THAT SHIT IS SHE STUPID DID SOMEONE DROP HER AS A CHILD DID SHE GET BONKED ON THE HEAD WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ACTUALLY
3. No one in the movie is even mildly interesting
Our characters include:
One of the worst MCs ever made
Basic suburban mom
Boyfriend
White guy
...
No yeah that's pretty much all of them, and none of them even have super prominent roles except for MC and maybe White Guy, but he shows up like halfway into the film so who really gives a shit.
This movie is actually so uninteresting I was this close 🤏 to falling asleep while watching it.
If I had to describe Smile in one word?
Boring.
Bland.
Uninteresting.
Plain.
Annoying.
Headache.
Over-hyped.
Overrated.
Stupid.
Need I go on? I think you get the point by now that, in my opinion, punching myself in the face would be better entertainment than watching this movie.
Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.