If you are looking to get cozy on your couch with friends to watch something that will keep you up at night, this new film may be perfect for you. Parker Finn is catching everyone’s attention with his disturbing R-rated movie, “Smile.” The movie starts off with Dr. Rose Cotter, the main character, witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient. After the meeting, Rose starts experiencing frightening situations that she can’t put into words. Overtime, these terrors begin to take over her mind and life, which leads Rose to confront her troubling past. Her future depends on it or else she will never be able to escape her horrifying new reality.
The marketing team for this film have received positive feedback on their advervistment. The posters and ads were bone chilling, with the faces staring directly at you. Although, that was not enough. Actors were paid to stand at sporting events or other places with cameras wearing T-shirts with “Smile” written across it. To top it all off, the actor had to stand the whole time, with a creepy smile on their face. Even though it scared some, the majority were intrigued, making the movie popular before it even came out.
Since the release, many people have shared their own opinions after seeing this movie in theaters. Some of them were about how terrified they were, but on the other hand, critics have been connecting similarities between “Smile” and other movies where Parker Finn may have copied small details. HCPress had a lot to say after realizing shortly that the movie simply was not scary: “My mouth was in a bored frown throughout most of this movie, it wasn’t screaming or laughing and it definitely wasn’t smiling.”
The recurring theme throughout the movie is that it is not actually scary. Jump scares were very easy to predict, which upset the audience. According to Screen Daily, “those jumps are, however, a large reason why the $17m-budgeted Smile has topped both the US and UK and Ireland box office, taking a combined $95m at the time of writing.” On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie got 78% on the tomatometer and 78% for audience score. Based on these percentages, the movie could be a total waste of time or maybe the right amount of fright for the certain group.
Although the movie might not have been what people expected it to be, due to its amazing marketing, people will still go and see the movie. They will want to make the decision themselves on whether or not it is actually frightening. Hopefully the movie will not make the viewers too upset or else they will forget to wear a smile!
