Smile (2022)

 

    

For this week's film blog, I decided to go to the theater to watch a new movie called Smile. Parker Finn directed this psychological horror to scare his audience with loud noises, gory effects, and creepy messages. It all starts in a hospital where the main character was working with patients with mental disorders. One of her patients, however, had described her situation as seeing people smiling wherever she was. Unfortunately, it was a very scary smile that you would never see at a children's birthday party. As the movie progresses, that smile starts to become much more relevant and dangerous which is why people would hide behind a popcorn bucket when it would appear on the screen. 

I have not been to the theater for a scary movie in a long time, so it was exciting to get back and remember what it was like being afraid in front of a lot of people. I have always enjoyed going to the theater because it almost forces you to really pay attention to the plot with no distractions. The atmosphere in the theater was exactly how I had remembered, which was amazing news because I had missed that for a while. There were a lot of people hiding behind their hands, although that did not stop them from all erupting in desperate times. I tried to pay attention to the people in front of me because as the buildup for a scary moment would arise, you could see them shaking their head, looking at their friends, and even covering their eyes. When a jump scare happened, which it did many times, everyone in the theater jumped up and screamed together.  

  Most often, I find myself not really liking scary movies, mostly because the plot is usually dull. Unfortunately, Smile was not a remarkably interesting movie, although the jump scares were enough to make everyone pay attention. What drew me in to watch this movie was the incredible marketing strategies to get people to buy tickets. Not only did they have incredibly scary, interesting commercials, but they would also make an appearance at major level sporting events. While at a televised baseball game, the camera would have to point at the batter, although you could see someone with that creepy smile in the stands in the background after every single pitch. That is an incredibly unique way of getting people to see the movie, mostly because it is marketing to people who are watching a regular season baseball game. I would recommend Smile to people who would want to get really scared at the theater, although if you want a good plot, I will check out other films first.