Smile (2022) Review
Much like Barbarian the trailer did anything but sell me. I can only assume what changed my mind was the warmer than expected reception it got. However, even if I had as much history with this movie as I had with the Hellraiser films, I’ll still do my best to avoid giving a review the size of your average essay this time. From the moment we’re given this crazy title sequence one thought lingered in my mind: Now this is a horror movie. At its best it keeps you on your toes, has realistically choreographed melodrama that rivals Pearl, and even reminded me of the closest to a spot-on horror version of A Beautiful Mind in terms of how it fuses themes of trauma, blurring the line between reality with hallucination, and has the psychological and brutal horror elements flow with one another in a surprisingly harmonious manner. It is made with ambition and then some, especially when it goes full post-Kubrick meets (equally post-Y2K) Raimi towards the end. Of course it might not come as a, well, shock, that the jump-scares personally had me covering my ears all throughout (to the point the most effective jump-scares weren’t even loud). Plus the upside down angles may have lost their touch, albeit only after the very last one. Other than that, however, I had a good, scary time and loved the music, which was like It Follows on steroids in terms of atmosphere.