Not the biggest fan of horror films usually because of various reasons, but the trailer for Smile actually caught my eye so I figured I'd give it a try.

The first time I watched, I unfortunately didn't get to finish. I was on a date and she was too uncomfy by the time Rose returned to her childhood home. I just got home from my second try watching it and now that I have seen the ending, I have mixed feelings.

The stalking and the lead-up to the final confrontation? Honestly I really liked it. I really got a feeling of just how clever and terrifying the Smile Entity really was. The "You're Going To Die" scene in particular was my favourite example of this. The only other times the Smile Entity has threatened her in the film, its been mostly generic stuff. When the entity was disguised as the therapist, all they said was "It's almost time, Rose." However, when the Entity pretended to be Rose's mother and Joel, it did a really good job of portraying them realistically before showing its hand. When pretending to be Carl or whatever his name was, however, the two elements combined perfectly. The Smile Entity took something the person in Rose's life was already known for saying and found a way to turn it specifically into a method of frightening her.

The solution of isolating yourself and starving the entity, I will admit I predicted that idea. Not because I thought it was too predictable but because I constantly put myself in the protagonists position when experiencing stories like this and try to imagine what I'd do. I also like the idea of outsmarting paranormal entities. A genie tells me I'm not allowed to wish for more wishes, so I wish that there was no rule on what I was allowed to wish for, not even the rule against more wishes. However, I really thought it would actually work. The whole time she was in her childhood home I was whispering at myself, begging her to hurry up and torch the place by dropping the lantern, which is what I assume her plan was. Of course she never even lit the lantern since that was likely in her mind, so it wouldn't have really made a difference. When she seemed to be in Joel's house, a part of me believed it was over and that she had won, but I still had this dread in my gut that there was more to do before the Entity would be truly killed. You can't just set fire to depression.

When the Entity revealed its true form, I was... dissapointed, I suppose. As freaky and horrifying as what we got was, I would have much preferred the true form they set up for earlier on in the film with the professor's study full of sketches. When we saw the Smile Entity depicted as just a dark shadow with that creepy smile in the center. That's what I was hoping for!! Instead of the weird many-mouthed creep that had to rip open Rose's face in order to crawl inside, just have it be a whispery shadow that she can breathe in and have it take control that way. That would have been much more unnerving and horrifying than the body-horror direction the film took in that finale.

I do like the set up for a sequel, though. Like I know if a film is good enough, it doesn't exactly need to be set up for future continuations, but considering the entire premise here is that this is some kind of suicide chain, it makes sense that we would see the next victim of the Smile Entity. However, I'm also a bit of a whimp and would have liked to see Rose succeed in conquering her demons. Unhappy endings are good because they stick with you, but sometimes when a character fights really hard and is willing to go the distance to overcome insurmountable odds, I feel like they should be rewarded with some kind of victory. Whether Rose's initial plan to starve the entity by committing suicide on her own worked and the chain ended there, or she found another way to beat the entity at it's own game, I don't mind. The fact is that Rose really should have had a chance at being freed from the curse.

One of the main reasons I'm not too fond of horror and slasher films is I feel like they often rely on idiot plot (Plot kept in motion solely by virtue of the fact that everybody involved is an idiot) which isn't a critisism I had with Smile. While other characters would probably still be denying the existence of a curse that's haunting them until really quite far into the film's run time, Rose came to terms with the existence of the paranormal very quickly. She researched it, she followed the yellow brick road in an attempt to avoid her newly-written fate. She jumped through hoops to try and beat this thing and then tripped at the final hurdle. Maybe that's just what happens in horror films. Maybe the evil forces at play are always supposed to win or it can't really be called a horror film or something, I don't know. I just feel that Rose was deserving of her victory after all that she was willing to do in order to get away from the entity, and the fact that it still took her over in the end was kind of sad.

But I suppose if you view this story as an allegory for depression, that's probably kind of the point, isn't it? That sometimes no matter how hard you fight, no matter how close you feel you are to beating something like depression or suicidal thoughts, they can always come back. I'm not personally depressed or suicidal, however I've known a lot of people in my life who have had those kinds of thoughts, and the way they talk truly makes it seem as though they've got the weight of their world on their shoulders. Not the world, their world. You see this with Rose, too. Her entire world comes crashing down around her as the Entity slowly takes over her life. So its probably just a personal dislike that we didn't get to see it all be rewarded.

Anyway, the biggest crime of the movie is that the Smile Entity killed Mustache without disguising itself as the little baby man.

Overall, enjoyable movie. Give it a watch if you're even remotely interested, it'll probably scratch an itch or two.