The Mosley Review: Smile
A strong marketing campaign can sometimes truly make or break a film. When you promise a unique premise and don't fully deliver, its just disappointing and sad. This film had a wonderful marketing campaign and it delivered on its creepy premise in so many fun ways. The film doesn't take long to grab your attention with a great opening scene. I loved that the tone stays consistent and the creep facture was ever rising as the disturbing images and psychological tricks starting getting more intense. Now I would be lying if I didn't immediately start thinking of other horror films that are similar to this one, but I would say this film delivers a fun twist on this genre of horror. The most I ask for from a horror film is to have an engaging story that is sometime scary, but also fun and inventive. I'm so glad this film had more to offer than just its surface.
Sosie Bacon was absolutely outstanding as Dr. Rose Cutter. The amount of psychological terror the character goes through is tragic and Sosie does an amazing job capturing the characters decent into madness. The amount of stress and pain is wonderfully shown through a number of clever physical damages and visions that she sees and some of them were genuinely scary. Caitlin Stasey was awesome as Laura. She introduces the terror in the amazing opening scene that sets the tone by her electric performance that resonates throughout the film. Jessie T. Usher was good as Rose's fiance Trevor and I liked how freaked out he got as terrible things start to happen. He really knows how to come off as a jerk and he excels as that in this film. Kyle Gallner was great as Joel a former lover of Rose. He carries some much charisma in his eyes and I loved how much he was willing to help Rose. Robin Weigert was great and calming as Dr. Madeline Northcott. She was the excellent amount of calm that was needed between the scares and I liked her scenes with Rose. Rob Morgan was awesome as Robert Talley in an intense and informative scene that was also a true highlight of the film.
The score by Cristobal Tapia de Veer was good and added to the terror. I liked the amount of bass and electronica sound that was uncommon and startling toward the mid section of the film. Not all the jump scares worked for me as you can see some of them coming around the corner. I loved the twist and turns the film delivers and the final scene was executed perfectly, but a little cliche. It was definitive, but I would've liked an old school approach. Overall, I liked the film and its rich premise. Sure it would definitely fit with a double feature of a very similar film that you'll figure out when you see it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't fun. Let me know what you thought of the film or my review in comments below. Thanks for reading!
