David Farnor | On 20, Oct 2024

Director: Parker Finn
Cast: Sosie Bacon, Kyle Gallner, Kal Penn, Caitlin Stasey, Jessie T Usher, Rob Morgan
Certificate: 18

If It Follows made the simple act of someone walking towards you creepy, Smile does the same but with facial expressions. You won’t realise until after you’ve seen it just how terrifying the effect is – and, well, that’s kind of the whole point.

The film is the feature debut of director Parker Finn, who adapts his own hit short Laura Hasn’t Slept into a longer tale. It follows Rose (Sosie Bacon), a therapist whose patient dies by suicide in front of her after telling her about the haunting visions and voices they’ve been experiencing. Soon after she witnesses that bizarre and disturbing death, though, she finds herself experiencing the same thing.

Is she imagining things? Is she suffering PTSD from the shocking death? Is there something more sinister afoot? The more she finds smiling people appearing in her day-to-day lief, warning her she’s going to die, the more she fears the latter – but, inevitably, her boyfriend, Trevor (Jessie T Usher), and her boss, Dr Morgan Desai (Kal Penn), don’t listen or believe her. The one person who does listen is her ex-boyfriend, Joel (Kyle Gallner), a police officer – and together, they begin to investigate an unlikely and unnerving curse.

What ensues is somewhere between Ringu and It Follows, and Parker Finn savvily remixes familiar ideas into a recipe that feels strikingly fresh. Finn’s script leans into the idea of a timebound curse looming over Rose, which gives events the taut pacing of a detective thriller with suspense fuelled by a very finite deadline. Sosie Bacon and Kyle Gallner are superb at both committing to the idea and feeling believably sceptical of the whole thing, which gives events just enough realism to really hook us in.

The visuals, though, are anything but everyday, as a string of escalating set pieces dial up the gore to Evil Dead territory. While there are jump-scares aplenty on offer, they’re backed up by some truly terrifying vignettes and compositions, with very practical effects making it all the more startling. Combined with excellent editing and sound work, plus a creepy score by Utopia’s Cristobal Tapia de Veer, the result is a study of trauma that makes up for any lack of depth with an atmosphere that is relentlessly intense.

Add to Watchlist