Super scary movie recently released: “Smile” movie review

Since its release three months ago, the Smile movie trailer has received over 26 million views.

Paramount Pictures

Since its release three months ago, the “Smile” movie trailer has received over 26 million views.

by Patrick Lyons, Reporter

“Smile” is a new horror movie currently playing in theaters. It premiered on September 30. This movie was highly anticipated, and it had the best opening weekend out of any other movie in the month of September.

The movie has a very unique and interesting plot. It begins with a therapist named Dr. Rose Carter (Sosie Bacon) in session with one of her patients. Her patient talks about an unseen force that causes people to smile at her and threaten her. The patient then proceeds to commit suicide in front of Carter and pass the curse on to her.

The curse of this creepy unseen force begins to ruin Carter’s life by harming her relationship with her loved ones, as she is constantly in fear for her own life. The only person that believes that the curse is real is her ex-boyfriend Joel ( Kyle Gallner). Together, Joel and Carter later find out that the curse has passed through a chain of approximately 20 people. The only way for Carter to escape the eventual outcome of the curse is for her to do something terrible to someone else.

“Smile” has received a lot of recognition and ended their opening weekend at the top of the domestic box office with a very solid $22 million in sales. This great performance was not surprising since Paramount Pictures did an outstanding marketing job for this film.

In the couple of nights leading up to the premier, Paramount paid actors to wear bright shirts that read “smile” and then creepily smile into the cameras at Major League Baseball games. This genius marketing ploy earned a lot of buzz for the movie and was seen on national television, even making it on to famous social media pages like Sports Center.

Junior Joel Martin said, “I think the way Paramount marketed the movie was very creative, and I wish more movies would market their movies like they did.”

I think the way Paramount marketed the movie was very creative, and I wish more movies would market their movies like they did.

— Joel Martin

In addition to the high popularity of the movie, it seems that most audience members enjoyed “Smile.” For many movies, it is common for them to get very hyped up the first week at the box office, but when the second week comes around, they do not live up to the hype and end up with bad sales. 

This was not the case for “Smile,” as it managed to earn the top spot in North America as the number 1 movie for the second week in a row. It racked up a solid $17.6 million in box office sales in its second week.

This movie also received a decent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes with a rank of 78%, which is higher than other popular horror movies such as “It: Chapter 2,” “Halloween Kills,” “Us,” and “Candyman.”

A hired actress smiles creepily during a baseball game as part of the film’s marketing strategy. (Dennis)

Personally, I have to agree with the audience. I thought “Smile” was a solid movie and had many positives. I thought the acting from the three main characters, Sosie Bacon (Dr Carter), Kyle Gallner (Joel) and Jessie T. Usher (Trevor) was very good. I also enjoyed the quality jump scares in the movie. I feel these moments added excitement to the movie and gave it a real horror-movie feel.

Freshman Jorlandy Sosa said, “I found the movie very scary and one of the jump scares even made me throw my popcorn out of fear.”

I also enjoyed some of the little plot twists that this movie had. (Spoiler Alert.) At one point, it showed Carter go into the hospital and murder one of her patients, but it turned out that she was just dreaming in her car. This moment shocked the crowd and really added to the entertainment factor of the movie.

Overall, I thought the movie was very well put together, and I would give it four out of five stars. I strongly encourage anyone to go watch it before it leaves theaters.