Smile * * *

Have you noticed how many horror films rely on mental illness to explain things away.  Smile is no exception - it's all about trauma, suppressed emotions and suicide. Some might look at that and say "Not Funny!", and they'd be right.  But if you want to get all woke about it, then you'd have to wipe out a thousand other horror films including the king of horror films - Hitchcock's Psycho.

"Thanks for the review Flip" (gulp)

Personally I don't mind that the producers of horror use mental illness as a dramatic device - but just don't expect to get points for originality. Again Smile is no exception.

I noticed Smile has been getting a few ticks for being genuinely scary. It certainly has a few shock moments, but you probably won't lose too much sleep. There's a fair bit of gore too with stabbings, slashing, faces being ripped off and immolation.  Hey.... it is a horror film.

In this film the one who is there to rationally explain things is the victim.  Rose is a psychiatrist in a hospital. She notices a pattern of behavior with suicide victims - and then she notices some strange behaviour in herself.  Basically this is beyond a mental condition and possibly an unexplained evil force. 

She's given time off her work and then things really start to spiral downward for Rose - especially as she starts her investigations into other people who knew people who suicided. Her family and friends ostracize her.  It moves quickly in the second half but at this stage it's cheating itself - or us - with shock scenes that turn out to be dream sequences until we reach Rose confronting her traumatic childhood - and Mummy of course.

It's got some impressive acting.  To pull a threatening face is something, but to scare the audience with a smile - which it does - well, that takes some skill.