Chainletter Horror

People who make movies know that audiences respond well to devices that help structure the narrative. One very common example is the ticking clock. The protagonist has x amount of time to accomplish y or else z. It helps to clearly define the stakes for the audience. My favorite horror movie, The Ring (2002, Gore Verbinski), is a great example of this. You watch a video then get a phonecall and 7 days later you die. We all know that those 7 days will elapse in the time it takes to get to the end of the movie.
     But The Ring adds something else. If you show the video to someone else, you’re off the hook. So simple. Such an effective genre contraption. It’s fun to weigh the morality behind would you rather die, or live but someone else has to die in your place. But it only works in movies when it’s established through a curse. It’s the whole reason It Follows (2014, David Robert Mitchell) works.

Smile (2022, Parker Finn) is a psychological chainletter horror movie about a doctor who treats patients with mental illness. And the whole reason I love this movie is because it cohesively builds its world entirely around ROSE being labeled crazy yet knowing she's not.    

     You see the smile and then you die. Paramount put this movie out. And it had a big ad campaign. When I first saw the teasers in theaters I thought it looked so stupid. But sometimes I get this compulsion to try something I told myself there’s no way I would like. Also I don’t judge a movie by its ads. For example, there’s no way I’m going to watch Amsterdam (2022, David O. Russell), despite its trailers with its amazing cast and the propulsion it derives from a catchy song. “Helplessly Hoping” from 1969 by Crosby, Stills, and Nash (I looked it up). I don’t like David O. Russell’s work though.
     What’s great about Smile is that the victims we hear about from the smile curse don’t have any link to mental illness. It’s Rose. Rose has it in her family. Rose has based her career on it. And the inciting incident sets Rose up in a position where now everyone wonders if she could be crazy. Without even being a horror movie, that’s a pretty great dramatic premise. And what makes this angle even more effective for me is that even though the cultural climate is being progressively shaped to be more inclusive and protective, there will always be those considered “other.”
     The “other” is scary. It’s the people society has deemed unfit. Like a witchhunt. I root for these protagonists above all. The one scene that won me over has to be at the point Rose’s driven to the edge and everyone is against her and we see her scarfing a cheeseburger in her car all by herself. (Okay, in the movie they don’t say it’s a cheeseburger. It could be a veggie burger or a beyond burger or whatever. I’m taking liberties here.) But it’s the way she goes at it: with complete abandon. So this is just me I’m guessing but I took it as her tired of being stifled by conformity and taking a break to do what she wants for a change. 
 
Mental illness is no joke. I get that. But I love the performance this actress (Sosie Bacon) gives as Rose. There was a moment where I could have sworn I saw her eye twitch that I thought was brilliant. I can’t recall ever having seen a movie where the main character isn’t just mistaken for being crazy in a worst paranoid fear actually come true way, but actually transforming into someone who is. Or is she? I don’t want to spoil it. Anyway, the thing about chainletter horror is how to end it. And horror is one of the genres endings matter more than most. And again not to give anything away, but I love the way Smile ends.
 
9/27/2022 AMC Phipps Plaza 14
Atlanta, GA
DCP