Writer-director Parker Finn, making his first feature, expertly crafts scary sequences in which psychiatrist Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) is spooked by random folks sporting expressions which begin as sinister smirks and expand to fixed, Joker-like grimaces. A smart decision is not to play this one trick too often, so moments when the smile shows up on a new face elicit gasps, while a constantly-rumbling soundtrack of ominous burblings works up an atmosphere of dread. Smile even runs to a final boss spook/monster which isn’t a let-down.
However, while Finn the director gets good work from a not-too-pretty indie-movie style cast, Finn the writer hangs horrors on a basic chain-letter-curse plot which has the third-hand feel of those forgotten American remakes of memorable Asian horror films which came out in the early noughts. Unlike It Follows, which it’s obviously patterned on, Smile fumbles its subtext, flagging up Rose’s mommy issues guilt. Memories of her mentally ill mother keep getting dragged in as a way of making Rose doubt her own senses as she experiences a curse passed on when a drop-in clinic patient (Caitlin Stasey) gives her the smile and cuts her throat in front of her. Her infuriatingly bland fiancé (Jessie T. Usher) and cop ex-boyfriend (Kyle Gallner) either ignore or indulge her as the monster torments her, but the character scenes are wheel-spinning between scares, even if Bacon gives the heroine some grit.
Like many ‘curse’ movies, this has to explain how the curse is passed on (if not why) then switch from investigation to desperation as characters try to find get-out clauses to escape inevitable doom. At about half an hour longer than the average October horror hopeful, Smile dawdles when it ought to speed up, but ultimately delivers enough nighmare fuel to compensate for its standard-issue storyline.
Smile will be released in cinemas on 28 September.