Smile (2022)

Smile is the kind of studio horror that actually earns its title: it takes an everyday human expression and turns it into a nerve-jangling omen you’ll start noticing in the corners of your own life. Parker Finn directs with a sharp, patient sense of dread, letting tension accumulate like a headache you can’t shake, while the score needles at you until even quiet moments feel unsafe. Sosie Bacon anchors the film with a raw, believable unraveling that makes the fear feel personal rather than mechanical, and the mystery structure keeps you leaning forward even as you want to look away. It’s not for the squeamish—suicide and grisly imagery are central to its nightmare—but if you’re on the fence and want a horror movie that delivers real scares with craft and conviction, this one bites down and doesn’t let go.

Smile is clearly trying to fuse a slick studio horror ride with a trauma-as-contagion metaphor, and on a surface level it mostly delivers the goods: creepy grins, escalating dread, and a committed lead performance from Sosie Bacon. The problem is it often feels like a greatest-hits remix of better curse movies, leaning hard on jump scares and loud stingers when the story starts running out of genuinely fresh ideas. It’s also relentlessly bleak and graphic, with repeated suicide imagery and nasty body-horror beats that can feel more punishing than meaningful if you’re not in the mood for that. If you want a subtle, psychologically rich mystery, this may leave you cold—but if you just want a polished, mean-spirited scare machine with a few genuinely effective set pieces, it’ll do the job.