Who would think that a smile could be so horrifying? The definition of a Smile is “to form one’s features into a pleased, kind, or amused expression.” The director Parker Finn brought a horrifying feel to what is supposed to be a “kind” expression. Seeing the countless amounts of trailers and commercials and being successfully daunting to viewers watching. Seeing these previews created hype and a sense of suspense before going to see it, but after viewing the close to two-hour movie It was hard to not believe otherwise. The story begins with Dr. Rose Cotter (who is played by Sosie Bacon) and follows her as being the best psychologist in her hospital, even though she’s a little crazed herself from unresolved trauma as a child. The real plot starts when Rose is assigned to attend to an unhinged medical student named Laura who has been seeing eerie smiles everywhere since she had witnessed a suicide a few days prior, notably by a person who was also smiling, who had also seen a suicide by a smiling person only a few days before.

The story follows Rose as she starts witnessing abnormal smiles after seeing a suicide herself. The condition she now has is affecting all her close relationships and challenging her mental health while threatening to end her life altogether. The only one who seems to believe Rose is her ex-boyfriend Joel, who reassures her she is not crazy. Who knows though, Will Rose be able to break the chain of fear? “The movie felt like a fever dream, things were happening all over the place and it made it entertaining to keep up with,” said freshman Priyal Choudhary. When asked what she would rate the movie from 1 out of 10, Choudhary goes on to say “1 out of 10, I would give it a 7. I would usually get scared at horror movies but this one I was making fun of it rather than getting nightmares.”

Overall the movie isn’t that scary. Relying on jump scares of burglar alarms or opening cat food brought no sense of sacredness to the audience watching it. Seeing all the excitement around this film brought so much enthusiasm to see it, but after actually witnessing it I think it’s safe to say the viewers went to bed peacefully that night.