What makes you happy? No creepy grin there. Paramount Pictures revealed a new image for their forthcoming horror picture Smile, and the warning it contains is scary in its brevity: “Once you see it, it’s too late,” implying that the film’s unsettling premise is contagious. In Parker Finn’s debut as a horror filmmaker, Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) recounts the extraordinary events she witnesses while treating one of her patients. As the events begin to affect her mind, she investigates the source of the terrible killings and the awful wide grins that seem to be an epidemic, murdering those who contract them.
The film will be an adaptation of Laura Hasn’t Slept, a short film Finn made in 2020 that became an instant critical favourite and won the Midnight Award at the SXSW Film Festival. Caitlin Stasey, who played the lead in the film, will also appear in Smile in a role whose nature has yet to be revealed. Stacey is the lady shown in the new, eerily effective poster, but she is not replacing the principal actress. The official plot summary goes as follows: “Dr Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), after witnessing an unusual and terrible event involving a patient, begins to experience scary, unexplainable events. In order to live and get away from her terrifying new reality as an overwhelming horror threatens to take over her life, Rose must confront her troubled history.”
Even though October is still a few weeks away, you may get an early Halloween to treat from the film’s macabre narrative, since it has been given a rating of R for its violent violence. Bacon’s starring role in Smile will be his film debut. Scream: The TV Series, an anthology series based on Wes Craven’s Scream franchise, also features Bacon. Smile stars Rob Morgan (The Unforgivable), Kal Penn (The Sisterhood of the Night), Jessie T. Usher (Dangerous Lies), Robin Weigert (The Undying), and Kyle Gallner (A Nightmare on Elm Street).
The movie Smile opens on September 30.