SCORE: 7/10

Having spent years trying to flee her own childhood trauma by working her fingers to the bone, compassionate psychiatrist Dr Rose Cotter is used to treating the most damaged and vulnerable members of society. Laura’s puzzling case, however, is a different story. As an unsuspecting Dr Cotter attempts to rationalise the dreadful delusions of the deeply disturbed young woman, hair-raising encounters with the unexplained cause the therapist to reconsider. Now she is losing her grip on reality. Can Rose deal with the ugly past and confront the smile, the unsettling grin of death?

REVIEW:

From the very start, everything from the directing, performances to the cinematography and sound design were absolute stunning. How a low budget managed this feat was beyond me but the film was simply mesmerizing to look at.

The horror was quite effective with jumpscares and dreadful moments, albeit some cheap ones but not that distracting. They were able to build up the tension so well and never intended to tone it down right till the very end.

The plot was simple enough to interlink all relevant characters to make me care about them, although some could complain 90% of the characters were just filler and I might agree with that.

However, the protagonist was good enough to carry the whole show.One thing that may not sit well with a lot of audience was the use of mental illness. Smile handled it decently but don’t expect Oscar worthy exposition. And no, it wasn’t exactly the main theme so try not to quit halfway through because there would be surprises by the last act of the film.

Give it a go. I’d say it was well worth the time for horror fans like myself. This was not just some Annabelle or Insidious sequels but something more!

TRAILER: