Knee-jerk review: "Smile"

1. If you saw Top Gun Maverick in theaters, you likely remember well seeing the creepy "what the heck was that?" teaser trailer.
2. The ending gets pretty scary and gross, but for the most part the movie coasts along more on dread and unease than traditional horror.
3. Though there are, of course, a number of music-screeching jump scares.  There's no way around that.
4. Scary movies like this always seem to work better with a cast of mostly unknowns.  Somehow feels more real.
5. Yes, the monster-as-virus premise calls to mind The Ring.  But a closer cousin may be the underrated It Follows.
6. It's pretty ingenious to use the monster as a metaphor for trauma and the way trauma can both consume you and infect those around you.  It's not just the victim that suffers.
7. There are a couple of cheats here where what you think is happening turns out to be a dream.  We're not fans of that gimmick.  But fine, whatever.
8. Certainly helps with story exposition when the heroine has an ex-boyfriend who's a police officer who can look up stuff on his laptop.
9. The most "no way!" moment comes at a child's birthday party.  Yikes.
10. The movie creates genuine sympathy for the lead because while we've seen everything through her eyes and know it's real, when she's trying to explain her situation to others she sounds absolutely insane.  Irony alert in that she deals with a mental patient in the first scene that sounds crazy... but looking back, maybe he's telling the truth. 
11. Little moments like that add welcome nuance and depth.  There are actual story themes here.  It's not just about scares.
12. Kal Penn does what Kal Penn always does, look thoughtfully concerned and/or concernedly thoughtful.
13. Is it as scary as that teaser trailer?  Probably not (though it freaked the Cheese Fry's 13-year-old enough to swear she'd never see the movie), but it definitely mines the premise well and delivers the goods.

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