'Smile' review: Trope-heavy horror forces you to grin and bear it

'Smile' is a horror curio as opaque and somewhat silly as the smiles that drive it. – Photos: Handout

Writer/director Parker Finn’s feature debut Smile boasts the thinnest of premises based on a laundry list of horror movie trends and tropes, from the historical to the contemporary.

Based on his 2020 short film Laura Hasn’t Slept, Finn inserts the latest hot topic in horror – trauma – into a story structured around a death curse chain, as seen in films like The Ring, It Follows and She Dies Tomorrow. All that’s needed to pass along the curse is a mere smile, but it’s the kind of chin-lowered, eyes-raised toothy grin that communicates something far more devious than friendly.