Smile

A dead body, mouth spewing in a bed and surrounded by pills, watched by a little girl and a nightmare kick off Smile. Before we get to Rose (Sosi Bacon) post nightmare is called to see a very agitated emergency patient who has just killed a man with a hammer. Laura (Caitlin Stassy) swears she can see an apparition with a rictus smile, a horrid smile tormenting her. To the point where it gets too much and smashing up the room takes a piece of a broken pot and with a wide toothy smile cuts her throat.

It's a dramatic and bloody start and the viewer would expect that Rose would be put on leave. She is but not until much later when she starts to see things, do things she can't remember - dead cat as birthday present - and scares the wits out of her managers at the place she works that they force her to take a week's leave.

It's now that we get to the meat of the story, with Rose researching that case and others, with some help from her ex, copper Joel (Kyle Gallner). And it’s a long list of bloody suicides and murder with what seems like a hideous chain to it all.

Smile written and directed by Parker Finn is a crowd-pleasing, mass-market horror film - though stronger than usual hence the 18 certificate - that I doubt many will have much to complain about. It hits the beats of these types of film with a strong female protagonist, angsty fiancé and various other side characters that move the story along.

There's a rough allusion to Ring and It Follows at certain points though generally formulaic which seasoned watchers will recognise. But also the grin while superficially that of the Joker, goes much further back to Paul Leni's 1928 The Man Who Laughs, starring Conrad Veidt and his terrible grin.

It does though have some very effective jump scares which raises it above others. As well as score by Cristobal Tapia de Veer that for much of the time relies on the sort of disembodied sounds that recall Forbidden Planet's blips and blops, though less off planet and more industrial hell.