SMILE. Great Horror movie with a savvy ad campaign

This weekend had no shortage of spooky movies to go see in theaters. I went to the premiere of the latest scare, Smile.  

This new movie had some quite unique ways of advertising, I saw an ad on a televised baseball game, behind Al Roker, other televised events. This wasn’t a billboard or a regular commercial, it was a lady standing completely still, with the creepiest smile ever. At the time I didn’t know what was going on, because half the time now a days there's something from social media trying to get people's attention and it catches on somewhere else. Then I did some minimal research and found out it was one of my favorite things...a horror movie!!! 

This movie is a bit of a throwback to early 2000s horror like The Ring or Sinister, but it’s a little bit scarier than the rest. I was expecting the same old jump scares thinking it was formulated for teenagers, but when I ordered my ticket online, I realized it had an ‘R’ rating. So, this time I almost cracked my smartphone screen hitting the purchase button.  

The story was well laid out from the beginning leaving you confused in a good way of what is going to happen next. The characters were developed right away and the curse presented itself without too many hoops to jump through. Main star Sosie Bacon is a therapist that after trying to treat a victim, is bombarded with haunting visions and seems to be cracking in front of all her co-workers and boss played by Kal Penn. She finds the pattern of the curse and tracks it back to the origins with help of her ex who is a police detective.  

Towards the end is where it gets a little convoluted, at a point where she's in and out of reality, sometimes you as a viewer, don’t even know where hallucinations begin and the plot ends. I suppose that’s the idea.  

I give it an 8/10 

I say if you love scary movies, go see SMILE.