Please stop writing modern horror like this

[@LackingSaint]

For 21 FREE meals with HelloFresh plus free shipping, use code JACKSAINT21 at bit.ly/3YZtPnd It sure didn't make me Smile (2022)! Support Links 💰 PATREON | www.patreon.com/jacksaint 🔴 KZbin | kzbin.info/door/dQKvqmHKe_8fv4Rwe7ag9Qjoin 👛 TIPS @ ko-fi.com/lackingsaint ✍ MASTODON @ mastodon.social/@lackingsaint 👥 PUBLIC DISCORD @ discord.gg/BjVfT4JR66

[@curiousworld7912]

From just the small bit shown of the interview with the director of 'Smile', it didn't seem to me that he had a terribly clear notion as to his own intent for the film. He didn't say he wanted an ambiguous ending, he didn't say he was going full-on pessimist - he just sort of stuttered about, as his interviewer made either a cynical remark, or simply a fairly lame one, about a franchise for the director to figure out what it all meant. Jordan Peele, on the other hand, knows what he's doing.

[@ricucci-hillmusic]

Honestly I was thinking babadook was a much better example of how confronting death

[@johndodo2062]

It's not just horror buddy. Every genre is garbage now. Every single one

[@nyctotheory]

Fish does count, and in fact they're all wildcatch or rely on wildcatch. We're literally running out of ocean life because of fishing. Sorry, I should engage with the actual video which is excellent, that just always bothers me as a sentiment. Fish are just as smart as land animals, and just as capable of emotional bonds.

[@itsgonnabeanaurfromme]

Please do research on hello fresh. Toxic work culture and terrible for the environment actually

[@KnarfBlack]

I think Smile succeeded in its true goal of having no more than 15 minutes of runtime between any two jumpscares. At first I was a little mad that the trailer spoiled the neck break one, as it was definitely the highlight, but knowing that it was coming allowed me ample opportunity to crack open my contraband can beer in the theater without annoying the rest of the audience.

[@endTHEhegemony_Today]

This comment took a turn, what a ride!! 🖤💜💙💚💙💜🖤 Much Love!!

[@LunaWitcherArt]

I'm glad I didn't see anything about this movie before watching it. I wasn't AS mad as I would've been if I had. Hated the ending.

[@ARMADILLOARMADILLO]

The universal experience of cracking a can of beer in the theater At my sparsely attended screening of babylon I took a huge rip from my hash oil vape and the cloud of vapor was way bigger than I expected and wafted toward a nearby viewer. I was initially self conscious about him smelling my weed but then he immediately cracked his contraband beer can so I knew I was in good company

[@witchflowers6942]

god dude. Fucking beautiful comment. Bravo.

[@kefkaexdeath]

honestly the neck break jumpscare in the trailer was what led me to watch the movie believing there was a chance it might possibly turn out to be a lot better than The Entire Rest Of The Trailer seemed to indicate

[@DTyrannosaurus]

“Using jump scares in horror movies and calling it scary is like a comedian tickling the audience and calling it funny.” Wish I could remember who said that; it’s perfect.

[@tunnelsnakesrule7541]

Jumpscares aren't bad at all. They're just overused. Sinister and REC are damn near perfect movies and they have a lot of jumpscares.

[@xanalora69xibatazul16]

@@tunnelsnakesrule7541 it's kinda trendy hate jumpscares now

[@Razumen]

Jump scares are just a part of horror, they're not inherently bad themselves.

[@corydk4834]

@@Razumen that’s my problem with these immediate gut reaction “jump scares aren’t real horror” it ignores fun factor and seems just as knee jerk as forcing a jump scare every 15 minutes.

[@smokedbeefandcheese4144]

@@xanalora69xibatazul16 That’s true hating on jump scares now it’s just like hating on auto tune there’s no inherent problem it’s just people get worked up about seeing it everywhere

[@TomMinnow]

Imagine you sign up for fear factor and they tell you to eat weird food and not throw up. You succeed because it wasn't even that gross, but then they grab your head and jam their fingers down your throat, forcing you to throw up. You say "hey that doesn't count, you just took advantage of my involuntary reflex" they just say "hehehe we gotchu! hehehe you're a weeny can't even eat a wee little cricket" That's how I feel about cheap horror movie jumpscares.

[@mariaah3073]

That's... actually great visualization. I hate it, I hate every single word of it, but it's true lol

[@thomasjess5029]

Kind of like how a sibling or bully will fake punch you just to make you flinch and laugh at you.

[@Fopenplop]

kinda kinky

[@emmakane6848]

There are three types of people and you managed to attract all of them with this comment.

[@Balls4778]

Yup. Jumpscares dont require any intelligence to make. They just manipulate physiological processes the body has to protect itself. While I still do enjoy them moderately, they don’t compare at all to atmospheric or psychological horror

[@thegazetteyt]

The main thing I wanted from Smile was to utilize the main character who was a psychiatrist. She's a logical person having something illogical happen to her. I wanted her to psychoanalyze herself. I wanted to see a protagonist go through the same exercises she would take with a patient. Instead she became the cliche "I'm not crazy" woman we see in nearly every horror movie. The movie missed the boat on utilizing that aspect of the character.

[@jacklemm1518]

I mean she did psychoanalysis herself a bit. She self diagnosed herself at the beginning a few times but you’re right jt could’ve been utilized more

[@Impalingthorn]

To be fair, it would go from a Horror movie to a Thriller at that point. Gerald's Game did this exact thing and it worked out for sure, but it also wasn't really a horror film as much as it was a Thriller because you get reassured around every corner "She is going to survive this".

[@ayvenmoon]

I feel like she went from "maybe if I face my trauma the monster will go away" to "nope, it's a real demon and I can't stop it". She was just in the wrong movie lol

[@destinywhigham7961]

The writers and director simply weren't intelligent enough and knew enough about psychology to make a movie like that. I feel you'd have to have an actual doctor on your team write a movie like that that actually makes sense e

[@thegazetteyt]

Very very true. There seemed to be no fusion of the visuals to the narrative. As far as actually having medical consultants as part of their writing process, I have no idea. One thing that stuck out to me was the wrapping paper on the gift at the birthday party. It was so macabre and odd to all the "normal" around her. That could have been an allegory for how sen sees the world, or how she is supposed to or even her patients. The fields were fertile for a really good psychological horror and it just fell flat.@@destinywhigham7961

[@n0xure]

The real monster is the writer's fear that nobody is going to understand what the movie is about without the characters and the monster having to explain it ten times.

[@n0xure]

​@@JustthePhoneGuyYT Like.. DINOSAURS ON A SPACESHIP!!??? Modern Doctor Who generally weird; it clearly has that legacy of children's show in its DNA without really being one anymore. The plot still mostly follows the safety rules that you'd normally have in children's television; like they show a scary thing for a only few seconds and then the Doctor jumps in saying: "look at this adorable ghost! What a marvellous creature - let's find out if we can help it". But then, you have notable exceptions like the Angel episodes where they completely break all those rules.

[@luketfer]

@@n0xure interesting thought but probably wrong considering Dr Who did not START as a childrens show and has never been in the 'Childrens programming block' in the UK. The Childrens programming block was 6am-9am and 3pm to 5:30pm on weekdays and 6am to 12pm on weekends, Dr Who was normally in the evenings. When it made its comeback with the 10th Doctor it was broadcast, in the UK, at primetime.

[@kylejackson7913]

I mean it’s pretty obvious even if they don’t say it

[@king_poyo64]

The sad thing is, some people actually need that.

[@Verasoul]

I just think of Mac when they're filming their fan made Lethal Weapon sequels.

[@Ficus1493]

I went to see a movie once with my girlfriend and her brother, I think it was called something like Lights Out, and its depiction of being the eldest daughter of an unstable mother with depression honestly triggered me. The depression "ghost" was tied to the mother and the darkness, and the estranged eldest daughter had to go back and face it. I related extremely strongly with the symbolic representation (enough to trigger a panic attack) but then the resolution happened. The mother, realizing that the ghost was tied to her, killed herself to save her daughters from harm. As someone who suffered from my mother's depression and who then later, as an adult, went through her mother's suicide, this was...insulting. It was insulting as a thematic suggestion before my mother killed herself. Now it's laughably insulting. Suicide does not somehow save the abused children of someone with depression in real life. It only hurts them more. As you talked about Smile in this video, it made me think of that experience. More people need to talk about the unintentional symbolism of horror movies that use mental illness as a theme, and the real damage that it can do.

[@emmakane6848]

I feel like allegory in general is often being written by people who have no lived experience as the group they are trying to portray through it. (You see this with a lot of racial/supernatural other metaphors all the time.) Until we get actual people to tell their own stories through allegory no one is going to fully think through the implications of what their messaging could have on members of that group.

[@micahcook2408]

*SPOILER* : Yeah that's one of the big issues I had with this movie. A lot of people liked Smile because it subverted expectations of being like a lame Blumhouse film, but for me, in my opinion, I side with Adam from YMS -- basically summing up: It's mediocre at best while having some good visual moments here and there, specifically in regards to the Demonic Entity. I don't think this film should nor really does represent mental illness(es) in total. Maybe it represents one person's experience (bc people do unalive themselves) but what ruins it for me is 1) it passes onto people like a viral disease with each person having the same fate and having to do it IN FRONT OF PEOPLE to pass it on (which does not happen with severe mental illness in most cases nor does trauma work that way in every case (some situations can be more traumatic to A while B may feel indifferent lol) and 2) our main characters ACTUALLY look into the demonology/esotericism of this thing... if anything, this is, imo, one of the many Christian horror films out there lol Not to mention, how her fiancé treats her is just... weird? and were given NO context on why he would use her mother's mental health past to then berate her. Like I guess it's to subvert our trust of him, but he literally goes from "Oh honey we don't have to go to dinner since you saw someone literally off themselves in front of you; your mental health is important" to "all of this is crazy!! I shouldn't have proposed to you bc you're crazy!!" like what??? What is that writing ?? lmfao At least it could've been showcased through the directing or the writing that he likes showing off his 'successful life' to everyone, including her sister and her husband, and ACTS like a caring person when in reality he's a textbook rich narcissist. A way they could've done that is by having him simply huff in annoyance to her not wanting to go to dinner in the beginning or him being quick to transition into talking about the dinner (which, with the first initial viewing of the film, could be seen as him trying to take her mind off of it ("oh, isn't he thoughtful") but, in a second viewing of the film, we can note that as him actually just wanting to talk about something else to not ruin the mood). Idk, it just feels like a lot of the script was cut short for run time, while with the directing/acting I just wished for more nuanced input into the performances lol This movie imo is just another staple for SUPERNATURAL psychological horror and has no real metaphor for mental health other than a semi-allegory about trauma. It is *pale* in comparison to Midsommar and Hereditary (which both explore the "passed-on" trauma/mental health allegory a lot better imo).

[@jongya]

@@micahcook2408 definitely agree, hereditary is my favorite movie just the themes, metaphors, atmosphere, music, and acting were absolutely chef’s kiss. Plus even though I’m atheist I’m a huge fan of demonology so Ari Aster stole my heart with the ending

[@b3rdlala]

@@micahcook2408 I love your comment! I didn't even finish Smile it pissed me off for all the same reasons you mentioned. I think my biggest issue is that it seemed to have taken all the elements of mental health issues (lack of adequate care/services, not feeling heard, being ostracized or dismissed by society) and became so focused on capturing trauma as an event, spectacle that it forgot that trauma is FELT. And whenever movies fail, in my opinion, as a result of their shallow understanding and lack of nuance I like to ask myself how could the plot have been improved? Imagine if, instead of a story about how someone "caught" trauma and their ensuing struggle to defeat it, the demon made it so that you couldn't tell others about what happened to you and what was going to happen to you under the threat that it would happen to that person too. Then the burden of being cursed would become isolating (as it often is) and your loved ones trying to offer support, whatever their intentions, would only made the situation worse. Then the focus would be on how confusing and scary trauma is, while showcasing it as an internal struggle first and foremost. Babadook did something similar and it's one of my fav trauma based horror movies.

[@nont18411]

Hollywood is an expert at misunderstanding and demonizing mental illness.

[@zedwerdgorey]

Maybe the happy medium we're looking for is The Babadook. You can't ignore or eliminate *it*, but you don't have to succumb to or perpetuate *it*. Just put it away in a little place. And maybe every now and then, when you get a sort of feeling, go visit it. Acknowledge it. And then head back upstairs.

[@austincde]

I agree there is no "cure" just as there is no "lesson" to learn from being traumatized, you just become better at managing it ( or not)

[@TheNugettinage]

@@davidjones272 The Murmuring was definitely the best one out of the Cabinet of Curiosities shorts, although I feel like it would have been better if they just skipped the ending and had it end with them leaving without making any grand statement or having a grand climax like it did. That's what made Babadook's ending so great, it is so quiet and subdued and god damn it made me cry.

[@TheNugettinage]

It's also an acknowledgement that your perception of it is only partial, and that there are other people with other views on the situation. In the film, this is where the kid comes in, who genuinely misses his dad but is unable to process that feeling because his mom refuses to think about it. At the end, she has come to see that the kid needs to be able to have that connection as well, and while it may be an uncomfortable one for her, that is not a reason to shut him off from having it.

[@wallyslow]

if you like the babadook and the murmuring....then give 'Lake Mungo' a try.

[@zedwerdgorey]

@@wallyslow it's been on my list!

[@KateRafter]

Last Halloween, I decided to wear earplugs to a haunted house because nonstop shrieking gives me headaches. By the end of it, everyone in my group, including men and people I had just met, wanted to hold my hands or walk behind me, because despite being the shortest, I was the "bravest." And that's how I learned that jump scares are 90% loud noises. lol.

[@TheTongueTwisler]

That's exactly why I plug my ears when I know a jump scare is coming. I'm autistic so loud noises really bother. Most of the movies are not "scary", it's just loud

[@xLanzer]

​@@TheTongueTwislerLegit. It's like having someone scream in your ear and say that is scary 💀

[@basedbattledroid3507]

Also why I can't stand any crowded places without earplugs, packed malls with multiple people screaming at once are hellish to my sensitive autistic ears

[@m_crowley6674]

the funniest part about this movie is that every character that isnt the protagonist talks to them like a dhar mann bully character. "you're crazy! i dont wanna see you anymore! this is why mom died, because of *you*!"

[@micahcook2408]

Which is annoying because her "good-ending" explanation of not letting go/not letting others in makes no sense because we don't see ANY of that. Even if they didn't wanna show her behaviors relating to that in multiple scenes before the initial incident, you could at least convey that through how she deals with the situation in "the present" but no the scriptwriter conveys a multitude of ways of trying to deal with the situation and get rid of it: she tries to get help, tries to warn, tries to ignore it and get on medication/go to therapy/act like everything is fine (thus going to the party), etc. and I guess you could say that relates to "not letting it go" but if that's the case then the only solution is literally death haha Not to mention, she says about the whole mother unalive incident that she doesn't want to "relitigate" on that situation... meaning they've already dealt with that situation in therapy before lmfao So to me, it just makes it feel as if she "let go" of that part of her life, esp since a part of her making amends with her past was being a therapist in the first place lol ... I'm guessing the demon uses trauma to MAKE the inflicted feel as if they didn't get over their past when they in fact were dealing with it (although the first patient mentions nothing about their past trauma; just talks straight about the demon) Idk lol this movie makes me dizzy...

[@m_crowley6674]

to the person who posted "because singing killed my grandma, okay?" and deleted it. why. you're not wrong

[@nont18411]

I hate how hollywood always demonize mental illness in their media.

[@Keznen]

@m_crowley6674 KZbin might've randomly deleted it. Their filter system is absolute shit.

[@HomeschoolVouchers]

People in real life really do talk like that, though... You wouldn't believe they would till you see it

[@legoking2116]

The most frustrating thing about Smile is that the ending was so clean without the fake-out, you could literally just end it after her defeating the monster and it would have been completely thematically coherent. The ending feels so tacked on, and dark for the sake of being dark, that it draws attention to itself, and makes any themes that were set up feel pointless. Instead of being a movie about how it's possible to deal with and overcome trauma, or even that trauma always wins, it becomes a movie about a big scary monster that kills you.

[@TallulahFails]

you could see the director guy just absolutely waffle when asked about 'how to beat it' like bro do you have an idea for how the movie could've actually ended satisfyingly in a way that doesn't damn trauma survivors to being ripped to shreds by their trauma? No? Oh you just wanted to have a guise of psychological horror without the psychological payoff of actually saying something about the subject you used to get people to watch this film. ok then.

[@micahcook2408]

Yeah I feel like this film has more in common with Incantation than the likes of Babadook, Night House, Relic, etc.

[@kyradreamer4769]

@@TallulahFails Seriously. Not only does the movie fall flat, it's like a slap in the face to a hell of a lot of people. It's unsatisfying to such a high degree. The fact that trauma has become a buzzword sucks. I'm glad there's more awareness but I hate the way people just capitalize on it. It could have even been nice to see that feeling like trauma will always win is a key component for a lot of people with severe trauma or people who have had trauma since they were really young and can't imagine life without it. I was wrestling with this just last night personally, and it would be so great to see it represented in media correctly for everything that it is. Gritty and difficult with a lot of setbacks, or even that sometimes people are right for feeling like they'll never get better and in the end, showing that it's often not the case or that things can be bad and good at the same time and learning to live with it. They could have done something really good, but they didn't, it's disappointing but not shocking.

[@themyofmy]

movies about big scary monsters that kill you are great, but only if they know theyre about a big scary monster that kills you

[@liamwhite1719]

literally the whole movie is about how lingering trauma messes with you when allowed to fester. realistically, trauma isn't resolved from one reckoning. so of course the ending doesn't give a happy ending cause the whole point is that trauma is something you need to live with and constantly work on.

[@CinnamonGrrlErin1]

I keep waiting for someone to make a horror movie called "The Sneeze" at this point.

[@Xboxkokoko]

I take that as a challenge. I'm sure I could make an actual psycological horror about sneezing

[@CinnamonGrrlErin1]

@@Xboxkokoko after thinking about it, I realized that making a movie about evil seasonal allergies would basically be The Happening all over again.

[@WraithMagus]

@@Xboxkokoko In the past, they believed you had to say "God bless you" to stop your soul from leaving your body when you sneezed... THIS SUMMER, three words and a bottle of Zyrtec aren't going to be enough to stop that!...

[@chrisloco9]

@@CinnamonGrrlErin1 yeah i was gonna say it does exist already lol

[@h00pla434]

@@Xboxkokoko Didn't they already do that, they just called it Contagion?

[@Gravitynaut]

one thing i keep thinking about in Nope is how both steven yeun and daniel kaluuya's characters both become obsessed with the thing that traumatized them, particularly with "capturing"/containing them. for Jupe it's his little shrine to Gordy's Home, and for OJ it becomes about the film--almost more than simply proving the existence of the thing that he knows *actually* killed his dad, he seems to want to prove to himself that he can own this horror, that he still has control in the face of what seems to be an anomalous tragedy. This is a facet of trauma that most people don't understand, and it's because most people's understanding of trauma is "when you get scared of a bad thing that happened to you" and not a complete rewiring of your brain's response to everyday stimuli. "Trauma" really is just a buzzword horror movies use to sound deeper than they are these days. Very rarely do you actually get a film that understands it and comments on it tactfully like Nope does.

[@micahcook2408]

Exactly… trauma doesn’t always just pertain to death, trauma exists in many forms (seeing a family member naked, being laughed at during a presentation, seeing a car get in an accident right in front of you, hearing family yell and curse each other out, etc.).. Hereditary did a great job with that in a sense bc (Spoiler) the inciting moment for Peter to leave his body is by seeing naked cult members … who weren’t grotesque nor looked abnormal lol they weren’t even smiling scarily but that was more frightening to him than seeing his own mother saw her h**** off Lmfao … a lot of these horror movies miss the bargain with that except some (Relic comes to mind too as a good example).

[@ughust]

good analysis

[@adrianomaly1760]

Fascinating

[@dreamingstrawberries]

This is a very good point. I have medical trauma, and I'm always drawn to medical tv shows. I know anyone can love medical tv shows,. but there's reasons I really do watch it that I do think involve my trauma such as it not being real and the fact that it has this almost special doctor that can diagnose any problem and help them. I do believe my trauma is connected to that. I'm sorry if That's not what you meant with your comment. I hope it was

[@Kate-yg5qh]

This is so true!! I love how, in Nope, you can actually see the effects that the trauma has on the characters. It's not a surface-level fear, it bleeds into their lives. One of my favorite examples of this is when Jupe's kids pretend to be aliens; their costumes are covered in black fur, with the only exceptions being their hands and heads. Of course, the fur all over their bodies doesn't match what the general public believes aliens look like. If anything, they look more like chimpanzees. Given that the whole point of the costumes is to scare OJ, we see in this way how Jupe's trauma has affected what he subconsciously perceives to be scary or dangerous and therefore why that would influence the design of the costumes. Absolutely brilliant way to incorporate it into the movie without being as in our faces about it as modern horror movies tend to be.

[@Finn_01]

I think the biggest difference between Smile and Nope is that both films focus on the cycle of trauma, Nope makes the statement that people are *also* willing to perpetuate that trauma for their own benefit -- the "monster" is just as much a victim as anyone else

[@DavidBagrationi]

Sorry I'm late, but I'm curious: how was the monster a victim, it just eats people? Like, the people don't force it to do anything even if they take advantage of its presence for spectacle.

[@NatLaS]

@@DavidBagrationi imo: it’s a bit like when bears start finding food at campsites and then have to be put down because they become a danger to the humans. Jean Jacket is behaving like a normal predator who just happens to be able to kill humans, but because Jupe started feeding him regularly, it became bolder and bolder until it made a mistake (eating the plastic horse) and then, because it was now hurt and afraid, it became overly aggressive as a result. I think the movie does a very good job of reminding us that JJ is not a monster because it’s evil but because it’s a terrifying animal capable of doing harm.

[@totalfool4414]

@@DavidBagrationi If you keep giving an animal free food, of course it's going to come back for more

[@dr.altoclef9255]

@@DavidBagrationiLike Nat said, JJ is just an animal. No grand malice is involved. It’s just filling its basic needs. And much like the chimp in the movie, bad things can happen when you assume you know everything about how a wild animal works (they can make their own decisions so as a rule you can’t ever just say for certain what they’re going to do-) and get complacent.

[@aelfvandenbegin6075]

honestly the way jack was describing it I originally thought they were actually gonna do something clever, like the "defeating it" is the dream but the "real one" would be contain it within her. Like, it will always be a part of her regardless of what she does but she can learn to live with it and ensure it never spreads to anyone again... but then they go "lmao die"

[@emmakane6848]

If you want to see a version of this there is Malignant. (Which I thought of as being bad in a funny way, but was probably on par for the quality of Smile.)

[@Razumen]

Yeah, because it's real and not something lame like "Oh, it was in her mind all along" BS.

[@112523]

Pulling the "it was a dream" card is always a bad idea

[@TurdusRufiventris]

That's actually a really good idea.

[@ShirDeutch]

I saw Nope at the cinema and it turns out that when you watch a film that's categorized as "horror", all the trailers are also for horror films, so I saw the trailer for Smile and the other one with the nuns and possession or whatever. And I really wish I didn't, because those images are so disturbing yet not interesting to me in any way. Nope is great, though!

[@musicaleuphoria8699]

Probably more like "Adventure Horror" like Jaws.

[@TeddySaxbang5690]

Yeah it’s a real pain at times, to be unexpectedly shown horror trailers. I generally don’t watch horror films, but the trailers that portray suspense and fear without graphic imagery or jump scares actually get me curious 👀 versus immediately resistant 😵

[@emmakane6848]

@@musicaleuphoria8699 Isn’t that whole category separated out into ‘thrillers’ which basically act as really intense action movies rather than straight up horror?

[@beansfebreeze]

Ooooh that's actually a good way to describe it. Disturbing but not interesting. Like when something makes you uncomfortable in a way that doesn't bother you enough to do anything about it.

[@musicaleuphoria8699]

@emmakane6848 Nah, you're right. I just up and forget the names of genres.

[@carlwilliams1340]

The issue with Smile is tied to the need to always have BAD END in modern mass market horror. Our main can't succeed, because target audiences want their horror to inevitably end with evil wins. An alternate route to making it still work without dispersing a horrible message would be to do something similar to Drag Me to Hell, where our main character avoids, often deliberately, actions that would lead to success, so that BAD END is presented as completely avoidable.

[@emmakane6848]

I just watched coldcrashproduction’s video about different types of revenge in media. So this comment combined with that in my head to form a statement about how Oculus features the characters deliberately search out the evil entity in order to enact their revenge and then that leads to their undoing. I wish more horror would explicitly demonstrate that characters are working against their own survival/happiness, instead of simply having them do so in a more roundabout way such as running UP the stairs to get away from the villain.

[@joshdh95]

I genuinely believe the “bad end” was just to create more sequels. Can’t let the good guy win or else there’s nothing more to write about.

[@agdoren]

A lot of people actually do want bad endings though. The number of people who complained that the Crains shouldn't have escaped in Hill House is ridiculous. So there is unfortunately an audience for it.

[@5050TM]

​@@agdoren Exactly. Many people think it changes the tone of the film for the worst if it becomes happy in the end.

[@MCArt25]

@@agdoren I wonder whether these same people tend to identify more with the monster than the protagonist in these movies...

[@dreammachine5435]

one of the ways a film like nope succeeds while so many other films fail is that the films themes and ideas aren't used to justify the film's existence. If nope didn't lean into themes of trauma, grief, the exploitation of animals or the dangers of pursuing spectacle and was just a movie about two siblings trying to photograph and kill a giant alien it would still be a really well remembered film. having seen the film with those ideas I think it would be lesser version of itself but the film would still be beloved if it had lacked themes. but with so many modern horror films there's a sense that the filmmakers thought that if they made a film with big weighty themes for serious people that the film would be good on the basis of those themes alone and they didn't have to tell a story worth telling about people worth caring about or even deal with those themes in a way that made them interesting to think about.

[@doloresdaphne8541]

yess

[@scaleitback1055]

Nope was terrible regardless of what it was trying to say.

[@knightogourd]

@@scaleitback1055 get better taste

[@pugdad2555]

@@scaleitback1055 better than anything Stephen King made 😂😂😂

[@mawmaw4410]

@@scaleitback1055ur weird

[@StarryNightxx]

The way the director is absolutely cheesing while saying his trauma metaphor is inescapable 😭😭

[@mandyoquendo1875]

The protagonist’s family was so cartoonishly cruel in Smile that I honestly expected it to be a big blood bath at the end. Which, while still not a great message, it would have at least been a lot more cathartic as someone with trauma to watch.

[@couchpotato2222]

Or maybe a quick flashback scene to show it was always the demon at work. Twisting the words of loved ones through her eyes like anxiety. IMO, either fully play into the supernatural metaphor being the puppet master all along or go full cathartic.

[@lmppadilha]

Also her sister is awful even before the curse

[@ModestMouseTrap]

Hate to say it, but I had a friend who’s family was this “cartoonishly” cruel” these people do exist.

[@mandyoquendo1875]

@@ModestMouseTrap Oh I absolutely know these people not only exist but are also the norm. Hence why I hoped for a cathartic slasher movie ending.

[@mandyoquendo1875]

@@lmppadilha it was the fiancé that really got to me. At least the sister has a moment to point out that she also has to deal with dead-mom trauma, and actually doing anything with that could have made for a better ending

[@Hekuchi]

I walked out of the theatre not only feeling like the movie slapped me with the biggest "so you're traumatised? f you then"; but also realising that the director had unknowingly made it so traumatised people are bound to go out and traumatise others. it's either that or dying (also as soon as the protagonist told her sister some evil energy was following her & the sister immediately thought she was insane I KNEW this had not been directed by a woman; this dude doesnt know how often women say things LIKE THAT to each other lol)

[@chevvy427]

Literally I'll tell my sister "I had a bad dream yesterday, is this an omen?" And then we proceed to pick it apart lol

[@lane6216]

This right here.

[@Tabletopcloud20]

I'm pretty sure telling someone you're being chased by a smiling demon would leave the other person thinking, "This b*tch is crazy." But maybe that's unrealistic, and people would totally believe a smiling demon is chasing someone. Especially after they brought a dead animal to a birthday party for a little kid and started tweaking out.

[@Hekuchi]

@@Tabletopcloud20 If I recall correctly from when I watched the movie, what she told her sister in the moment I was citing was that something "evil", some bad vibe-thing was after her. I've heard other women say this to me or to each other too many times for it to mean anything that would make another person deem you absolutely nuts

[@wotanjugend974]

Not sure why people go watch a horror movie expecting some uplifting cathartic experience. Plenty of trauma is passed on and suicide is prevalent in society. Why does the main character have to succeed for it to be a good movie. Just because the main character failed doesnt make the monster unbeatable

[@VoidBurgerGaming]

Sounds like Smile has a really similar relationship to trauma as the game The Medium 😬 "You can't fight this" is a scary thing to have attached to a monster, but when the monster so explicitly means something, especially as a mental health stand-in, "You can't fight this" goes from scary to nihilistic and depressing.

[@emmakane6848]

I also noticed some similarities with The Night House which is a bit heavy handed in its messaging, but is just so interesting from a visual and directing perspective with wonderful performances.

[@micahcook2408]

Exactly, which Ig I wouldn't mind for a film to explore (and I believe there are films that have already explored that allegory for "end-of-the-rope" mental illness severity (that Phillip Seymour Hoffman film comes to mind (the one where he's a secret P**; I forget the name but I think it's named, Smiley or something happy-go-lucky) but one that can and would love to explore the layers of that mindset and the characters it effects than what this movie did. *SPOILER* : And what I mean by that is that this movie feels as if it sits on certain tropes but then wants to immediately subvert them... only for it to end up subverted into another clichéd trope. Don't get me wrong, this was not a cheapy Blumhouse film by any means, but the script did little to really invest us into why we should care about these characters and (if it is meant to be an allegory about mental illness/trauma) this mental illness allegory. The Fiancé's betrayal lacked depth, the ending with her "mother" lacked any sort of sorrowful twist (esp since they didn't do anything to combat the supernatural entity although they did research), and the ending of "it'll consume us all" just doesn't pack a punch in regards to the depth severely-mentally ill-unalive-thinking people feel and the way their brains operate... Ultimately, imo, this movie has more in common with demonology and what the antichrist would want, than how severely traumatized mentally ill people feel/operate... and THAT, in my opinion, makes it a great movie. Lmao. Like yes there's the stuff with her mother, and how her patient's incident started some psychotic break (but ding ding! the writers indicate that that's not what is really effecting her: if they wanted us to think that it was, there'd be more visual (cues) emphasis of that incident with her insinuating by speech (or whatever) over and over "no, its not" but they don't do that lol), but really, I feel like it makes us/the audience *think* it's gonna be about mental health (just like how everyone in the film, that doesn't encounter the beast, thinks that's what these demonically-attached folks are going through) but it's really just a fun supernatural psychological demon flick. Sort of like Incantation, but definitely, pale in comparison to Midsommar and Hereditary (which both explore the "passed-on" trauma/mental health allegory a lot better imo).

[@micahcook2408]

@@JCOdrjones that’s fine with that kind of film. I mean Hereditary is sort of similar in that nihilistic ending, but the issue Smile faces I feel like is because it’s all over the place. Even that one snippet from the director Jack put in makes it clear that even he doesn’t know what the monster/demon stands for lmao plus there’s certain lines that don’t make sense with the actions/portrayal of the characters so imo it’s really at the fault of the script for why this concept fell short.

[@ryanm7082]

This was my main takeaway as well, and why the film was kinda scary/depressing for me. If the creature is a metaphor for trauma-induced mental illness, then the takeaway is... you'll never win, no one will ever believe you, and someone else will suffer because of it. So take yourself out into the middle of the woods and end it. LOL Contrast this with The Babadook, where the ending is like "yes, it will always be with you, but with work and self-care you can manage it", which IMO is more realistic of how mental illness is treated.

[@gasolinecake]

i agree, though at the same time it is a horror movie. horror movies often do not have happy endings. and unfortunately even in real life, many people do not win against mental trauma

[@nopperabooo7470]

When I watched smile, I cried almost the entire way through. During the movie, I thought it was profound, this is what I've felt like dealing with my mental illness and trauma, and trying to help others going through the same. Sure, it's heavy handed, but sometimes that's what gets the point across to an audience that might not have gone through something like that. And then the ending happened, and I calmed down, and realized it was just extremely triggering and didn't really have anything to say other than "damn that sucks, guess you'll just die and hurt the people you love and there's no escape :/" and it didn't even have a suicide hotline number in the credits

[@testcase6997]

Babadook is a much better message

[@simonmagus2199]

tbh I don't think the director was really trying to use a metaphor, judging by that interview; it doesn't seem like that much thought was put into it, he was just trying to make it as scary as possible, on the surface.

[@nomoregunsinthevalley]

Literally had to use my therapy copes to calm the f down from a near debilitating panic attack triggered by that DAMN CAT SCENE I hated that with my whole body. As an effed up person with abandonment issues my pets are my life. So that scene blew hard. My god.

[@humanbean4037]

It was pretty insensitive :T I’m sorry that happened you didn’t deserve that

[@sinistersalem1983]

I deal with a lot of mental illness issues myself but you got to remember it wasn't her doing that it was a demon.... There was a literal monster causing her to do stuff like that... I mean you don't watch The conjuring and think that's triggering....

[@beansfebreeze]

Smile felt like some sort of lost early 2000s j-horror adaptation

[@SnowDayJ]

My friends and I had the SAME reaction afterwards. A Good American J horror sounds so weird.

[@deadfr0g]

Lost on purpose 💀

[@beansfebreeze]

@@deadfr0g based

[@jamesbok8385]

@@JCOdrjones Other way around my dude, the guy who Directed the OG Ju-on directed the Americanized versions Grudge 1&2. The Ring was purely Americanized, but it was still a decent remake. Besides, none compare to the absolute travesty that is "Pulse"...considering the original "Kairo" is an absolutely haunting gem..

[@Deadpool-px2nm]

​@@JCOdrjonesThose adaptations were utter poo anyway. Budget or no budget, Hollywood should just have left Japan's horror movies alone.

[@juliadaws4511]

As someone with life long mental illness and trauma my initial reaction to Smile was exactly the same. The message felt exactly that. But all my family who watched it said that I'm crazy for reading into a horror movie and looking for meaning that's not there 😐

[@emmakane6848]

That’s so crazy to me, because a lot of the issues with having such explicit metaphor can be seen in a ton of modern horror movies.

[@nomukun1138]

I hope you're able to find close friends who don't belittle everything you share with them. I have a rough relationship with my family too. I can care about them and even respect them, but I also need friends who care about the same things I care about and don't think my ideas are worthless. ( I could be projecting too much onto your comment! I hope you're able to heal from your trauma.)

[@Reddsoldier]

"duh it's a horror movie, it shouldn't have subtext" is the same argument as "It's a kids film, it doesn't need deep meanings" Sure, maybe it can get away with it, but it'll be shit. Honestly I have got more free time than I probably should have, but I still have standards and smile felt like a waste of my time to watch at the end because any compelling story or deeper meaning was sacrificed for sequel potential and the all important "big scary". You're justified in looking for that meaning. It's not your fault this thing was slapped together without a thought for how minor things like the plot would interact with other minor things such as the characters.

[@kathyhenry9512]

Horror: Is a genre litered with the use of metaphors and deeper meanings. Made to make you uncomfortable and face uncomfortable topics so you can get a better understanding Your silly family, and others like them: Horror isn't deep its scary for the fun of it

[@HandyAndy893]

I've been thinking about this for a while. "The real monster was trauma all along" has led to some amazing films, but lately its just been used as a lazy shorthand to make films seem deep without actually exploring it. Like the aesthetic of that theme rather than actually incorporating the theme into the film (The Ritual is probably the best example of this). So many horror movies just end up feeling like a copy of a copy of a copy of the last decade of A24 horror

[@TheSurrealist.]

It felt like every decision the characters made lead to a jump scare. “Oh let me get a cup of water” JUMP SCARE!

[@elinyancat]

i like that in Babadook they learn to live with it, somethings happen to you and its the worst and you have to keep on going with that monster in your basement. I can relate to that

[@Saibellus]

personally i feel like that was one of the best takes on trauma in horror ive ever seen. love or hate the movie, the concept of "feeding" the monster and coping by accepting its permanence without giving it control of your life is extremely based.

[@Begeru]

Yeah I don’t like how that movie gets so much hate. It was really good.

[@Feasco]

@@Begeru I thought the movie was enjoying a cult following with of the Babadook as a LGBT icon

[@Begeru]

@@Feasco I've never heard of this lol

[@alanacrail3244]

@@Begeru Basically a few years ago Netflix accidently put Babadook under their "LGBT movies" category which lead to the joke that the Babadook is a LGBT icon lol

[@personneici2595]

Smile is giving the same message that my family did when they disowned me for disclosing my CSA as an adult. They treated me sharing that as harming them intentionally and they didn't understand why I would harm them that way. They didn't see the point. Same way she has to isolate from everyone and face her trauma alone. Really sucks. I hate that message.

[@GotoMaki4Micah]

thing is, they need good standing in their community, in their church. your reputation can affect what jobs you are able to get. staying together as a family and burying all the ugly secrets has its advantages. something you might understand when you're older. harsh truth. but if you dont want it to stay buried, they deserve this so called ''harm.'' they cant poke the bear then cry when it eats them. another harsh truth.

[@alexbennet4195]

Girl stop projecting. The whole point is clearly that the demon takes hold BECAUSE she never actually addressed or tried to resolve her trauma and pushed away actual help at every turn.

[@JKenjiLopezAlt]

I am watching. I will not skip.

[@LackingSaint]

taking the next month off to learn how to adequately dice things on camera

[@Voingous]

Holy moly, it's J. Kenji López-Alt, famous author of The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science! What pasta shape would you say Smile is most represented by?

[@JKenjiLopezAlt]

@@LackingSaint your ravioli looked just fine to me.

[@danieldionne9709]

I haven't seen Smile, but I kept expecting comparisons to The Babadook, a movie that says, hey, actually you *can* learn to live with your trauma so it no longer threatens you or your loved ones. It IS possible to interrupt the cycle of abuse, but it won't be neat or simple, and requires constant maintenance. It's a much healthier horror metaphor for familial trauma and abuse.

[@Beatlelover21]

I was super curious about this premise as a fan of atmospheric psychological horror, but I'm also a person with CPTSD who is reeeeally struggling with my mental health recovery. I was warned by all of my friends not to watch it because it would fuck me up. Ryan Hollingers review really helped clear up my morbid curiosity. This movie would have fucked me up because of the terrible message: trauma is all consuming and unavoidable, you cannot break the cycle. That's the last thing I need to witness rn. Logically I know it's not true. You have to work HARD and find ways to cope with the smiling figure in the corner doing unspeakable horrors that only you can see. You have a choice of not subjecting others to it. Mental illness does not have to be terminal.

[@samm4158]

i think i watched FoundFlix’s summary first (altho i did watch Ryan’s essay as well) and knew it wasn’t for me when i saw how much it leaned on “you cannot trust your own reality and this will always find a way to kill you”. i would have been physically ill from it had i not had the buffer of FoundFlix’s often goofy commentary to keep me from getting pulled in, and it was still upsetting regardless. i think part of it was “this will hurt people you love, YOU will hurt people you love, and it’s just inevitable, so die already”

[@sissymarie2912]

I'm also coping with cptsd. I'm really glad I watched this and Ryan's video. I'd probably find this movie absolutely infuriating and I'm glad I know not to watch it. It just doesn't sound helpful in the slightest. Sending you good vibes for getting through the healing process.

[@sobiedv]

Same. Like imagine the writers room? Who greenlit this. Anyone with trauma in the writers room to veto this? Lol

[@natp3408]

I have a fairly severe and often debilitating, dissociative mental illness. I gleaned obvious parallels with some of the worst of my experiences. It seemed harsh how the protagonist was treated by other characters, compared to how other films have depicted characters and events in similar storylines, but I was like... yeah, that's about right/actually more spot on for how it goes down when people are confronted with someone's mental illness... it's how it went for me. And yes the affliction can feel unstoppable and hopeless so much of the time, but I didn't feel any cathartic connection beyond blatant familiarity because Smile was a poorly thrown together dumpster fire of a movie that didn't depict these things to say anything important about psychological distress, they did it because it would scare people. Just a cheap thrill that uses a very real and sensitive issue, with the real horror being the callousness of the corporate movie scumbags that continue to greenlight this exploitative shit. However I do enjoy getting a laugh out of cringe horror films so I'm probably part of the problem, (it's why I clicked this video and subscribe to other predominately negative criticism channels), but Smiles edge-lord baiting lack of tact rubbed me the wrong way a tad more than usual.

[@arleh5402]

hey i'm 12 and i also have mental illness and ctpsd!

[@FrankieSmileShow]

I think the key issue I see in a lot of those stories with messed up metaphors, is going too hard into making the metaphor explicit, while also not being actually dedicated to making the story ABOUT the metaphor. I think that, the more explicit a metaphor is, the more your story becomes a statement about that subject matter, and the more responsibility you have regarding that message. I think stories like the one in Smile originate from someone who wants a story to feel elevated by having a meaning to it, but have no dedication to that meaning. So the concept starts out with a strong metaphor, but the metaphor is quickly set aside for the sake of a twist ending, or a shocking scene, or impactful endings, or even just lore-building - by the end of the story, the metaphor is now dead and buried, but it was so explicit, that the viewer has no choice but to extrapolate a message from the story about that metaphor. So basically, sloppy writing that takes explicit metaphors too lightly. Bloober Team's game The Medium was a BIG example of this, and this is why many people are worried about their upcoming remake of Silent Hill 2. Either keep your metaphors subtle and understated and messy, or make them explicit and keep them coherent. When you try to go for messy AND explicit, you get problems like this.

[@emmakane6848]

Completely agree. So much horror these days is in your face saying “We had thoughts and ideas about what this story represents and now you HAVE to see it the same way we did.”

[@micahcook2408]

Considering it was a short film that got turned into a feature, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the main issue regarding finishing off the script.

[@WaterDrinker666]

i Saw Smile in theaters and was genuinely insulted by it’s messaging. “Lol give up loser you can’t overcome your trauma. Also, you’re a burden to everyone around you.” Good sound design tho.

[@WaterDrinker666]

good acting too. God that movie would have been solid if it’s understood mental health better. I didn’t really even mind the jump scares tbh. Also cops suck

[@yourbestam]

Y'all are insufferable

[@WaterDrinker666]

@@yourbestam you’ve angrily replied to like 20 comments criticizing this movie imagine glazing this hard for fucking Smile

[@WaterDrinker666]

@@yourbestamyou’ve responded to like a dozen comments critical of this movie imagine glazing Smile of all things this hard

[@exaggeratedswagger7485]

why can’t horror movies of all things be bleak? I don’t understand looking to a horror movie for motivation.

[@Mike-zk5jc]

i read on twitter somewhere that this sort of "elevated horror" thing where the thing is explicitly a metaphor for a concept like trauma or guilt ends up being less compelling because it gives the thing a single "correct" interpretation, while other horror stories can be about many things at once, and the ambiguity makes it more compelling

[@ButterCookie1984]

Agreed.

[@alexandredesbiens-brassard9109]

It really depends on the execution honestly. It Follows and Us are elevated horror that have a lot more ambiguity, while Get Out is elevated horror that's incredibly effective because it's straightforward and focused on a single real issue. Smile is just not very good.

[@fluffyphoenix8082]

@@alexandredesbiens-brassard9109 I'm late to this, but I totally agree!! I absolutely loved Get Out, even though I'm white, because it just does such a good job setting a scene and making everything feel so tense and scary. I don't have to specifically relate to the message to find it compelling. It's just so well-written, imo anyway.

[@-_-3315]

I think the thing that divides movies that execute the concept well, like Get Out, from ones that don't, like Smile, is just the level of specificity in the writing itself. When the "trauma" could be literally anything, the monster could be anything, the protagonist could be anyone, the movie is inevitably generic. If it's just a vague gesture at mental health, it's played out. But Get Out couldn't have just any horrific procedure, any antagonists, or any protagonist. Every part of the story is selling a very specific theme, that was a ( at the time, unspoken) strange Obama era false liberal pro-blackness, that was just a coverup for old national attitudes that never really went away.

[@GreyfoxRaposa]

The way that "Smile" handles trauma, makes me wonder if it was written by someone from the Bloober Team

[@NiGHTSIntoMemes]

This made me cackle, oh my god. I wouldn't be surprised honestly.

[@beansfebreeze]

fuCK

[@youradhere3476]

this was my exact take lol

[@emilyau8023]

It was such a disappointment and sucked and I watched it on Halloween wanting to feel something

[@Razumen]

She got over her trauma though, she reconciled her past feelings and guilt about her mother. But that's not why the demon was after her-the movie explicitly says WHY it does what it does. It's not a metaphor for mental illness.

[@BaneHydra]

I strongly dislike jumpscares. They make me uncomfortable, but not in a good way. There are horror movies and games that scare me in an enjoyable way, that freak me out, make me nervous and want to move away from my screen. Jumpscares, or rather the threat thereof, just make me incredibly tense. I try to anticipate them at any given moment and it kills any and all enjoyment I might get out of watching a horror movie. It's no longer "Oooh, what crazy, messed up thing are we gonna see next?" or "Ooooh, is something dangerous inside this house?", it all becomes consumed by "Is something gonna jump at me now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now?" and that is all that occupies my mind for the entirety of the fucking movie. Knowing that there will be a jumpscare and trying to anticipate it ruins horror movies for me and it's not something I can just choose not to do, so I usually have to go on sites like "wheresthejump". And because these horror movies often rely on jumpscares entirely, it just ends up being a mediocre experience. Jumpscares don't make movies scary for me, just insanely stressful and mentally draining.

[@bresea702]

You NAILED it. That's exactly why I don't like jump scares and horror movies. I feel thrillers do it better, but still, like you said, it sucks all the enjoyment out of the movie.

[@3u-n3ma_r1-c0]

to be honest when thre's a jumpscare in a movie im just not even phased im not scared of it til it happens, and then im freaked out a bit. but thats.. it. like, jumpscares are extremely unsubstantial to me without generous build up; *something* needs to add to them, or im just completely unphased.

[@joearnold6881]

Jump scares suck because they aren’t scary; they don’t scare you. They startle you. That’s it. A good jump scare is possible, but it has to be earned and done carefully.

[@Companion92]

It Follows does it really good imo

[@KyleRDent]

The best recent jump scare for me was in the Smiling Friends Halloween episode. You know it's coming from a mile away, but the build-up was so good.

[@javsandarts]

Exorcist 3

[@Jaspertine]

The lasting impact of a jump scare is the threat that there will be more jump scares before the film is over. That's it.

[@jessyle8743]

Lake Mungo has one really good jumpscare

[@LunaWitcherArt]

Every actor who had to smile needed to be someone that was able to give a creepy smile like the first girl. None of the other smiles convinced me that they were being brought on by a supernatural force.

[@testcase6997]

They just made me want to see the demon get smacked

[@klein8697]

I think a big issue with this type if movie is how blatant it is about its metaphor, like once you commit this hard to your movie being about searious trauma you kinda cant do the twist bad ending without it being a massive depressive bummer, personally I blame the folks who made up the term "elevated horror" and convinced studios that you need to have an obvious deeper meaning to a scary movie for it to be respected

[@AbstractTraitorHero]

Honestly yeah the ending made me feel damn down.

[@wetsockfullofhotmeat]

I feel like downer endings for horror movies have become the new jumpscare. They're shoehorned in because it's the easy thing to do, even if it has no place in the movie. Smile's ending unintentionally promotes the idea that if you have depression, you should just game end yourself because there's no solution anyways. It's super sloppy and offensive, and it could have been entirely avoided if they just thought about it.

[@hithedragon7842]

@@wetsockfullofhotmeat yeah, I feel like there's too much horror with unnecessary bad endings

[@johdominic]

Smile looks like the director watched both It Follows and The Babadook and then proceeded to glean absolutely nothing from them beyond a surface-level reading of “ooh malevolent spirit! Trauma!”

[@plantmutual9482]

great video as usual! the doom and gloom aspect of smile did not sit right with me, hearing that was the theme after opening weekend i decided not to see it. as someone who has PTSD it’s upsetting to think the thesis of any movie about trauma is that you can never beat it, feels like it undermines the years of work i’ve put into therapy and into being kinder to myself. refusing to forgive yourself for what you’ve gone through is no life to live

[@alexbrown1050]

Well said

[@Mbgengar]

Yeah literally. I feel like the movie was rlly interested in the ideas of mental illness as a storytelling device, but when it came down to it i feel like what was lost was a consideration for mental illness as a Real Thing people grapple with. The film kind of floundered towards the end imo bc it lacked a real meaningful resolution it was building towards, instead it just kinda Followed its Premise all the way to its end and like. Idk it couldve been better is my ultimate takeaway

[@axeldude7051]

I watched this movie with my partner who has a form of major ptsd/trauma and the most offensive thing about the movie to them was the fact that the main character WAS A PSYCHIATRSIT. They had all the tools they needed to cope with what was going on, and she did nothing and ended up dying either way with that awful ending. I felt like it was just horrific for the sake of being horrific, my partner said it was like a slap across the face. They joked that it had to have been made by some millennial white guy and we decided to google it and we had a good a laugh after that.

[@Efelfrith]

You’re not wrong. Although, any psychiatrist would probably say that everyone needs a good support network. Rose’s support network were my nightmare - people who do not understand, and who are not willing to try and understand, because they think they already do.

[@lollypopfiend]

I liked the sound design and staging of this movie, but I felt like I'd seen the story 5 times before. Especially when she pulled out the laptop to look up the monster and all the "I'm not crazy, I swear!!!!"

[@not_obsidian]

The sound was rlly good on Smile, I kept annoyingly mentioning this to my friend during the movie. I think that element put me on edge more than the jump scares.

[@emmakane6848]

I haven’t seen Smile, but the way the sound design was done for The Night House definitely gave me a similar reaction to what you’re describing.

[@please_im_a_staaar]

The best horror movie that's basically devoid of jumpscares is a japanese horror movie "Kairo" (2001). And it's considered to be one of the most terrifying horror movies of all time. If you don't want to watch the whole movie, search "Kairo scene", and the first thing on the list is gonna be the most famous scene otherwise known among fans of j-horror as "that scene" lol.

[@youradhere3476]

that scene singlehandedly reignited my childhood fears of dark hallways, 10/10 literally shuddering

[@jacklemm1518]

The movie otherwise isnt all that great. It’s like the movie “When a Stranger Calls” being praised for its opening scene but the rest of the movie was garbage.

[@hairscythe2257]

People wonder why I love saw as a movie (the first three, at least) but I think it's way overhated. It has -a clear and relevant message about how traumatized people think hurting others will teach them lessons -a sense of sincerity: there's no huge budget to cover up a lack of vision -some gimmicks that may be gimmicks but at least they are interesting gimmicks -kickass music -doesn't rely on cheap jumpscares -has a really cool aesthetic -authentic indie beginnings These are all things that a lot of horror movies these days can't really say for themselves. Saw is a legit good movie imo.

[@elbraymundo]

Honestly, I think the director of Smile absolutely believes that there is no hope but won't admit it in interviews.

[@scaleitback1055]

He’s right.

[@aqua5758]

@@scaleitback1055 Not really

[@allbutperfect]

@@scaleitback1055 :(

[@thelegalsystem]

16:48 I never noticed the Challenger Shuttle poster behind Yeun's character in that scene. It fits with all the other memorabilia and the theme of making a spectacle out of tragedy, but I never noticed it.

[@reinadejupiter_1_]

The babadook is the best movie about overcoming trauma, I love it and it really gave me true hope. I haven't seen Smile yet but I will definitely skep it and watch Nope instead, Jordan Peele does storytelling like nobody else, you can clearly see that he is craftsman of his art and that he really cares

[@magnus2643]

The ending of rhe babadook always makes me laugh because thematically its pretty pleasant but textually ur feeding a man in ur basement worms

[@bugdomrulez]

​@@magnus2643 i honestly love it more textually than thematically because it's so silly, give him the worms!!!!

[@jaredmcdaris7370]

I have not watched Smile, so I may be missing some important stuff. Based on what you’ve said, though, Smile sounds like a metaphor specifically for a depressed person trying to function in a normal society. When my depression was at its height, I flat out did not believe other people were genuinely happy. It seemed, alternately, like they were either pretending or possessed, or even like they were some other species with incomprehensible emotions, incapable of comprehending my emotions. Regular interactions often felt very hostile, especially if they recognized that I as not a normal person like them. And their advice, when it was there, was categorically not helpful. And the thing that helped me, was time. Their advice was just, stop being depressed. Just be normal. Smile. And maybe it would have been nice to see a story where someone eventually defeats the scary monster by simply waiting it out or making it a part of their life, I dunno. I can definitely say, though, that I would have been comforted by a story that said, Yes, this thing is insuperable, there isn’t anything you can do about it, and you can just accept that. You’re not a failure; they just don’t understand your problem. That’s jus’ me though.

[@gryfinz]

yes thank you someone who actually gets it

[@LunaWitcherArt]

I find this description interesting as a person who does not have depression (though I've had depressive episodes) because this is exactly how I see my friends with depression. Someone who's just acting, pretending to be feeling any type of excitement or brief happiness or even empathy to distract from the fact that everything seems bad and/or fake. And it sucks to me because I'm the type of person that needs to push through things, like forcing myself to do things I don't want to do but need to be done usually makes me realize that those things aren't so difficult as my mind made them out to be. But that rarely ever works with the people with depression that I know; so I don't know how effective that could be for managing depression.

[@emmakane6848]

I’ve been thinking about the kind of horror movie that would have a person incorporate the monster into their life for a while. (Where the goal was more to actually create some good mental health representation in horror.) I definitely think that writers also don’t do enough with intrusive thoughts in thriller/horror films, and that the use of them to make characters just accept their horrific situation as unreality automatically would be really interesting.

[@01101111011010110110]

I've met few people who can understand that the only "cure" for some depression is just time. That is often unless they've experienced it themselves. It's kind of like grief or similar to a breakup personally, where even if you know you're feeling irrational or just pointlessly negative, those emotions still just kind of simmer and stick around. One of the most frustrating experiences in explaining it is ultimately how you know people are just trying to help because they do care about your wellbeing, but it might seem to them like you're just deflecting or that it's learned helplessness. It has lead to me being dishonest about how I feel at times, which I don't enjoy doing. But ultimately, it seems like the "best" course of action compared to making loved ones worry or try to fix things when I've given their solutions a shot and know they do not work for me. Like you said though, it would be nice to see more understanding portrayals where waiting it out is all a person can do sometimes.

[@01101111011010110110]

@@LunaWitcherArt Everyone manages and recovers differently, and people know themselves and their predilections best. When I'm feeling down, I can still feel gleeful and laugh from my gut with complete sincerity, but have an underpinning of disatisfaction over something alongside those "good" emotions, as strange as that might sound. I'd say try not to overanalyze what your friends might be feeling, offer advice if they ask for help, and ultimately just treat them like you would at any other time. One thing that helps me personally is just feeling normalcy, like "yeah I'm sad, and that sucks, but I'm still here talking about something I like or eating a nice meal, time does go on and so will I"

[@mariaah3073]

There's a much better concept/movie hidden in Smile, one where the cursed is the one smiling through increasingly disturbing stuff while trying to communicate their despair and failing to do so, causing loved ones to either overlook her troubles and go "look, she's happy actually!" or notice there is something subtly off about their behaviour and trying to help. You know, something closer to what "smiling through horrific trauma" usually looks like in real life, and there's actually a real possibility of a positive resolution. Hell, you can even keep the ending where the main character passes the curse forward and it gets a lot more brutal because the audience is left thinking "she could've been saved, they could've broken the curse, the way out was there the whole time" instead of "well, sucks to be them".

[@FuzzyKittenBoots]

I think you're right about there being untapped potential there. Personally while watching the video I started to think about the manic episodes of Bipolar Disorder type I. The smiles in the film aren't happy, they're manic and as people around her are are being hurt by whatever it is she brings with her the main character stands helpless and as it gets worse is unable to tell what is real and what is not. I think it (with changes, especially to the ending) could have been a really good allegory of the affects of mania not only on the person but on people around them.

[@1000g2g3g4g800999]

Something else I think works in Nope's favor is several instances of clever misdirection. It's harder to predict where the film is going to go, but you're more satisfied as you figure out what's happening, and retroactively what happened previously. Also it isn't a downer pessimistic ending, unless you really want it to be.

[@miyuh8715]

I think haunting of hill house actually was a good "ooo the monsters actually trauma" show

[@LezbeOswald]

i feel like there's been. three different movies in the past decade about a monster/killer whose whole gimmick is smiling really creepy at you. Smile (2022), Truth or Dare (2018), Smiley (2012). that's too many. The Man Who Laughs didn't die for this.

[@tunnelsnakesrule7541]

Smile is at least good.

[@Duothimir]

Smiley's gimmick was that he was an internet Bloody Mary, not that he smiled creepily. Also a cringe ass plot twist where it was a massive organized prank between a bunch of KZbinrs to torment one person for the lulz, except then double twist Smiley really was real for realzies.

[@PogieJoe]

I feel like most (but not all) audiences kind of want to be a little bit of a detective. Leave people something to chew on a bit after being 90% satisfied. To talk out with their partner or friends. Nope is an AMAZING discussion movie.

[@emmakane6848]

So much modern horror s feels like it comes from people that watched too many ‘explainer’ videos about what symbols were supposed to represent in a movie. Completely agree.

[@irrisorie7]

as somebody with cptsd, the way you describe this movie, it seems to me like it actually comes really close to getting at the truth of the situation. like, no... you can't "beat" trauma like a movie monster. there isn't going to be a boss fight and you come out victorious and now you're all better and won't ever be fucked up or sad again. many movies have tackled this topic and came away with something poignant and true. annihilation comes to mind. in that movie, the premise is that trauma changes you. it lives in you and becomes a part of you, whether you want it to or not. it can destroy you (and does destroy quite a few of the main characters), but you can also accept it and move forward. critically, it also makes the point that trauma changes the people in your life as well, especially if it's shared trauma. it never goes away. you just have to... become different. and that's the truest representation of what it's actually like that i think i've ever seen in a movie. it's one of my favorite movies ever made.

[@blairp.t.henney143]

Honestly as someone struggling to heal from trauma I actually find this perspective a little refreshing - the usual message of "there's just one admittedly-hard-and-scary-but-foolproof thing you have to do to solve all your problems and once it's done you're free" is real disheartening when my road to recovery has just been "okay here's what you need to do to get better...oops sorry you need to keep doing it, no matter how little progress you see, forever and ever" - especially given that director interview clip where he says something like "maybe there is some way to beat it, but it feels inescapable". Idk to each their own and I totally understand the criticism but this kind of "it's not your fault if you can't fix yourself" message helps me a bit

[@alexbennet4195]

Yeah it’s almost like Jack Saint can’t view a work on it’s own merits and is fixated on pushing his own narrative onto it

[@pedroff_1]

Missed opportunity to also mention Babadook as a good way to handle the topic

[@daltonwilliams1723]

Yes! That’s a fantastic example of this kind of film that uses a paranormal creature to personify emotional distress(in that case, depression). Feels like so many films made after babadook just miss the mark imo.

[@emmakane6848]

Well, he did show a scene of it during the video so I think the intention was to reference it but focus in on Nope.

[@ectoplastiic]

my sister suggested we go see this movie right before i went to an inpatient treatment program to.....deal with grief and trauma that left me with intrusive thoughts that i was doomed to die. and like first 5 minutes my sister and i were laughing because we already knew it was a horrible mistake.

[@emmakane6848]

I am so glad that you could laugh about it and didn’t spend the entire movie thinking things were going one way only to be blindsided. You had me worried for a second.

[@ectoplastiic]

@@emmakane6848 It definitely got worse the longer we watched but we were still able to laugh about it after - and I'm almost at the end of my stay in treatment now leaving with a lot more hope than I've had in several years.

[@FabulousSquidward]

I feel like they came just shy of saying something with this movie. I liked the angle of framing how it feels for someone with mental illness to be constantly told what they feel as 100% real is "just" in their head when it's causing them real pain and turmoil. Having nobody believe you about your experiences.

[@emmakane6848]

Malignant almost has this effect as well.

[@VoonNBuddies]

1:20 Unedited footage of a bear remains one of the best horror experiences.

[@amber7591]

Smile made me mad cuz I feel like they were doing decent til the end. The end just makes it like, wth have we been working toward this whole time?? And she was supposed to be psychologist.... They were just doing too much in this movie. Nope was amazing to me. I'll rewatch that. I'll buy the DVD lol. I know I didn't catch everything the first time but that movie really moved me. Best movie I've seen in a good while.

[@emmakane6848]

I haven’t actually seen smile, but the way it was described in this video makes me think you might like The Night House which has similar ideas for themes/messages prior to the final scene.

[@emilyau8023]

It was painfully boring

[@wrenmassey6876]

This feels like someone got so close to understanding the message of Annahilation, but fell short so decided to pad the time with jump scares

[@jackkilman8726]

Personally , I'm tired of metaphor-laden, message-based movies of any genre, especially those dealing with trauma or depression. Whatever happened to just telling a good story? I don't watch movies to be reminded of my depression or past trauma. I get enough of that in real life. I watch movies to forget about all of that for a few hours.

[@alexbennet4195]

lol he’s the one trying to read a message into it

[@queenofsiam1183]

Smile resonated with me so much. I grew up and no one took seriously the ambiguous "mental health" issues i was having. The end result of that is permanent alterations to my personality. My core responses to people around me, my emotions, my feelings about myself are all irrevocably there. That is not something i can just face bravely and conquer. I can only accept it and manage it. So as sad as the ending was to see, it was cathartic seeing a creation that mirrored my life. It was like someone said "i feel the same way, like this, and you're not alone."

[@Tretas.]

Resignated? Resonated, you mean? However, based on what you've shared, it seems that your acceptance was conscious and voluntary, albeit accompanied by pain, as you came to terms with the inescapable nature of the burden. So your best course of action was focused on management. In "Smile," the choice was entirely conditioned, compelled by the presence of another person. She hurried inside and surrendered herself to the anthropomorphic trauma, knowing that otherwise the person outside the shed would bear the brunt of it. Your battle was one fought with bravery, while hers was entirely entangled in fear.

[@queenofsiam1183]

@Tretas. part of what made the ending so interesting to see is that the character didn't win in the end. There's an argument to be made about "bringing attention to mental health issues" and how it's nice to see people win in the end, like Babadook for example, but also that the reality is that when these problems are ignored, there are real consequences. In the end, the main character not only is destroyed by trauma but also inflicts that onto someone else. I hope people open their eyes and their hearts to those around them.

[@noviceworks1503]

When I watched 'Smile', I didn't see the monster as a symbol for trauma or baggage. I took it on its face as a totally random malevolent entity, and as such the horror was that even emotionally intelligent/educated victims would fall to it because its power has nothing to do with their past trauma--so it's just a 'Wrong Genre Savvy' trope throughout having a mental health pro as the protagonist. Even when it says "You can't escape your own mind", that's a part of the fakeout spot (I think I remember that right). What pissed me off is that its killing the cat turned it into a physical threat instead of something that just has a person get paranoid for its own kicks. 'Nope' is excellent, and the amount of people (no not just whoever you're thinking of, people I know personally) who didn't understand "the chimp thing" really boggled me.

[@alexbennet4195]

Wasn’t she obviously supposed to have killed the cat?

[@EtherBotGames]

My issue with this take is that Smile very clearly does show you the steps that it would take to overcome its monster. It just also reveals that our main character didn't actually do them. That's what's upsetting about the twist reveal at the end. She doesn't actually burn her house down. She doesn't ACTUALLY reach out to her ex. And ultimately that's her downfall. She just fantasizes about doing it. I think there's a moral there for people struggling with trauma that is like, brutal and difficult to swallow but valuable nonetheless

[@Kriseiri]

Everyone in Smile seemed so happy all the time it really made me feel happy for them too

[@ouroboros5656]

The description of the film being relatable and something that draws out empathy in the viewer really hit home. I was actually doing pretty well and excited when she had beat the antagonist and moved past her trauma. It was inspiring for about five minutes, then I saw the runtime and instantly was suckerpunched. What a way to leave a film screening, feeling helpless, alone and angry.

[@goopysubject]

I feel like it would be very simplistic for the message to be "just ask for help and everything will be okay". I think this movie did a great job at showing the journey you go through feeling trapped by trauma and stress responses, feeling like you could potentially spread darkness onto other people or that they could be the ones to harm you eventually. There is no easy way out, and that's what it feels like when you're struggling with depression and anxiety, for example. It feels like there is no way out, and that's the perspective from the movie. But ultimately, even though she ended up dying, it did work to ask for help. No one can solve the problem for you, but they can be understanding and present. And that also takes the right people - the feeling of not being listened, being a burden to people and being constantly dismissed as crazy was very much well presented in this movie. It's not an easy situation and it shouldn't be the purpose of the movie to tell you how to fix mental illness. The purpose is to show you what it feels like. And for once, understand how people go so far as to off themselves.

[@toehairyum]

My biggest criticism for this movie is that it sent a lot of mixed messages about how real the smile entity was. Most of the supporting characters treated Rose like what she was going through was all in her head... But it can't be because there's been so many other victims who did not know eachother who all died the exact same way. There were way too many for this to just be a coincidence. My favorite type of horror movies are creature-features. I'm overlook a lot of flaws with movies like these because I don't really have a preference for including jumpscares or not or atmosphere or symbolism as long as I get a unique monster. So weather the entity was real or not, I wish the movie leaned more into one or the other. Overall though, I still loved this movie.

[@Aurelius_unofficial]

As a person who deals with trauma and depression and stuff, as poorly as this is delivered, I think it's, like, ok It's not like you can just "beat" trauma like most stories act like you can, but you can learn to live with it

[@vangoghsseveredear]

Writers have no subtlety anymore. "It's your trauma/it's all in your head," has become one of the most common trop in all horror, and yet this movie verbatim spells it out for the MC.

[@amzrigh]

When I was a kid, I had nightmares about creepy smiling faces all the time, so I'm glad I'm not missing anything by avoiding dredging that up.

[@stevenbeckwith6307]

That Smile movie actually disturbed me. For a couple of weeks I'm scared to be alone in a room, scared to smoke bud for fear I'll freak out, scared to sleep. No movie has done that to me since I was a kid and saw The Ring, that was nearly 20yrs ago. Watching the protagonist lose her job, lose her fiancé, lose her sister, and finally lose her mind & life was disturbing. And the last shot of that cop guy's tramatised face... The sense of dread and horror, it just stuck with me for a little while.

[@michelegraham1181]

Smile to me feels like someone said "Let's make a movie about creepy smiles because it sounds like Creepypasta, and it will make a lot of money." And then the mental illness angle was tacked on at the last minute to give the movie "depth."

[@sholem_bond]

There's the germ of a good idea for a horror theme/allegory in the parts of "Smile" where the other characters seem to not only disbelieve the protagonist, but also to overreact to everything she says or does, starting with her having this inmate sedated because she felt threatened by him (because he was possessed by the Smile demon), IMHO. She gets in trouble/lightly reprimanded and sent home for this, even though in real life, no psychiatric professional would get in trouble for this (especially not a female doctor claiming she felt threatened by a physically larger male mental patient). According to my friend, who watched it first and liked it better than I did, this was a function of the Smile demon's toying; messing with both the protagonist's perceptions of others and maybe others' perceptions of her. I have no idea if that's what the movie was trying to do, or if it was just "bad/meh horror-movie-where-everyone's-an-asshole" writing. But I think there's a seed of an idea with her boss and her fiance in particular not only disbelieving her, but also overreacting significantly (IMHO) to what it seems like, from the outside, would probably look like a mental breakdown? There's maybe some kind of good idea there about not believing women about the dangers they're facing; or not believing people with mental health diagnoses/NDs about the dangers they're facing; or some combination of both. (I know her sister also reacts pretty aggressively, but she's also traumatized by their mother's issues, and just watched her sister give her son a dead cat; the sister is kind of a dick, but it feels less like bad writing to me.) There were maybe good ideas trapped in "Smile." I don't think any of them panned out, at least not enough to justify the depressing/hopeless ending.)

[@thesfnb.5786]

0:18 Thank you!

[@thesfnb.5786]

Go***mit I'm tired of jumpscares. Seen to many of them. They're just boring by this point, ya know?!

[@psychocontent3447]

I disagree what you thought the message of smile was, the main character of smile doesn’t die because she has this trauma, she dies because she doesn’t do anything to deal with her trauma in a healthy way, she avoids reaching out for help, she pushes those who want to help away, she doesn’t do anything until it’s literally life or death but by then it’s too late.

[@ImperialWarrior6490]

Can't believe it has taken me this long to find people who do not like Smile (or at least don't find it good as most others). Walking out of the theater, I thought to myself, "I've seen this before... this whole 'woman crazy because trauma' is becoming boring and overused". When I went into the film, I was hoping for a film about societal pressures, how you're told you're supposed to always smile when you're interacting with people, especially when it comes to customer service or basic jobs that require human interaction like checkout or cashier. Even when you're treated horribly, you hold that smile because if you show that frustration or any anger, you get in trouble. What would happen if an entity fed on the stresses and frustrations that become bottled up? And when they snap... what if that something was influencing them now has total control? What kinds things could happen then? Also, Smile made me realize that men's mental health isn't that talked about in horror. Or at least not as much a woman. They need a voice as well. I got some of that from films such as The Empty Man, but I could use more of it.

[@alexbennet4195]

So you didn’t like it because you… wanted it to be a completely different film

[@yourbestam]

Thank god you didn't get the film you wanted cuz all you want is some basic ass white film about some girl killing people cuz she's so tired of being nice. Can't imagine the fanfiction you definitely write turns out to be any better. Jesus and tying wanting to see men's mental health in it as well, girl we do not care.

[@MonsterIslandBuddies]

I took Smile to be less about her trauma, and more about how no one around her helped/listened to her. Like, it’s not about mental health… it’s about ignoring and judging people with poor mental health (like she was doing when she met the first smile girl). This theme shines a little brighter in the sequel. When you look at it through this lens, it makes perfect sense why the protagonist loses. Bad things happen to people with poor mental health who are ignored by those nearest; they’re eventually consumed by it or worse. Is the metaphor perfect? No. Like you said, the one guy who DOES try to help gets punished for it, which is somewhat counterintuitive to the point.

[@kate2late91]

Nope was so good, I wasn't a big fan of Us, but this was a return to form and the special effects and lighting was so good

[@malug4468]

Us is by a different writer/director so not as much a return to form but a same form thing

[@gemstone108]

@@malug4468 Us and Nope were both by Jordan Peele though

[@danielcrafter9349]

@@gemstone108 - as both writer AND director, in fact

[@usman5614]

smile 2 does the same thing and actually doubles down on it! It's so hopeless.

[@alexmilne3684]

Did not see Smile so this is not defense or particular praise of that film, but I guess i wonder about the particular framing of this discussion where art about trauma needs to be “helpful” in a very straightforward way to be good. As a filmmaker and a film consumer who struggles with, if not trauma, then depression, malaise, and sometimes hopeless thoughts, I dont really go to art for a roadmap out of these struggles in so much as i go to art as a place to reflect on the lived reality of my and other people’s experiences. When I think of several of my favorite horror properties, Uzumaki, Possession, and Under the Skin, none of these stories have any real positive prescriptions for people dealing with obsession or marital troubles or crisis of conscience. What these stories do have, are deeply emotionally evocative depictions of these issues that call to mind the reality of experiencing these struggles and actively deny the viewer straightforward solutions or any solutions to these issues. I guess i just personally do not necessarily find that horror media needs a positive model of change regarding the metaphor to be aesthetically evocative and emotionally realistic. Obviously art has a moral dimension, but i dont think its main goal should be to provide advice or a roadmap or to even reflect a real reality as opposed to a felt reality of these conditions. For example, the element of predestination and the unknowable control of the spiral in uzumaki is important to me as a reader specifically because it represents certain felt realities of my own about my mental health, the arbitrary nature of tragedy, and the force that systems beyond our control have over us. I dont think it’s helpful to live life constantly thinking about how out of your control everything is, but i think that’s exactly the purpose of art, a generally safe mediator to express these feelings and have these discussions that are largely not helpful or functional to center in your moment to moment life. Maybe im being uncharitable or misinterpreting, but i guess this idea that a horror movie, especially allegorical ones, need to have a solution that maps itself to a positive and unproblematic real world behavior feels like it necessarily shuts out certain uncomfortable felt realities from being depicted, which i think is part of what makes Horror and aesthetically and intellectually compelling form.

[@LackingSaint]

I thought about this while making the video and I agree it's certainly not any kind of 'objective' metric to judge a film based on its helpfulness to sufferers of trauma/mental illness, but as I sort of get to towards the end I genuinely feel Smile presents a very outsider view of these issues in a way that doesn't even function very well as a cathartic expression of traumatic experience. It's not about a character unable to reach out, because she repeatedly does, and it's not about failing to be understood because several characters attempt exactly that. To each their own (and I'm sure there are many Smile fans out there), but a piece of media that ultimately concludes mental illness is just a fatal curse nobody can do anything about is never something that will sit well with me. I hope that makes sense, and I do appreciate your comment!

[@alexmilne3684]

@@LackingSaint yeah that definitely clarifies the position a little to me and obviously grounds it more in smile specifically. I think I was more hung up on this being a generalized prescription for the genre. I appreciate the comment and clarification!

[@zedwerdgorey]

Wow, this states the same view I have on Smile in such a more eloquent manner. I think the final message of Smile is irresponsible, but any work of art doesn't necessarily need to play by a responsible moral code, least of all a horror movie. Perhaps catharsis can also be gained in darkness, doom, nihilism, and unhappy endings. Now, the issue with Parker Finn and whether he irresponsibly exploited a life experience he may not have a knowledgeable grasp on just to inflict nihilism on the viewer... That's sticker...

[@diamondportal77]

I actually like the fact the monster won, near the end I was worried about the whole confronting her trauma thing, because I believe that her winning against the monster in that context would hurt the themes of the film, and unintentionally promote medical gaslighting, pretty much going "See? She just needed to confront her trauma! Anything weird going on with her that we don't understand is just her tramua speaking." It is often done to people with chronic pain conditions, especially women. Doctors just going "crazy women am I right?" Then it turns out they have cancer, lossing valuable time to fight it early. In fact I have seen someone argue that she did beat her tramua, but her trauma and the demon are different things. That is why it changed its form at the end, dressing up as her mother wouldn't work to torment her anymore. I don't see the monster as unbeatable, to beat it I believe you have to not play it's game, killing someone else with a witness just spreads it still, you can't just "get over it" with some therapy, because that acknowledges its lie of "just being in your head" I don't see the film saying that using magic or an exercism wouldn't work. So I think that's the way to beat it, just like you would use radiation and chemo to beat cancer, and not by just telling the victem that the symtoms are all in their head.

[@obara7366]

Thank you. Just- fucking, thank you. As someone who once worked security for a year at a homeless shelter and became clise with many women there, and who also in her own life as so many suicide attempts that I could turn in my punch card for a free drink- -I despise this movie. I genuinely hate it. It was my worst film of the year. And I only grew more and more frustrated when every YTber I follow praised the movie endlessly. Bless John Truby's definition of theme because it really helps me articulate better my problems or praise for media. He said a theme is a film's moral argument. With that lens, what the fuck is smile saying? What made me so much more angry is that the script accurately portrayed what it was like to work with disenfranchised and vulnerable people. The whole "don't call them crazy" things is true, and something the social workers at the shelter patiently drilled into me. I think of the women who I spent time with and eho were struggling, and what if they saw this movie in a vulnerable place? I'm so fortunate that I hated this movie more than I hate myself as it could have wrecked me. While I often want to die, I do think that life is a wonderful thing and community, compassion and art are the things that make life easier and worth living. Thank you once again for your common sense, or rather, experience.

[@alexbennet4195]

So you were angry because you read a message into it that you don’t like. Do you realise that a lot of media isn’t actually even designed to have some kind of “clear-cut, black-and-white” moral at the end - unless it’s made for children lol

[@ruplayinggame3080]

Secret NOPE praise video was such a good surprise! I really loved it. Haven't seen Smile, but I have a theory that what happened there was: genuine not subtle exploration of trauma, but then the team was like: yeah, but we need to be edgy horror movie so we need to do the dark fakeout at the end that is so traditional to the genre (unfortunately), where evil is never vanquished or some such. In a way, that's true, I have been working on my own trauma for many years and it tends to rear its ugly head back over and over (albeit with a bit of progress). But what I also think is true is that the issue is partly systemic and cultural: my therapists haven't really helped and there is very little that I found in the way of support from people as well, so it is a very uphill battle all the time. I have been offered pills a lot of the time, but what I know I need, community, warmth, connection, has been at least for me much harder to come by. If my trauma is triggered, I have to wait it out, isolated for three days so I can get to a place of relative stability. If I had someone safe to hold me for a while, it would take half an hour. Sorry for the rant and TMI, idk, maybe I think it's important to talk about that.

[@Daniel-fh9jv]

I think Nope's focus on eye-aversion is a nod to EMDR therapy.

[@StephaniedeBritoLeal]

Smile is just a badly executed movie. It's terribly executed, it has too many holes I could ignore but the movie made me so grumpy I decided to have a problem with it. And you just mentioned what I couldn't put my finger on: it's about lol you will never beat your trauma or mental illnesses, it will kill you first. As someone who survived a deep, terrible depression slump and was sure I would die, it rubs me wrong. Plus it's a weakass movie, it rubs me wrong as someone who loves terrible horror movies, Smile isn't bad, it's tedious, it's mediocre.

[@thelegalsystem]

"The T***** Monster" censoring actually made me think of a much worse word lmao

[@zitorya5786]

“don’t like jump scares they scare me.” i fear that’s the point.

[@Tottosmile]

Wait so she,,, feels bad about the thought of passing the monster on to someone else but then embraces the inevitability of it ? So... She's scared her trauma is going to make her hurt others, she decides she can't avoid it and runs away from people and locks the door? Is there any good way to interpret this movie?

[@bascal133]

I like both movies, I think that the goal of Smile is explicitly not to be hopeful. It's existential, cosmic horror. Junji Ito comics use a similar flavour of horror as does the Ari Aster Movie Hereditary. The characters have no hope and never did. I can't think of anything scarier.

[@TheDude4077]

Antlers has a really similar issue to smile in making the monster an extremely direct metaphor for parental abuse, and like smile ends with a pretty standard horror movie ending, And so it ends with this pretty unmistakable message of “if you’ve survived being abused by your parents, you will inevitably grow up to be an abuser”

[@TheLuckOfTheClaws]

Plus the culturally appropriative monster was a bad idea

[@alexbennet4195]

Terminally-online people when they watch any media that’s not actually made for children and don’t get the happy ending they wanted:

[@TheDude4077]

@@alexbennet4195 such a childish response. I didn’t even dislike the movie, I’m just saying it’s clumsy about its messaging. God forbid someone engage with media on a level deeper than “tHinG bAD I dONt’t liKe iT”. Go back to fourth grade

[@alexbennet4195]

@@TheDude4077 Wdym “clumsy about its messaging”…? Bro literally read his own message into it, and then said it sucked bc that message (that he’d made up) sucked

[@TheDude4077]

@@alexbennet4195 did you watch Antlers??? This isn’t a subtle theme I’m talking about dude, it’s the main idea of the movie. It is very specific and clear about it. Also, pointing out a film has an issue isn’t the same as saying it sucked. Have you never had a more nuanced opinion of something other than “it sucked” or “it was great”?

[@giornogiovannax4124]

12:53 FILLED WITH POSITIVITY ; silently grabs the british;

[@btarczy5067]

Just watched „I‘m thinking of ending things“ and it was genuinely horrifying. Then I made the mistake of reading a small article about it afterwards and realized that I didn’t get it. Now I think that „Smile“ might be more in my ballpark. (While what I wrote is true except for the last part it’s alright with me not to understand a movie or any art, really, as long as it had an impact.)

[@amyjeanc5398]

What didn't you get about it and what did you think before the article

[@btarczy5067]

@@amyjeanc5398 In short, pretty much everything. The framing device of the movie eluded me so I connected to the „young woman“ character trying desperately to get home while being trapped by the snowstorm, politeness, a dead end relationship… Obviously many scenes were very confusing to me which I associated with dissociation. So while I didn’t read the movie as intended it still had something to relate to.

[@juliamaria3807]

@@btarczy5067 Omg...That's exactly the same thing I thought. I was actually kinda disappointed to learn what the actual point of the movie was. It's weird because she seemed to be the point of view for at least the first half, so I'm sure a lot of people had that interpretation.

[@tomisaacson2762]

@@juliamaria3807 that's part of the appeal for me. The first half is totally recontextualized after you get the whole picture. It's a very different experience on the second watch.

[@timk6181]

Nobody understands "I'm Thinking Of Ending Things" - it's a bit of a mess. Sometimes the reason you don't understand a film like that is not because it's gone over your head, it's because it's not effectively telling you. Compare it to something like Mulholland Drive, you may not understand the narrative at first watch, but you know full well the message of the film, because its surreal imagery actually conveys the themes. Noone knows what the hell is meant to be conveyed at the end of ITOET.

[@LetruneInedil]

Character killing a cat is instantly the villain in my book.

[@lenapawlek7295]

Thanks for giving all the jump scares funny sounds

[@jaybat1184]

The only way to beat a Smile Demon is to smile right back at them in an even creepier way.

[@moosewerk356]

My "death of the author" interpretation of Smile is the Western medicine approach failing to help someone possessed by a demon and it's way better when viewed from that angle. The *overcoming trauma = hard* narrative in horror media has gotten trite to me now so rejecting reality and substituting my own has been rad on this one.