DVD Review – Smiley (2012)

Smiley, 2012

Directed by Michael J. Gallagher
Starring Caitlin Gerard, Melanie Papalia, Shane Dawson, Andrew James Allen, Liza Weil, Roger Bart and Keith David

SYNOPSIS:

After discovering an urban legend of a demented serial killer, who has nothing but a carved ‘smiley’ on his face, a mentally fragile teen must decide whether she is going insane – or will be the next victim.

Alright guys, here’s the pitch: Smiley is a slasher movie in which you summon a killer by going into Internet video chat rooms and typing “I did it for the lulz” three times, causing him to appear behind and kill whomever you’re chatting with. Oh, and he has carved his face to look like a smiley emoticon.

Still here after that?

Ignoring the completely ridiculous “plot” and monster, Smiley is a very poorly made movie with some awful direction and lousy acting. When you read the plot out loud, it sounds more like a parody of a slasher than an actual movie and it almost feels like that when you’re watching it – only it’s taking itself 100% seriously.

First off, how did this even get made? A group of people actually sat down and wrote a script in which a killer is summoned through l33t speak crap and then they attempted to take it seriously like Smiley was going to be the biggest thing to happen to the genre since Scream. The characters even talk about how Smiley will live on longer than any of us and how he’ll be the biggest thing this Halloween. Here’s a stunning revelation – he won’t be. As designs go he’s actually quite effective, but he’s treated like a footnote to the movie as they spend more time on stupid white teenagers doing stupid white teenager things that leads to unsatisfying conclusion that doesn’t make sense.

It seems weird to complain about the way the movie is shot given there are hundreds of other things to criticise, but director Michael J. Gallagher shoots a lot of the dialogue scenes in head on close-ups so it never feels like people are talking to each other and are instead looking into the lens of a webcam. While that was probably the intention (given the plot of the movie), its really weird to watch and it disjoints and detracts from conversations. Furthermore he only does this occasionally, so it’s not even like it’s a consistent theme. On top of that, it also features some spectacular goofs which could have been avoided had the movie not been made by incompetent fools.

Smiley also attempts to raise some philosophical questions in its college scenes that drag the movie’s already slow pace to a grinding halt. There are in depth discussions about how urban legends can become real even when they’re not to begin with through the power of belief and, while I think it plays into the final moments of the movie, it’s turgidly boring to listen to. This isn’t like Scream (which this movie wants to be so badly it copied the poster) where the characters are interesting, unique and developed as the cast of Smiley are nothing more than cardboard cut outs who give performances as wooden as their character personalities.

But perhaps its worst crime is its repeated use of the jump scare gimmick that seemingly happens every other scene – even ones that don’t contain any horror. If you create a good atmosphere before a jump scare, they can be effective but Smiley uses them to the point of annoyance without any form of suspense surrounding them. It feels so cheap that the only way Gallagher can scare his audience is by having some loud noises while his actors awkwardly pop up in frame and its repeated use devalues the gimmick to so they just feels like part of the movie as opposed to a genuine scare tactic.