As a therapist,this movie was actually depicting when you don’t deal with trauma and demons you battle can sometimes lead to self harming if you don’t try to go through it.And what makes it all the more sad,she is a healthcare professional and couldn’t help herself.
Honestly, that jump scare hit hard! This movie was alot more unsettling than I expected it to be....a nice surprise. Also, a Latrice Royale insert....yes please! X
Loved this reaction (got yourself a sub), but I won't stand for shoulder-pad slander! I agree with you that the messaging here is muddy. The obvious theme is trauma, and that it's contagious, but I also think there's a message here about how we approach self-care and the importance of being able to go to someone that _can_ help, and then asking for that help directly.
As a starting writer myself while writing my stories I have a few themes woven into the story. but they don't have to be super deep life-changing messages every time your write something. as a creator many demons and creatures like this you just make the creature look at their victims as a plate of food. the monster eats trauma, it invades your mind making you see s*** no different from it 🤡 the clown spider thing... he liked to scare kids and eat them because their fear makes them taste better. These monster didn't give a damn about what humans going through they was just trying to put seasoning on there meat and eat it. The movie explain the mechanics and creep people the f*** out. That's it You get caught with it, you're f***** that's the movies message for me nothing scares me more than an unacceptable concept similar to the grudge. The black guy in prison said that you have to kill somebody in front of somebody to pass it. I don't think the entity would let you suicide on your own. He would make you be somewhere else on the 4 or 7th day... he clearly showed that in the movie With the cat, we never seen her kill the cat... And making her think she beat it when went home. he said you can't escape your mind. One of the best jump-scares I've ever seen in a movie. i was up in the middle of the night when I saw that window noc scene...also the one from insidious with the Darth maul monster smh...
The only thing this has in common with that awful movie It Follows is the general idea but no offence this movie is 10 times better than It Follows will ever be. Saw this one in the theaters and it creeped me out as specially the scene where the face showed up yelling her name. The actress of Rose is actually Kevin Bacon and Kyra Segwick's daughter which is interesting.
There's a thing that a number of horror movies do that I severely dislike even before you start getting into what message the film is saying. I don't insist on happy endings in my horror. (This would be just the absolute wrong genre for me if I did.) I don't insist the main characters survive. But what I deeply dislike is *absolute futility* . Even if it's generally a downer ending, the protagonist needs to have accomplished *something* for all their struggles. Or, at the very least, I need to come away thinking the character *could* have accomplished something, if only they hadn't made an obviously bad choice or foolish decision. Otherwise, to me, it's not even a story. We watch people suffer for an hour and a half, and then they lose. That's not for me in any way, shape, or form. SMILE is one of those. From the moment Rose meets Laura, it's over. There is nothing she could have done. Nothing she attempts matters in the slightest. Even when she figures out how to fight back, it's revealed to have been a trick. Useless. Futile. That would bug the hell out of me even on its own. To combine that with a purported examination of mental illness and trauma is *vile* . It goes beyond being merely inaccurate to *wrong* a level that is almost ethical, let alone factual. Now, I don't believe "Trauma and mental illness are inescapable, kill yourself before they do the job for you" is a message the filmmakers *meant* to send. I think it's the result of people either not thinking through the implications of their craft, and/or the result of people who aren't trained in mental health trying to make a statement about it. But intentional or not, it's absolutely what the movie says. And it's a real shame, because I was so looking forward to this one, and it could have been so much more.
For what it's worth, the ending frustrated me for a slightly different reason: I think she actually COULD have "defeated" the monster, at least in terms of stopping the cycle and preventing it from jumping to a new host. But the final 20 minutes of the movie require both her AND he cop ex to suddenly behave like complete morons, which then causes them to fail: She knows she needs to be completely alone when the monster finally "gets" her - so what does she do? She CALLS SOMEONE AND TELLS THEM EXACTLY WHERE SHE'S GOING. And then HE, in turn, suddenly acts like she's not making any sense when she says "I need to be alone when it happens, so that it can't transfer to someone else." Like, he's seen and learned enough about this monster that he should immediately understand what she's saying, and stop trying to find her. After all, even if the monster tricked her like this, only to reveal that she's still in the cabin, none of that would matter unless her ex showed up to be a witness. So the downer ending comes because both of them take DUMB actions that go against everything their characters actually know. It would've been so much better if she keeps dodging his calls on her cell phone (in order to keep him far away), has the trippy showdown at the cabin, but then he shows up and says "I had a friend at the department track your phone, what's happening?" only to realize too late that he shouldn't have come.
@@dlweiss While that would've been a little bit better on a creative level, it wouldn't have made things any better in terms of the message the film was saying. It still would've been a "The only way out of mental illness is suicide" message.
@@AriMarmell Oh, 100% agreed - the underlying message (even if unintentional) is still irresponsible and potentially harmful for people actually struggling with mental illness and/or trauma. I wish the film had been more like The Babadook - drawing from real-world issues, but then exploring and resolving them in a healthier, more constructive way.
As a therapist,this movie was actually depicting when you don’t deal with trauma and demons you battle can sometimes lead to self harming if you don’t try to go through it.And what makes it all the more sad,she is a healthcare professional and couldn’t help herself.
Honestly, that jump scare hit hard! This movie was alot more unsettling than I expected it to be....a nice surprise. Also, a Latrice Royale insert....yes please! X
Loved this reaction (got yourself a sub), but I won't stand for shoulder-pad slander! I agree with you that the messaging here is muddy. The obvious theme is trauma, and that it's contagious, but I also think there's a message here about how we approach self-care and the importance of being able to go to someone that _can_ help, and then asking for that help directly.
Fair enough. Welcome!
The trailers didn’t do it for me but I ended up watching it and it suprised me. Enjoyed it
I liked it too.... RIGHT up until the end....
As a starting writer myself while writing my stories I have a few themes woven into the story. but they don't have to be super deep life-changing messages every time your write something. as a creator many demons and creatures like this you just make the creature look at their victims as a plate of food. the monster eats trauma, it invades your mind making you see s*** no different from it 🤡 the clown spider thing... he liked to scare kids and eat them because their fear makes them taste better. These monster didn't give a damn about what humans going through they was just trying to put seasoning on there meat and eat it. The movie explain the mechanics and creep people the f*** out. That's it
You get caught with it, you're f***** that's the movies message for me nothing scares me more than an unacceptable concept similar to the grudge.
The black guy in prison said that you have to kill somebody in front of somebody to pass it. I don't think the entity would let you suicide on your own. He would make you be somewhere else on the 4 or 7th day... he clearly showed that in the movie With the cat, we never seen her kill the cat... And making her think she beat it when went home. he said you can't escape your mind.
One of the best jump-scares I've ever seen in a movie. i was up in the middle of the night when I saw that window noc scene...also the one from insidious with the Darth maul monster smh...
The only thing this has in common with that awful movie It Follows is the general idea but no offence this movie is 10 times better than It Follows will ever be. Saw this one in the theaters and it creeped me out as specially the scene where the face showed up yelling her name. The actress of Rose is actually Kevin Bacon and Kyra Segwick's daughter which is interesting.
Yeah, I didn't make the familial connection until after I recorded.
There's a thing that a number of horror movies do that I severely dislike even before you start getting into what message the film is saying.
I don't insist on happy endings in my horror. (This would be just the absolute wrong genre for me if I did.) I don't insist the main characters survive.
But what I deeply dislike is *absolute futility* . Even if it's generally a downer ending, the protagonist needs to have accomplished *something* for all their struggles. Or, at the very least, I need to come away thinking the character *could* have accomplished something, if only they hadn't made an obviously bad choice or foolish decision. Otherwise, to me, it's not even a story. We watch people suffer for an hour and a half, and then they lose. That's not for me in any way, shape, or form.
SMILE is one of those. From the moment Rose meets Laura, it's over. There is nothing she could have done. Nothing she attempts matters in the slightest. Even when she figures out how to fight back, it's revealed to have been a trick. Useless. Futile.
That would bug the hell out of me even on its own. To combine that with a purported examination of mental illness and trauma is *vile* . It goes beyond being merely inaccurate to *wrong* a level that is almost ethical, let alone factual.
Now, I don't believe "Trauma and mental illness are inescapable, kill yourself before they do the job for you" is a message the filmmakers *meant* to send. I think it's the result of people either not thinking through the implications of their craft, and/or the result of people who aren't trained in mental health trying to make a statement about it.
But intentional or not, it's absolutely what the movie says.
And it's a real shame, because I was so looking forward to this one, and it could have been so much more.
Yuuuup. Had to record a whole other video addressing this. ua-cam.com/video/qU14wDHMXFc/v-deo.html
For what it's worth, the ending frustrated me for a slightly different reason: I think she actually COULD have "defeated" the monster, at least in terms of stopping the cycle and preventing it from jumping to a new host. But the final 20 minutes of the movie require both her AND he cop ex to suddenly behave like complete morons, which then causes them to fail:
She knows she needs to be completely alone when the monster finally "gets" her - so what does she do? She CALLS SOMEONE AND TELLS THEM EXACTLY WHERE SHE'S GOING. And then HE, in turn, suddenly acts like she's not making any sense when she says "I need to be alone when it happens, so that it can't transfer to someone else." Like, he's seen and learned enough about this monster that he should immediately understand what she's saying, and stop trying to find her.
After all, even if the monster tricked her like this, only to reveal that she's still in the cabin, none of that would matter unless her ex showed up to be a witness. So the downer ending comes because both of them take DUMB actions that go against everything their characters actually know.
It would've been so much better if she keeps dodging his calls on her cell phone (in order to keep him far away), has the trippy showdown at the cabin, but then he shows up and says "I had a friend at the department track your phone, what's happening?" only to realize too late that he shouldn't have come.
@@dlweiss While that would've been a little bit better on a creative level, it wouldn't have made things any better in terms of the message the film was saying. It still would've been a "The only way out of mental illness is suicide" message.
I don't think the film is saying that, technically none of them are suiciding, it's the entity doing it to them
@@AriMarmell Oh, 100% agreed - the underlying message (even if unintentional) is still irresponsible and potentially harmful for people actually struggling with mental illness and/or trauma. I wish the film had been more like The Babadook - drawing from real-world issues, but then exploring and resolving them in a healthier, more constructive way.