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Smile

Fair disclosure: I’m very easily spooked. I found some of the imagery in this really scary, to the point that I’ve just gone upstairs with no lights on and all my mind can do is keep replaying certain scenes as if they’re now imminent threats. From that point of view, it’s a very successful horror film.

The problem is, it’s pretty much a paint by numbers plot that offers very little other than a way in which to get from one jump scare to the next. There’s nothing new, nothing innovative and nothing very exciting. In fact, there isn’t anything in this that you wouldn’t find by searching “scary montage” or something similar on YouTube.

The crux of it all actually feels quite mean spirited too. When a film is dealing with mental health and suicide as themes, it really ought to have more substance than this in order to get away with it in any meaningful way. Sadly, this falls very short.

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