150) The Exorcist III (1990)

"He is inside with us. He will never get away!" 

Director

William Peter Blatty

Cast

George C. Scott - Lt. William Kinderman

Ed Flanders - Fr. Joseph Dyer

Brad Dourif - James Venamun
Jason Miller - Damien Karras
Scott Wilson - Dr. Temple

Nicol Williamson - Father Morning

A fifth installment in "The Exorcist" series is scheduled to be released from Blumhouse Productions later this year, with David Gordon Green set to direct. I mention Green in my previous "Halloween Kills" review. 

According to Yahoo! Entertainment News this fifth movie is supposed to ignore all sequels following the 1973 film "The Exorcist," which is based on the novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and directed by William Friedkin. In other words, it's going to be another one of those retcon movies the kids are all takin' about nowadays. 

Ellen Burstyn, who plays Chris MacNeil, the mother of the young possessed Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) in the first movie is supposed to return to the role once again for the first time in fifty years. 

It seems these kinds of movies, which I call "where are they now" flicks, are the current trend in Hollywood. 

These movies involve aged actors returning to roles they played thirty, forty, or fifty years ago. It's generally a surprise to audiences to see these stars take on roles they haven't played in so long.

Harrison Ford returning as Han Solo in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" comes to mind first. 

Hollywood has even brought actors back from the dead just to portray characters one more time such as the late Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin in "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" and the late Harold Ramis as the ghost of Egon Spengler in "Ghostbusters: Afterlife." Both actors died before these movies even went into production.

"The Exorcist" is still referred to as the "scariest movie ever made." I wrote about that topic back in 2020. It's no wonder Hollywood wants to squeeze whatever money is left out of the franchise. The devil is scary, but profitable. 

This piece of horror movie news encouraged me to take a look at "The Exorcist III," released in 1990, for my 150th horror review. I don't remember when I last watched "The Exorcist III." I've always considered it the best of the sequels.

When it comes to the films that follow "The Exorcist," it's quite a mixed bag. Unlike the first movie, the sequel "Exorcist II: The Heretic" is still considered one of the worst horror sequels ever made. It's a well-deserved label, too. It's a terrible film that takes the storyline into a place that resembles a nightmarish fever dream. It's bizarre, in a ludicrous way. It's completely non-scary. It's unintentionally laughable. And it has nothing to do with heretics. So, the title doesn't make any sense. The heretic? What heretic? They might as well have called it "Exorcist II: The Birthday Cake." That makes just as much sense. 

In 2004, a prequel was released called "Exorcist: The Beginning" directed by Renny Harlin and starring Stellan Skarsgård as Fr. Lankester Merrin - the exorcist from the first film originally played by Max von Sydow. 

Brad Dourif as the 'Gemini Killer' in "The Exorcist III."

It turns out this version is a retooled movie called "Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist" directed by Paul Schrader which also stars Stellan Skarsgård along with a completely different cast from "Exorcist: The Beginning." 

"Dominion" was released in 2005. And it ended up being worse than "Exorcist: The Beginning." I don't even remember which version I saw. I just know I saw one of them, and it was a poor movie. It's not as bad as the "The Birthday Cake" but it's still a big letdown. 

Yet, somehow, "Exorcist III" manages to be a decent sequel in the series. Then again, considering what preceded it, that probably works in the film's favor. 

Directed by William Peter Blatty and based on his 1983 novel "Legion," which was meant to be the title of part three, this installment takes place 15 years after Regan's exorcism... or 17 years if you go by the film's trailer.

The movie centers on Lt. William Kinderman (George C. Scott) who is played in the original film by Lee J. Cobb. By the way, Scott later took on another role once played by Cobb. He plays juror number three in the 1997 TV movie "12 Angry Men." Cobb played the same role in the 1957 movie.

Anyways, Kinderman and his Jesuit priest buddy, Fr. Joseph Dyer (Ed Flanders) are close friends following the events of part one. They still grieve over the death of their friend, Fr. Damien Karras S.J. (Jason Miller) who died after Regan's exorcism by falling down a long flight of stairs. That was in the first movie, if you haven't seen it. 

The film opens with a demonic presence bursting through the doors of a Catholic Church, causing the eyes on a crucifix above the altar to open. Evil challenging God. 

Murders have been taking place around the district of Georgetown. These murders resemble those of serial killer James Venamun, who went by the moniker "the Gemini Killer." Venamun terrorized the area 15 years before but was shot and killed by police.  

The next day, Kinderman is called to a murder scene involving a young black boy named Thomas Kintry.

Though the method of Kintry's murder matches the Gemini's modus operandi, the fingerprints found at his murder scene, and other murder scenes around Georgetown, are all different. 

Continuing the storyline of Kinderman's fondness for movies as seen in part one, he and Fr. Dyer go to a showing of "It's a Wonderful Life." After the movie, they go grab a coffee together, during which time Kinderman tells the priest about what the killer did to Kintry's body. Kinderman is trying to wrap his head around these extremely violent crimes and hopes his priest friend might have an answer as to how people can do such things to others. He does have an answer, but Kinderman has seen too much of society's darkest and cruelest side to just accept it.

Soon after, a priest named Fr. Tom Kanavan (Harry Carey, Jr.) is murdered while hearing confessions. He's killed in a disturbing scene in which the voice of an old lady in the confessional begins telling the priest how she murdered those victims that Kinderman is investigating.

Later, Dyer becomes sick and ends up in the hospital. 

The day after Kinderman goes to visit him, Fr. Dyer is found murdered in his hospital bed. 

Like all the other murders, including Kintry's and Fr. Kanavan's, Dyer iss decapitated. Also, his killer placed Dyer's entire blood supply into several cups on the table next to his bed without spilling a drop. And the words "It's a wonderfull [sic] life" are written in Dyer's blood above the bed. 

While questioning hospital staff, Kinderman tells the head of the hospital that the three latest murders match the Gemini's motus operandi, the true details of which were never told to the public. Yet, the murders follow those same details the police kept secret.
Kinderman speaks with the head of the psychiatric ward, Dr. Temple (Scott Wilson), who tells him about an amnesia patient in their care whom police found wandering aimlessly 15 years ago. 

George C. Scott as Lt. Kinderman, originally
played by Lee J. Cobb in "The Exorcist" (1973).

As the murders began taking place, the patient started coming out of his catatonic state, acting violently and claiming to be the Gemini. 

Kinderman goes to speak with the patient (Brad Dourif). Afterwards, he's certain that this patient resembles his deceased friend, Fr. Karras. And the patient admits to him that he is the Gemini, revealing details about murders he committed 15 years ago. 
This movie jumps right into the story without delay. 

I'll say here that a lot of horror movies involving demons or the devil, and exorcisms, fall into a trope that annoys me. 

Often, such movies portray the devil and his minions as active and always putting on a show. That part is understandable as movies have to be entertaining, after all. Entertainment is rule number one. God, meanwhile, is off in some far-off place. A priest or pastor will do all they can to call on God to intervene. Nobody is really sure if He's going to show up or not. "The Exorcist" does that a bit but the movie still depicts what God can do over what the devil can do. 

"The Exorcism of Emily Rose" (2005) really portrays God's intercession wonderfully. Other movies in this horror subgenre focus more on what the devil can do over what God can do. Or, rather, what Hollywood writers think God and the devil can do. "The Exorcist III" leans a little too far into the "what the devil can do" trope. God's intervention, which is depicted in the exorcism at the end of the film is definitely sensationalized for entertainment purposes - more so than what's depicted in part one. Still, God does intervene.  

There's a lot of talking and a lot of subtleties, especially when it comes to the thriller elements. There's a fair amount of whispering from persons off-screen played over other scenes. Scenes transition very quickly, sometimes with quick voice overs. 

Mysterious and otherworldly images quickly appear at random. In one scene where Kinderman is talking to another Jesuit named Fr. Riley (Lee Richardson) about the investigations, a door in the priest's large office slowly opens on its own and Kinderman can hear whispering. He gets up to investigate as Fr. Riley, well, just sits at his desk as if he doesn't notice this police investigator getting up to look around. 

An image of a saint statue flashes on screen with it a demonic looking face and holding a dagger. A lot of these subtle scares and images are left for the audience to interpret.

The movie is a bit dry. It's saving grace is the casting of Dourif and Scott. 

Dourif really steals the show. He is fantastic in this movie. He takes his time and doesn't rush his performance playing a serial killer turned evil spirit. He throws every spec of energy he has into this role. 

Scott, who's already an amazing actor, has a dominating presence on screen. 

Scott subtly changes through the picture. Being a homicide detective, he's seen a lot of unspeakable horrors. He has seen the worst things a person can do to the innocent among us. It's no wonder he escapes reality by watching movies. 

In this movie, Kinderman is barely hanging on between keeping his wits together and losing them. Scott is an excellent choice for this role as he really conveys this characteristic of Kinderman. And he does it with subtlety - holding back tears at some points, or losing his patience when those around him don't cooperate. On top of this, his close friend is murdered in a really horrific way right in a hospital. 

Kinderman's inner turmoil comes through from time to time, but Scott portrays him as clearly holding it all inside, even when those emotions are too strong to hold back. Scott is brilliant at showing the audience a lot by showing just a little. His character's inner struggle all boils down to his speech at the final scene which begins with Kinderman, held against the wall by an unseen force, stating "I believe in death. I believe in disease."
The film overall keeps a steady pace with its thriller tones. There are some humorous moments, too, which blend into the overall serious tone of the film. 

For instance, when Kinderman and Fr. Dyer are leaving the movie theater, Fr. Dyer suggests Kinderman go home and rest. 

"I can't go home," Kinderman responds.

"Why," asks Fr. Dyer. 

"The carp."

Kinderman explains that his mother-in-law is visiting and wants to cook the family a carp for supper later in the week. 

While he has no objection to having carp for dinner, his mother-in-law thinks carp is filled with impurities. So, she purchased a live one and has kept it alive in the bathtub for the last three days. He complains to Dyer that the fish has been swimming up and down, and up and down, in his bathtub. 

"And I hate it. I can't stand the sight of it moving its gills" he says. 

Thanks to the carp, he hasn't been able to take a bath for three days. 

"I can't go home until the carp is asleep cause if I see it swimming, I'll kill it." 

Jason Miller returns as Fr. Damien Karras.

There are some things that I found a bit weak in the movie. For instance, in one scene when Kinderman is leaving the hospital, he heads to an elevator at the end of a hallway with a statue of Christ placed right next to the elevator. Kinderman would have to walk straight towards this statue to get to his elevator. The head of statue, though, has been broken off. And he doesn't seem to notice, nor say anything about it. This headless statue remains there throughout the movie. Why would a Catholic hospital leave a desecrated statue of Christ without a head in a place for all to see? Someone would have at least covered it up. Did no one in the hospital notice this headless statue? 

I also find it strange that no one recognized Fr. Karras for 15 years in the mental ward. And since that was Fr. Karras's body in the ward, didn't any of his fellow Jesuits wonder what happened to his body after he died in part one? Was there a funeral for him? If so, whom did they bury?

"The Exorcist III," certainly doesn't rely on blood and gore to be a horror movie. We never see any of these murders happen. We just hear about them after the fact with their horrid details and get glimpses of their aftermath. 

"The Exorcist III" takes the series back to a serious tone after part two took into some kind of acid trip. 

Like the first movie, part three also has a dream sequence. However, part three's dream sequence is an oddity all to itself. And it features a small list of notable cameos such as the model Fabio, basketball player Patrick Ewing, and Samuel L. Jackson in one of his earliest movie roles. Unfortunately, Jackson's one line is dubbed over. 

Also, TV personality Larry King has a quick cameo as a restaurant patron in another scene. 

And I swear there's a subtle nod in to the 1988 film "Child's Play" in which Dourif voices the evil doll "Chucky." 

While discussing the murders, the Gemini Killer tells Kinderman that it's "child's play, lieutenant." The scene then cuts to a little freckled boy in the hospital with red hair and blue eyes...like Chucky the doll. Maybe that's a coincidence. But I doubt it. They knew what they were doing.

The actual exorcism part is forced into the story so that the movie lives up to its title. 

Considering how dry the movie tends to feel, the exorcism does add some needed flavor despite being completely exaggerated for the sake of scares. 

The original ending had Kinderman walk into Venamun's cell at the hospital, shoot him, and then leave. It's very underwhelming if you happen to see it. I'm glad they changed it.

Speaking of the exorcism scene, a random priest named Fr. Morning (Nicol Williamson) shows up in the middle of the movie with no introduction. His initial scene doesn't connect with anything in the story. He then shows up again at the end to perform the exorcism on Karras. It's definitely just taped onto the story and is really far-fetched. The book "Legion" has no exorcisms. Yet, Hollywood needed to really tie part three in with the first movie. The fireworks are saved for this exorcism scene, gore and all. 

Despite all my nitpicks, I really like this movie, especially the performances. I can understand why some horror fans will find this a bit lackluster. All things considered, it is a decent tie in with part one, giving us something completely different than before. 

149) Halloween Ends (2022)

"Evil doesn't die. It changes shape."

Director

David Gordon Green

Cast

Jamie Lee Curtis - Laurie Strode

Rohan Campbell - Corey Cunningham

Andi Matichak - Allyson Nelson
James Jude Courtney - Michael Myers

Will Patton - Deputy Frank Hawkins

(Spoilers ahead) 

When it comes to the "Halloween" movies, director John Carpenter's original 1978 slasher flick about serial killer and mental patient Michael Myers, who escapes from a mental hospital 15 years after killing his sister, is certainly one of the most foundational films in the horror genre. In the first film, Myers returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, Ill, to continue his killing spree on Halloween night. Jamie Lee Curtis plays babysitter Laurie Strode who faces off with Myers to protect the children she’s watching over.
While I've only seen the first and second movie, and the most recent movies, "Halloween" (2018), "Halloween Kills" (2021) and this last one, I know the entire series demonstrates how Hollywood can milk one particular franchise for as much money as it possibly can. Hollywood, obviously, is in the business of making movies for profit. Still, the line-up of "Halloween" films after part one is pure confusion. I mentioned this in a previous review, but I'll reiterate. 

Carpenter’s film is followed by the sequel “Halloween II,” released in 1981.
The franchise moves completely away from Myers in the third movie “Halloween: Season of the Witch” which was released in 1982.
This third movie tells a new tale of terror that has nothing to do with the first two movies nor Haddonfield. Part three was to be the first in a series of horror anthology movies, each telling a unique tale centered around the Halloween holiday. Obviously, things didn't go as planned.
Fans were upset with this Myers-less “Halloween” film, so writers brought him back in “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers” released in 1988.
Part five, “Halloween: The Revenge of Michael Myers” and part six, “Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers” were released in 1989 and 1995.
In 1998, the series takes a confusing turn as the writers-that-be in Hollywood decided to ignore parts three, four and five with a new direct sequel to the first two movies. They called this flick, “Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later.” Jamie Lee Curtis reprises her role as Laurie Strode, which she hadn’t portrayed since “Halloween II.”
It follows a post-traumatic Strode who fakes her own death in order to go into hiding from Myers.
Writers conjured up a sequel to "H20" that was released in 2002 called “Halloween: Resurrection.” The story still follows the same traumatized Strode, now in a mental facility.
Then things get even more confusing as shock-horror director, Rob Zombie, got in on the action with his own remakes – “Halloween” (2007) and “Halloween II” (2009).

Jamie Lee Curtis returns as
Laurie Strode in "Halloween Ends" (2022).

 After Zombie’s remakes, writers went back to the planning table and came up with “Halloween” (2018) which is, yet again, a direct sequel to the original 1978 movie, by-passing all other films. And the aforementioned "Halloween Kills" along with this movie are sequels to that 2018 reboot. How many start-overs can one story have? The answer is however many audiences are willing to pay to see.
But that first film from 1978 put Myers in an iconic spot within the rogue's gallery of other well-known movie monsters. And this time, it's Myers' final confrontation...again. Afterall, this recent installment has "end" in the title so that makes it pretty definite that this really is the final, final end. Or maybe that's what they want us to think.
"Halloween Ends" doesn't quite follow Myers and his on-going killing spree. Rather, the story centers on a young man named Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell). 

The film opens with Cunningham babysitting a kid named Jeremy on Halloween night of 2019.

Jeremy plays a prank on Cunningham by locking him in the attic. 

Corey panics and starts trying to kick the door open. He doesn't realize that Jeremy is on the other side of the door when it flies open. It hits Jeremy causing him to fall over the banister down three floors to the hard wood floor below, just as his parents return home. 

Three years go by, and a lot of residents in Haddonfield falsely believe Corey intentionally killed young Jeremy despite being cleared of the charges. 

Residents are also healing from the terror and murders Michael Myers inflicted on the town back in 2018. 

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is still living in Haddonfield, working on her memoir. She lives with her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) and has let go of the fear and rage Myers left her with after all these decades. Instead, she is living her life and is as fear-free as she can be. However, residents blame Laurie for Myers' murders. They claim she provoked him with all of her frenzy from before. I don't get it. 

Myers, meanwhile, hasn't been seen in a few years. 

Allyson, who works as a nurse, develops feelings for Corey after a group of teenagers attack him. 

The two fall in love but things begin to change after the same group of teens toss Corey over a bridge after a Halloween party.

Knocked unconscious, he's dragged into a sewer by none other than Michael Myers who tries unsuccessfully to choke him. 

But Myers is weak and lets him go. Before he escapes, Corey looks Myers directly in the eyes. 

After this near-death experience, Corey begins developing a connection to Myers. A violent streak begins to grow in him. He finds himself continuing Myer's killing spree around Haddonfield. 

As he and Allyson start growing closer, Laurie starts suspecting something is terribly wrong with Corey, and thinks Meyers is somehow involved. 

Soon, Corey leads Myers to Laurie for yet another faceoff. And that's the most interesting part of the entire more. 

David Gordon Green, who directed the two "Halloween" films before this one, returns to the director's chair. And to his credit, the 2018 film is a decent horror movie which caught the feels and spirit of Carpenter's original film. Then again, why not just watch Carpenter's original film instead? 

The first 40 minutes of this new installment is all about Corey with a few mentions of Michael Myers here and there. When Myers finally show up, he's disappointingly reduced to a side character. Maybe the writers could have gotten away with this had "Halloween Ends" not been the third installment of a trilogy that started with 2018's "Halloween," and, therefore, was a highly anticipated movie. Fans had sat through the first two movies, suffering especially through "Halloween Kills." And this is the payoff they waited to see! Disappointing.

Andi Matichak and Rohan Campbell in "Halloween Ends."

Speaking of which, this movie makes me wonder why, aside from profit, "Halloween Kills" was produced in the first place. Now, after watching "Halloween Ends," it looks even more like a superfluous film. In my review for "Halloween Kills" which I wrote for my local newspaper, I called it "space-filler." Now it looks more like space-filler at its worst. Good job "Halloween Ends" for making a pointless movie even more pointless. That's quite a feat. 

In this final film, the majority of the story is mundane. It all leads up to the finale that fans wanted to see - Strode versus Myers - which is glued onto the overall premise like a kindergartner's art project. 

This is such a conceited film with a frustrating plot. 

Half of me wants to appreciate the attempt to take the Halloween storyline in a unique direction as seen in the early films (i.e. Myers' spirit). 
The other half of me wonders what the hell these writers were thinking. 

In this story, Michael Myers seems like an afterthought. It's as though midway through production, the writers remembered, "Oh, right. This is a Halloween movie. I guess we got to stick the boogeyman in here, somewhere."

The plot of Corey facing Myers right in the eye which somehow influences him to start killing alongside Myers is left to the interpretation of the audience. I thought, perhaps, the story was utilizing the premise seen in "Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers" which surrounds an ancient Druid curse called "Thorn" that drives a person to kill their own family on Halloween night goes. If that's the case, I think I missed it. 

Thankfully, in the spirit of the '78 film, Laurie Strode walks away once again as the strong female protagonist against the sadistic and deranged Myers. 

Too many slasher flicks went open season on young girls back in the 1970s, especially girls who conveyed mental strength in some way or another. "Halloween" didn't give audiences such a weak premise as other slashers did.

I was hesitant that this movie would kill off both Myers and Strode. Or worse, just Strode, while Myers would again walk away. I wouldn't put that past Hollywood. I was wrong. Myers dies and is destroyed at the hands of Strode. I'll give the film credit for maintaining Strode as the hero.

Even so, Myers' death strikes me as tacked on and forced. It seems like it's there because writers backed themselves into a corner, and now audiences expect to see Halloween's end. 

According to the various movie news sources, this is meant to be the last of the "Halloween" movies as far as David Gordon Green is concerned.

I hope that remains the case. But Hollywood always finds a way of continuously feeding audiences overplayed franchises again and again. Maybe they'll bring Myers back, or worse, pretend he didn't die. 

While the "Halloween" sequels have their fan base to some degree, depending on the sequel, it's a shame that the whole things ends on such a disappointing note, reducing the monster to a mere afterthought. 

148) Smile (2022)

"It's smiling at me. But not a friendly smile. It's the worst smile I've ever seen in my life."

Director

Parker Finn

Cast

Sosie Bacon - Rose Cotter
Kyle Gallner - Joel

Jessie T. Usher - Trevor

Caitlin Stasey - Laura Weaver

Kal Penn - Dr. Morgan Desai

Robin Weigert - Dr. Madeline Northcott

(Spoilers ahead)

I have to admit that when it comes to modern mainstream horror movies, I tend to gloss over a lot of them. The only urge I have to check them out is for this blog's sake. Some horror films released in the last 10 years, other than sequels and reboots, such as "Get Out," "Hereditary," "Midsommar," "Split," "Happy Death Day" to drop a few titles, have grabbed my attention, and were rather decent horror flicks.

When the trailer for the 2022 psychological horror film "Smile" dropped, I wasn't impressed. It seemed like another standard horror flick with the same old shock elements and premises I've seen over and over again. It included a psychiatric ward, someone's traumatic experience (I admit those are often relatable), and an evil otherworldly entity. Evil entities suck! Traumatic experiences also suck. So, when the two are mixed together, it's supposed to make for a nasty experience.

The trailer left me with the impression that the movie was more about jump scares, hideous and horrific visuals, and a story that takes itself too seriously.

In this movie, Sosie Bacon, the daughter of actor Kevin Bacon (I didn't know that until after watching "Smile") plays psychiatric therapist Dr. Rose Cotter.

The story starts with Cotter meeting with a disturbed graduate student named Laura (Caitlin Stasey) who witnessed her college professor kill himself in a truly brutal manner. 

Laura claims she has been seeing an entity that takes the form of people she knows as well as completely strangers. But each time she sees the entity in the form of a person, they always have a sinister smile plastered on their face. And they tell her she's going to die.

During the consultation, Laura breaks down screaming at an invisible presence in the room before collapsing to the floor. 

After Cotter rushes to an emergency phone for help, she turns back around to see Laura standing with an evil grin and holding a shard of a broken vase that shattered on the floor. 

Cotter witnesses Laura cut her own throat with that shard from ear to ear before falling dead. 

The incident weighs heavily on Cotter, who soon begins experience strange incidents and sees people grinning sinisterly at her. Sinister grins are spooky, I guess. As these experiences start becoming more and more severe, Cotter begins questioning her sanity.

Sosie Bacon as Rose Cotter in 2022's "Smile."

She starts seeing her old therapist, Dr. Madeline Northcott (Robin Weigert) who thinks her turmoil stems from the stress of her work, witnessing Laura's suicide, and the unhealed wounds from childhood. 

During her youth, Cotter was alone when she saw her abusive, mentally ill mother slowly die from an overdose. 

She starts investigating these phenomena which leads her to other people who have experienced the same sort of things and have ultimately died. 

Among the individuals she speaks with is the widow of the professor who Laura saw take his life. 

Her hallucinations continue to grow more intense. While her fiancé Trevor (Jessie T. Usher) along with her sister think she's merely having a mental breakdown inherited from her mother, and offer no help, Cotter turns to her ex-boyfriend cop, Joel (Kyle Gallner), for help.

He tries to assist as best he can. Cotter figures out that this entity feeds on personal trauma and is passed onto other victims when they witness it kill someone under the appearance of suicide. 

The lines of reality and mental instability become blurred. Soon, Cotter realizes how she must face this otherworldly demon alone in a place where no one can find her so she cannot pass it onto someone else. 

So, did the movie exceed my poor expectations? Not really. It was, for the most part, what I initially thought it would be. 

"Smile" is another paranormal/psychological daisy chain horror story similar to films like "The Ring" (2002) or the "Saw" movies, albeit "Saw" is a psychological horror film rather than a paranormal one. Still, it's the same principle.  

In these sorts of movies, the only way for the main character to dispel or overcome the evil or curse haunting them is to pass it on to someone else. To be rid of evil, they have to commit evil. It's a terrible premise. No one comes out any better. Events go from bad to worse, and then the story is over. It's not really a resolution. It's just an ending. 

It also has all the standard formulaic modern horror elements. There's a protagonist already dealing with past ghosts (figurative speaking) that they're still haunted by decades later. That trauma has them already worn down to some degree. There's the edge-of-your-seat race against the clock. It's similar to the seven days until death as seen in the film "The Ring." In "Smile" Cotter figures out she has about a week to until she dies based on the fate of everyone else who dealt with this thing before her.

Again, it's hard to tell what's real and what's delusion. 

They main character investigates the situation, so the audience can figure out the scenario along with the protagonist. 

Jack Sochet as patient Carl Renken.

The unstoppable evil, in some form or another, takes control and the protagonist is powerless against it. No matter how much knowledge they acquire, they're only option is to succumb to the evil or commit an evil act to appease the terrible thing haunting them. No matter what, their only resolution is evil. There's nothing heroic. There's nothing relatable. They're stuck against their will with fear and trouble, and goodness is unobtainable.

Though Cotter figures out a few things about what's going on, she doesn't succeed in anything. Her fate is no different than those before her. And it all ends on a cliffhanger that leaves room for a potential sequel. I'm not surprised. 

Having stated all that, it goes without saying that the story is rather predictable with its standard dose of grotesqueries and jump scares. 

Aside from some intrigue and a few frights, I found this story dull and unoriginal. 

It tries to leave the audience with a shocking memorable scene or two that'll stick in their collective memory, likely be talked about for ages to come. That scene takes place when the entity rips its face off screaming at the end. 

While "Smile" does have some draw which kept me interested until the end, along with some barely enough frightening elements, it's just another story full of old, overplayed tropes seen several times before in several other modern horror films. It takes itself seriously but doesn't seem to try anything new. Sadly, I didn't walk away smiling.