SMILE
When a new patient at her psychiatric hospital commits suicide in front of her, Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) begins to experience an escalating series of terrifying occurrences - all involving familiar faces smiling at her in an unnatural, menacing manner.
The horror sensation of 2022, Parker Finn's Smile - based on the writer/director's 2020 short film Laura Hasn't Slept - cost $17m to make and has taken over $215m at the box office (partly aided by some clever guerilla marketing). Not bad for a somewhat unoriginal film that takes inspiration from the likes of Ring and It Follows, and adds a heavy-handed side order of mental health concerns. Still, Smile is an intense flick that delivers enough skilfully crafted shocks and scares to keep horror-heads happy.
Picture: The film's UHD BD offers a proficient 2.00:1-framed 4K encode that may not dazzle, exactly, but will still leave a smile on your face.
This story is from the February 2023 edition of Home Cinema Choice.
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This story is from the February 2023 edition of Home Cinema Choice.
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