The Reel Rejects - SMILE (2022) IS TERRIFYING!! MOVIE REVIEW! First Time Watching

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

ONCE YOU SEE IT, IT'S TOO LATE!! Smile Full Reaction Watch Along: / thereelrejects Visit https://www.liquidiv.com & use Promo Code: REJECTS to get 20% off your first order. Start your online business with a $1 per-month trial when you visit https://www.shopify.com/rejects! Smile Reaction, Recap, Commentary, Analysis, & Spoiler Review! Join Roxy Striar and Tara Erickson as they delve into the terrifying world of the horror film Smile. In this in-depth reaction and analysis, they explore the film's scariest moments, including the unsettling "Therapist Scene" , the intense "House Alarm Incident" , and the shocking "Final Scene" . They also discuss the film's unique ability to transform a simple smile into a source of fear, as highlighted in the "Every 'Smile' Moment That Will Leave You Horrified" compilation . Drawing from viewer reactions, such as those shared on Reddit , they examine how Smile has been perceived as one of the scariest movies in recent years. Directed by Parker Finn (in his feature directorial debut), this film has left audiences on the edge of their seats. Starring Sosie Bacon (13 Reasons Why, Mare of Easttown) as Dr. Rose Cotter, the narrative unfolds with intense psychological horror. The cast also includes Jessie T. Usher (The Boys) as Trevor, Kyle Gallner (American Sniper, Jennifer's Body) as Joel, Robin Weigert (Deadwood) as Dr. Madeline Northcott, Caitlin Stasey (Reign) as Laura Weaver, Kal Penn (Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle) as Dr. Morgan Desai, and Rob Morgan (Stranger Things, Mudbound) as Robert Talley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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on three three two one smile Damn, dude. Wow.

Wow. All right, we just want to smile, y'all. And as I said, I was making jokes in the beginning. Wow. Jokes on us. If you're listening on Apple, Spotify, 5 star, wherever you are, thumbs up. Reject Nation Shop.com. Man, oh man.

Tara, just hit me with how you're feeling right now, dude. Can I turn the music down a little bit? Calcutta is right. Just a little bit so that I can, my brain can. I feel, this was good. This is really good. I feel like, wow, I just watched a really good movie, but also this is effed up.

the last ugh the last like image that they gave us of him and his skin is taken off and he's a giant man fitting in her head

I can't with that I look what the yes like that has messed me up I feel like it's a she dude a she whatever the hell that thing is

is a giant skinless opens her head and then it's going to can't this is this has some some of the best jump scares some of the best special effects visual effects makeup um it's a great great horror thriller of a film they did a fabulous job and effed up how do you feel i'm feeling i'm the same as you um you know i thought you were about to earn our happy ending there and they were like, did you forget the movie

that we just showed you? Like, why would it be a happy ending? But they teased us because they told us you can break the chain, but not here. Not here. And I knew he was going to go after, man. You had a lot of great predictions on this one that came through. Yeah, weird.

I had a couple of them that came through, but this was your movie to predict. And especially the cat stuff, and that cat scene was traumatizing. Totally. I was sad was that like literally when I guessed it I was like I know that's really effed up but I but then I was like this movie might go there and they did they did yeah they did dude the sibling relationship was so interesting with the sisters the backstory of the mom was really fascinating yeah kind of love triangle situation yeah performances were stellar in this like so so good I thought this was a rock solid script like just a great A perfect script, and you really need that for something like this. Yeah, man, I cannot wait for the second one of these to see how they, how it changes, how it shifts.

Right. You know what I was really thinking? If I was her, what I would do, it would take some work. But I would have to look up at least a hundred really, really bad people. And then I would start with the first one and say, here's what's going to happen. I here's you two people you both are really bad i'm going to him in front of you once i do that you now have this weird thing where either you're going to have to yourself or somebody else to pass it on here's a list of people that are just as bad as you bad person go off a bad person

list they wouldn't but they could because i would say if you go and these other bad people then you don't have to yourself. But they would just kill a good person. But I would say stick to the plan. They don't care. And also the other person

that you're like, you're going to kill him, why would he just sit there for that? Then I would have to do a sting up. Sting up. I have to sting up, have two bad guys there. We don't know.

And then set that guy off. Then I kill him. And then I know it's passed off to him. Give him all the evidence. And be like, can you just please do me a solid and bad people on this list? What I do think, I think you're missing a few pieces, however, I do think, since we know there's a smile two and three, I do think that in one of those, we will explore bad people

because we always do. They always end up finding like a list of Nazis or something to go out there. Let's do that. Yeah, I think that that would be cool. I want to know more about this writer-director because you said his name, but I was like, I never heard of that person before. And did he also write? I don't know if the name was also the writer.

Yeah, he said, it's a writer, screenwriter, director. Okay, I'm pretty sure it said that. So I like that. Will you stop the? They did, yes. Thank you, babe. They did a. I'm going to tell you in a second, though.

Great job. An excellent job. Big shout out to Socey Bacon, who was like, could not have been more talented. Yeah, she was great. So, so freaking good. What else is she in? She's a mayor of East Town, which I was. I love that show.

Yep. She is in, as we see it, which I didn't watch another show. She was in four episodes of Narcos. She was in 11 episodes of 13 reasons why she played Sky. Okay. So she's been in a lot of shows that a lot of you guys could have seen. I'm super curious who her parents are because her last name is Bacon. So let's see.

Yeah. So see Bacon related to Kevin. Let's see. Yeah, it's the daughter, Kevin Bacon. There we have it. Yeah. Before I said to the patrons, I was like, I wonder if that's, no wonder she's really good. And she does kind of look like the daughter of Kevin and Kira.

So, yeah. Wow, damn. Makes perfect sense. She's really, really good. Yeah. She's unbelievably good. And so are both of her parents. Wow, that's great.

Let's take a look at Parker Finn, who wrote this and directed this. Yeah. Parker Finn did smile and did smile too. And that is that. That's it. He did two shorts before Smile. What are they? They're called the hide behind and Laura hasn't slept.

Oh, I bet you those shorts are baller. You have to make a really good short to get. The premise of the short of Laura hasn't slept is a woman seeks help from her therapist for a recurring nightmare only to face an unsettling and horrifying reality. So that must have a group of concept for this. Totally. And then he got money, made this, did a great job. Did an excellent, excellent job. So, yeah, he only wrote those and directed those also.

And the second one, which came out in 2024. So I thought there was a smile three. I made that up. You must have. Because I think there's only two. Yeah, I keep saying smile three, smile three. There's no smile three. Maybe there's one upcoming.

Yeah, there's a smile three that he is writing and directing. Oh, hell yeah. Pre-production. All right, Parker. He's writing and directing all. all of these. Smile 2 does star Naomi Scott. Nice. Well, you know, Parker 3, me and rocks are available and we're actors. Yeah. Oh, dude, 100%. You know. I, I truly don't think, especially for a first time writer, filmmaker. Yeah, that's wild. I don't think he could

have done a better job. Like, usually, it's your first feature. Sometimes there's some holes in the script that are like, I feel like he fleshed out everything we wanted to be flashed. Like, we didn't overflesh the Trevor stuff. It's just, you know, we understood where he was coming from. We, but like, we got it all. We didn't overflesh her job. Everything was the perfect amount of fleshed out. I agree. And I think that the producers, because his name wasn't on as a producer, but the producers, because he had that proof of concept in the short film, he very much knew where it was headed. And that's good because then the producers kind of stay off your back where it's like, well, we're just expanding this idea. You are.

already did a good job and for them because if they would have gotten in the way it would have been obviously a worse movie he obviously had to trust those four or five very brand new producers to not tell him what to do because they do because they hold the funds for you to make your project and uh my assumption is they were a little more hands off let's say I'm curious how much money he had what would you guess or you don't have to if you don't want to but how much let's see I'm curious the special effects are good they had a lot of um They had some good actors. I'm going to say it's at least, you know, in the millions, maybe one, two, three million.

We're way off on this one. Two million maybe? No, way higher. The budget was 17 mil. Jesus. But guess what it grossed at the box office? Oh, 35? 217 mil.

Woo! Good job, Parker. That's huge. I wouldn't have guessed the 17 mil budget. However, it does make sense considering every person in here was a recognizable actor. Like they all were working, you know, it's not like when I watched Terrifier where you're like, I don't know any of these people. Like did his short film win a lot of awards? Is Parker attached to anybody famous we know? It's just a little bit of an odd story. We don't see that or hear that where you go from a short film.

It's very good. And then you're offered a $17 million budget. He has to have some inside people that maybe family, friends. and somebody who found these producers and they're like, you can trust him because you can trust us, so you can trust him. Early life of Parker Finn, he was born March 18th, 1987 in Bath, Ohio. He attended the University of Colorado Boulder,

then attended Chapman University's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, where he received a screenwriting MFA in 2011. Okay. His career, Finn's 2018 short film, The Hide Behind, Screened Up Panic Fest in Portland Horror Film Fest in 2019. Finn filmed Laura hasn't slept at Chapman University Dodge College of Film and Media Arts Stage B. The short won the Special Jury Award at South by Southwest in 2020. That's why.

But that's, you know. South by Southwest, huge. Right. But okay. That's not any kind of nepo or any kind of, you know. No, no, no, not at all. No. Finn's first feature Smile was based on his shorts.

Laura hasn't slept. Smile became 22's top grossing original horror film in 2023. Finn entered a multi-year first look deal with Paramount Pictures to write, produce, and direct additional feature films. Boom, baby. That same year, he founded the production company, Bad Feeling. He returned to write and direct Smile 2, which was released in 2024. In June 2024, it was reported that Finn would write and direct a remake of the 1981 psychological horror film possession. Oh.

Which I haven't seen. Me neither. Awesome. I love that. South by Southwest is huge. So now I understand why that one at South by South by Southwest. it's still it's still a lot to go from south by southwest to 17 million but south by sow has a lot of really really great great great project so to beat out a bunch of like that it's sort of like you go to sundance right and then you're like it wanted sundance and you're like yeah okay i guess we can trust you the 17 million we'll take the risk yeah it's pretty amazing it's pretty amazing let's look at some trivia um and see what else we can learn about that this because I think you and I are both just super duper invested in this movie and I want to know kind of how it how what all the behind the scenes and everything that happened so here we go going with the trivia a couple of days before the September 30th 2020 release actors from the film showed up at various baseball games oh my god sitting behind home plate dead still and smiling while staring into the camera unmoving despite fans in the audience being understandably concerned while wearing smile shirts no another soon appears

in the background with the crowd during the Today Show. Absolutely not. Wow. That's crazy. That's crazy. The smiles in the film are all natural and not enhanced with visual effects. The studio even asked if they could be tweaked, but Parker Finn stuck to his guns as he wanted them to be grounded in their creepiness.

Yeah. Duh. Yeah, don't, don't. I love that. That's great. Oh, this answers our question. What is it? Paramount originally planned for the film, which had a low,

budget of 17 million to be a streaming only released on Paramount Plus. The film was screened for test audiences and scored much higher than anticipated promoting Paramount to give the film a theatrical release in the United States. It grossed $22 million over its opening weekend, which Paramount's distribution chief Chris Aronson said exceeded our while this expectations of film ended up making grossing $270 million worldwide. So that budget was because it was a streaming movie, I guess. It's a pretty high budget for a streaming movie But I guess they knew like Oh, this is our release plan for Paramount Plus, whatever it is

Totally. They were probably really pushing Paramount Plus at the time. Wow. But yeah, good thing that they went to theaters Because 217 is crazy. Parker Finn told the actors who would be smiling in the film That he wanted dead eyes that do not match An incredibly uncomfortable wide tooth-bearing smile

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So you can hydrate smarter, you can feel better. And hopefully just like me, you'll feel the difference. Reject Nation, when we first launched our merch store, Rejectnation Shop.com, first suggestion we got was to use Shopify. Now a couple years later, with a successful online store, we still use Shopify to this day. So it's weird to say, thank you Shopify for sponsoring this video. And I'll be honest, I had no idea what Shopify was at first. So let me break it down for you in the simplest way possible.

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And that happens because the evil in the film uses a smile as a mask to hide its true intentions. The film was originally titled Something's Wrong with Rose before being renamed Smile. Yeah, I love Smile, way more. It's way better. So much better. Writer and director, Parker Finn, wanted to use practical effects as much as possible and only use visual effects and CG to enhance or sweeten or bridge the gap when something isn't possible. Right, like tearing off the face.

Awesome. Also, I think some of that was, I think, half practical and half special effects. Which was so, so great. I love that he is a fan of practical. That's... Several shots rotate upside down to reinforce that the conventional concept of a smile as an expression of happiness or politeness instead turns on its head and becomes a sadistic expression of evil yeah love that title screen doesn't appear until 13 minutes into the film we loved that

yeah we liked that mustache the cat is played by star the cat the shot of it walking up to rose was the first thing they filmed you saw it kind of like a little scared to walk up to her and then they did a pickup shot of the cat looking good but that was cute let's go to spoilers trivia and see what we can find okay the film is based on parker's film uh finn's short film laura hasn't slept kately stacey reprises her role as laura in the feature version of the short as a woman who gave herself in front of rose so the opening girl is the star of the short that's awesome i love that he gave her that role that's amazing that gives her uh you know a platform to be on a nationally released paramount like that's a

amazing right you're like we went from a short to give us a paramount feature film that's huge for for an actor's career keep her as the lead but it makes sense really good job but still amazing jobs and she's on the freaking poster is she yeah that's her i don't know that's her for sure i i guarantee that's her maybe google it before you are crossing yourself that's her um there's a little Easter egg as Rose looks at her text thread with Trevor. His ID picture at the top shows him smiling while an earlier glance at the thread

has a non-smiling picture. That's cool. You weren't paying attention to. I wasn't because you were like, look it up. Well, because I don't know that that's her on the poster. It's definitely her. I think it's our main girl. Who's in smile poster? For smile one. Actress name. I hope you're right.

I'm totally right. because see that's her i don't know that's maybe i believe you they just all looked alike to me the mom the girl the girl comes in they all kind of had a similar look um Parker finn the mother growing in size is meant to drive home roses feeling that she's back to being a child again the presence of her mother interesting the illusion was created in part with a rebuilt hallway at a smaller scale and part with the monstrous double played by Kevin Kepi.

Oh, yeah, I was wondering who played that. Parker Finn knew from the start that he wanted the film's title card to be very anxiety-inducing and earlier version failed the Harding test which examines how triggering an image is to photosensitive viewers. Ooh, interesting.

These are some cool ones. It's definitely her. It does look like her. It's definitely her. You're so stressed. I'm so, I know it. I know it. But you guys.

I think it looks like her too. It's definitely her. They all kind of, don't you feel like they all kind of looked like or no. They did. They all have similar like brunette, you know, kind of same brown eyes. But that makes sense because he cast her in the original. Exactly.

And I'm like, and you got to be on the poster girl. You were the face around town. From a short to that, it's good stuff. The premise of the film resembles a short story by HG. wells when a native man in a rural place and has visions of his grinning head always looking at him wherever he goes something which no one else sees and ends up doing the deed yeah the story is called pollock and the poro man ah interesting just a couple more towards the end of the movie when rose visits her child at home and confronts the spirit of her mother the broken curtain rail and light

coming through the window in the bedroom looks like the smile oh gabriel Drew representing the entity. Oh, we missed that. That's freaking cool. Yeah, that's cool. I was wondering if we'd find out why he loved the palette, pink and blue. Yeah, pink and blue. Pink curtains are not anywhere that you find.

That's going to be something they made. I know. Yeah, there's very specific choices in this. Upon rewatch, the scene between Rose and Laura takes on an entirely different meaning. Laura falls backward and starts screaming in. terror. There's a brief moment where her mouth is wide open and implies that she's having trouble breathing. This was actually the exact moment when the smile entity was entering her through her mouth to possess her and then drive her to, you know, what it was, just like it did

to Rose at the climax. That's right. Wack. Wow. That's cool. This is a good movie. Yeah. There's so many more but that was all really cannot wait until we see smile too like I can't wait I could not be more excited for that Parker we've become huge fans good job we're excited for all the things we don't say that

about you officially have the she jack stamp of approval we're on your side buddy keep making good stuff do you think the next one will be the Brazil story that we heard or do you think it will be the sequel to whatever this is because we know it's in him now I really think that your call on it being a prequel would be really smart because it's already in there, right?

But then I'm like, but then it's the same story. Yeah, yeah, totally. So maybe we got to go forward. So maybe we got to go do something different. And they say that this happens in streaks. So it could be a totally different place. Like that one happened in Brazil, but we could see one in Australia or whatever.

We know it's Naomi Scott. So. Yeah. I don't know. I'm also interested in like, do we watch down the line? Do we watch the old possessed before his comes out possession possession so we got to figure that out yeah for sure let us know what you guys think in the comments thanks for watching this with us terer any final words bib no just good

times good good good writing love that later rejects alex alexandria if i were to ever want to conquer this great planet earth like the viltrum john gets the reference like the vilterm i am love Viltramites. You would be in such a surprise that I would choose you to be my Spock. Hey. To this planet. My Rusty from Oceans 11. Oh, get some snacks.

My rule of three is what I would do. That was good. That was good. So Alexandria. Oh, my God, Alexandria. On our first day of conquering, you know, what we're going to do. we are going to get debays DeBes. Love DeBes. Love DeBes.

Ariana DeBays over here. I'll admit, sometimes I order Benet's thinking I'm saying DeBay and I ordered DeBase thinking it's pronounced Bonae. Okay. Which context do you think I went with on this one? Baba Ginoosh, baby. You tell me. It's any context now. It's any context. We're Benet's in DeBays. In DeBays. Is what? You're

you're going to get every single time you use the toilet on this earth with Alexandria and I. Oh, the bidet. Biday. Biday. Got it wrong. I was like, is this a, is this an invincible reference? Nope, got it wrong.

That's what I mean. I get confused. Debeis. Alexandria tells us in the comments, do you use a bidet or a debay or a Debe or a Devei? Or do you eat Benet. Benet Ramsey. Make it clear, Alexandria. This is what we have to work.

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