SPOOPYWEEN DAY 4 SMILE!!!

Day 4

SMILE

Blue skies are gonna clear up!

Sit on a happy face!

I am pretty sure that’s the actual lyrics of that. I don’t know. Sobriety is a weird thing.

So this was a film much like Hellraiser 2022 that I was both curious about and hopeful. It sounds interesting, it looked interesting. It has potential.

It even had a pretty fun marketing campaign where they sent people to sporting events and other events, and had them just creepily smile till the camera panned in on them.

I mean it sounded like a fun idea, a demon that curses you and just keeps smiling and doing demon stuff. That could be fun. What could possibly go wrong with that.

And then the film started, and I knew I had to write this.

I’m joking. Or am I? Let’s find out.

I mean it has a good chance of being crap and I’d be okay with that, as long as its fun. If it’s not and it’s just bad. Then welcome to my life.

But heck with that negativity! Lets all sit on a happy face and start smiling!

Or just grab some popcorn and see what happens.

The Film

How better to begin your film than with a repressed memory flashback of your mother dead in a bed surrounded by bottles, pills, food with cigarette butts in it and screams. Well if you aren’t smiling already then….well your sane, good for you.

After a tiny bit of traumatic adolescent fun, we are introduced to our protagonist Rose Cotter. She’s a psychiatrist and works herself to the bone trying to help people. Her boss both loves and hates her because she wants to help everyone, but also cost the hospital untold thousands of dollars by forcing them to care for patients without insurance. Helping people is a risky business. Ideally we should help everyone and give them the care they need. Realistically we need more demons. More demons to help these people and get them the care and help they desperately deserve. At least that’s the feeling we get from this film.

Right off the bad this movie is sending us into demon town and ‘lets get it started’ starts playing. After a meeting with a slightly neurotic patient, Rose is now checking in on a traumatized woman named Lora. Lora, had the unfortunate luck of being in the office of a professor of hers who decided to bash his own head in with a hammer in front of her. Smiling as he did so.

Since then poor Lora has been having visions, and visits. Visits from a malevolent being that simply smiles at her. Takes on the appearance of people she knows, and toys with her, only to smile back and drive her further over the edge into insanities wading pool.

Rose has no idea what the fuck this bitch is on about but she is doing her gosh darned best to talk calmly, softly and politely to this girl to get her to realize she’s okay, it’s totally safe. This is a safe space, and she has nothing in the world to worry about.

Even as Lora carries on rambling about being taunted and knowing she is going to die, and nowhere being safe. Her eyes darting and shifting, never trying to focus on anything for too long. A totally normal individual just having a rough time.

Well thankfully that ends the moment she looks over at the good doctor Rose and she begins screaming bloody murder while clawing at the floor trying to back peddle out of the room. Rose wonders for a brief moment if she farted and the girl actually smelt the unholy horrific odor of garlic and boiled eggs. But before Rose can call the cafeteria and request some Tums for her stomach. Lora is no longer kicking and screaming. She’s standing, staring at Rose, and smiling creepily. While holding a piece of broken vase in her hand. Which she uses to recreate her favorite scene from the Nic Cage Jon Travolta film Faceoff. Except she botches that and ends up cutting half her face off, straight through her neck and across.

Bleeding out on the floor, dying while smiling creepily over at Rose the entire time.

At least she went out happy?

And thus begins our film.

It’s a promising fun start for a horror movie and we can only hope it keeps up. It’s kinda daring to start right off the bat like this. Because this is not a short movie. At all. This is a long one folks. So when a film decides to start the madness that quick. It either has a lot of good scares up its sleeve to keep the pace going, or…well. Lets stay positive.

So after her traumatic day at work, its time to head home and have a cold one with the husband. Which would be nice, if not for the fact she sees the ghostly visage of smiling creepy lady in her windows and the arrival of her husband prompts her to drop her glass of wine. Part of me hopes this is a daily routine for them. That every evening when her husband arrives and announces himself she gets started and shatters another glass.

BUT WHO CARES ABOUT THAT!

SHE HAS A CAT!!

A CAT!!

This is both rewarding and horrible. Any time the main actor has a cat or dog. The chance of them making it is immediately thrown out the fucking window. If they kill the cat, I’m gonna be pissed, it’s a cute cat. It gets wet food in a huge bowl. This cat has a good thing going. But we know its likely coming.

Honestly this movie is already starting to make me laugh in a lot of ways. Rose has a bitchy sister we briefly meet, and Rose, being the psychiatrist and in control of herself has absolutely no control over her emotions. Her sisters husband is a modern man and not in a good way. To be honest hes an annoying bag of slick dicks. But hey I could be wrong later. We will see.

This movie has a lot it wants to unpack at the moment, which might explain the run time or make us worry given it has that feeling of playing investigative journalist and the movie spending an hour doing so when it should just be an hour flat of scares, smiles and demons.

We get that feeling as Rose is visited in the hospital by one of the detectives investigating what happened with Lora. Apparently this detective is an ex of Rose’s and he felt the need to give us a bit of exposition and explain why Rose looked constipated while giving her witness testimony to the girl slicing her throat in the room with her.

Honestly I’m still laughing at Rose making the choice to start her work day with a happy face smile cup full of coffee, given the fact so far after what happened any time she see’s someone smiling now it sends her off the deepend. You are a little on the nose movie, and it’s not subtle. But it does  give me the hope she will notice that even her cup is smiling at her and she’ll scream out and shatter the mug. Just another day for Rose and her staff.

Speaking of as she makes the rounds at the hospital she passes a familiar patient who is, you guessed it, sitting up in his bed, smiling creepily. So of course she has to go in and chat. Will he kill himself in front of her? God that’d be something creepy. But no. The movie is playing demon games. And not having its own balls. Movies need more balls.

Carl is just a happy smiling guy, smiling his best smile at Rose. Telling her how everyone is going to die and how she is going to die.

It’s fucking hilarious.

It’s hilarious because she sees him ranting and smiling at her, acting psychotic. She screams at the nurses to immediately sedate the guy, that he’s out of bed, needs restraining and sedation. Four big guys rush toward her. She turns back to the room and…

Carl is sleeping peacefully on the bed. Happy and at peace for once in his crazy life. And in come these linebackers. Tackling the fucking bed. Scaring the shit out of him, and immediately without question restraining and sedating him.

Having a hospital staff. That immediately will do what you tell them, no questions, no thinking what so ever. Just immediately tackle someone, restrain them, sedate them. High five each other and victory shuffle out the room. It’s fucking great.

The guy was just chilling out sleeping, and these guys fucked up his day. I love it.

So of course her boss is a little, concerned. And tells her to go home, get drunk and not give orders to tackle patients for at least 4 days.

Okay he told her not to work for 4 days and stay home. SHE made the choice to get drunk. All this woman does. Is drink. Lady slits her throat? Time for a bottle of red. Husband comes home? Shatter glass and scream. Dinner with bitchy sister and simp husband? Empty that bottle of Chardonnay baby. Wrongly tackle and medicate a patient and get put on leave? Yep, she already emptied a bottle, and the moment a noise hits her, boom glass shatters.

If this movie is going to be a creepy comedy I’m all for it. And we are absolutely headed there.

Rose hears the house alarm go off, she gets spooked and checks the doors. The home security company calls her to make sure she’s okay, She tells them yes she is, it must’ve gone off by accident, the security operator ask her if she is sure she is okay and didn’t let anything in the house. Which is an odd thing to say. She tells them she is totes sure and she is fine. The operator creepily ask her again “Are you sure, you didn’t let something in?” creepy music hits its cue, and we see she isn’t really holding a phone, as the real house phone rings, and it’s the actual security people this time.

Yep, demon visions!

This film really is cramming in a lot in a short time. We are not even at the 40 minute mark and we got shit happening left and right. Is it good shit? I mean I’m laughing my ass off and there have been a couple tiny creepy moments, but nothing to write home about yet so. Good so far?

That is until we learn two things.

First? The cats name is Mustache. I fuckin love Mustache. It’s a great name.

Second, Mustache is missing. We can safely say Mustache is no longer amongst the living and will end up popping up at some point in time. Its like the movie knows it had to kill the pet, and they know we’re gonna be upset about it. So they want to just get it over and done with and hope to make it up with either some genuinely good jump scares, or make you laugh till you pee a little. Either is a win if they achieve it. Both would be a dream come true.

It's honestly a mixed bag, but there are some good moments that look like they could be better if fleshed out, and I hope the movie will.

A moment I appreciated, until it turned into a comedy. Was Rose reviewing the audio of her encounter with Lora. As she replays the recording from that day, she hears a faint almost inaudible grunt like noise. She zeros in on it and enhances the audio. Part of me loved this because I used to do a lot of that when my sister, Adrian and myself used really crappy mics and they’d pick up any and every noise. So its fun seeing that here. It’s a good build up as Rose continues enhancing this audio until she hears what sounds like a voice whispering her name after she called out to Lora. It’s a genuinely creepy fun moment hearing this very clear, whispered unsettling demonic voice saying her name. And make no mistake it is a demon talking to her. They end the moment with a loud jump scare, having a dead Lora appear beside her screaming ROSE into her face. Sending Rose reeling back, screaming and running to the kitchen in fear picking up a knife.

Then the comedy kicks in.

As she picks up the knife, her husband comes running into the room and she is immediately waving the knife at him screaming. His reaction, and the fact she just keeps waving the knife around. Is great. I know we aren’t supposed to laugh, or maybe we are. But goddamn it had me cracking up.

This poor guy. Seriously.

He comes home tells his loving wife “Hey honey!” only to have her constantly scream and break a wine glass in the middle of her drunken afternoons. When eh comes to check on her and make sure she’s okay she pulls a knife out on him screaming. It’s just priceless. This poor bastard can’t catch a break and I love the idea this is just daily life for them.

But the laughs don’t stop there. Oh no. They keep coming. Maybe this is why the film is called smile. They wanted you to know this demon is the underworld king of comedy and that’s what he does. He just brings joy to peoples lives. With you know, the strict caveat that you tip them in death not cash.

Speaking of, it is time to confirm what we already knew to be true, but leads us to one of the best 10 minutes in the film. Starting off with the laptop kitchen knife. Brace yourselves for greatness.

We now enter the next day. Her sister’s baby boy is having his 7th birthday. Rose bought him a toy train at an expensive as hell train store. Because she’s that kind of rich.

The house is full of fun people having a fun time and I want cake, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. If they don’t have the ice cream. Then that lil shit can watch me toss his toy to the ground. But he’s not so bad. Kid is all smiles and enjoying his birthday. Dude got a killer nerf gun too. Now THAT is a cool friend. Believe that. So it comes time to open Aunt Rose’s choo choo. He’s super happy about it cuz boy loves his rich Aunt. But low and behold, he has a confused look on his face. Maybe he just realized Thomas the Train is about communism and not as innocent as he once thought.

Or it’s the fact he pulls out Mustache’s dead body so everyone can see his Aunt Rose’s cool rich gift. Maybe she decided he didn’t need the train and she wanted to send him a messege. Like the mafia. But no. Apparently the demon did it and packaged it and now the whole room thinks she is crazy.

She gets up as the boy is being comforted by his mom and the crying kids are all huddled by parents. Rose is hugging her dead cat, realizing everyone is staring at her. She starts shaking and telling them all she’s not crazy, repeating it over and over. Finally she sees the ghost of Lora sitting in a chair. Smiling the creepy smile at her. She backs up staring crazily, while declaring she isn’t crazy, and tries to save the party by pulling out her old favorite college gag everyone loved her for. Her impersonation of Chris Farley falling through a table.

She nails it flawlessly.

But she also is now covered in shards of glass, blood everywhere, permanently fucking these kids lives up as glass sticks out of her bloody arms and she screams.

We aren’t even done yet folks.

She’s taken to the hospital for stitches. To the hospital she works at. So now her boss wants to see her because well. Gosh darnit. She packaged up a dead cat and gifted it to a kid. So naturally they believe she should……..wait for it. Take some time off. Because she’s crazy as a shit house rat.

The crescendo of our comedy reaches its peak, when Hubby is driving them both home, and she ask him to stay in the car with her and listen to what she has to say. He is really tired, and would like to forget the fact this lady he loves, just gifted a dead cat to a kid. I also am kind of jumping the gun and apologize. They aren’t married yet. Just engaged. Which makes this a bit funnier, but also totally legit.

He wants to get inside, and find himself an unbroken glass for some wine. She wants to ensure him she isn’t crazy. By snapping and yelling at him and diving for his door when he tries to leave the car. Then immediately apologizing. Before beginning her practiced speech for how she isn’t crazy.

She tells him she is being haunted, or cursed, and shes not cray cray. Just a little disturbed by deathly visages and evil. He naturally has no idea how to react to this and tells her so. So he gets out the car and not crazy Rose turns on the crazy again.

It’s a constant back and fourth of…god, the best example is Scary Movie 2. When the girl is telling her friends how she isn’t crazy, then runs off screaming flailing her arms around. It’s that exact kind of feeling.

Unfortunately its under cut by the actual real emotions of hubby to be Trevor as he tells her, he actually is wondering if this is hereditary. She shakes her head in confusion because there’s no little decapitated girl in this film, just a smiling demon. To which he corrects her that, he looked up about her crazy mother and wondered if his wife to be might have inherited the crazy. This upsets her as she can’t believe. The man she intends to marry and have marry her, would dare to look into her families crazy past. But he explains to her, he was getting genuinely concerned about her and, if he’s going to spend his life with her, he wants to know what he’s marrying into.”

That’s totally fair. I get it. Pluss you know, you gotta really love someone to put up with their constant drinking and screaming breaking glassware anytime they spot you.

We are supposed to feel bad for her. Everyone thinks she is going crazy. It’s what we saw with Lori, what she told Rose was happening. Seeing people who weren’t there. Having conversations and visits from people that were not people but a demon. Losing sleep, growing paranoid. Etc.

It’s just…

I mean goddamn. It’s just funny as fuck.

Everything that happens to this lady. Every encounter, ever this is supposed to scare you moment, is just hilarious and her reactions make it that much more. ESPECIALLY the screaming I’m not crazy while giving the craziest look you can. Asking your fiancé politely to listen to you then screaming at him for being logical.

The movie took a turn and I honestly feel it might be because they moved so quickly with it. You gotta give moments room to breath. To put it in rich terms Rose would understand. It’s like a wine. A good wine. You gotta pop the cork, and let it breath before pouring it. It actually does change the taste. Really it does. So like with the scares. You give them time to pop up and then settle. If you just keep popping them like candy one after the other. Your gonna crash, and this movie has that feeling. We’re into the first hour of the film, and with all that’s happened. It shouldn’t be this funny. But it is. Because nothing is given time to relax and build up. It’s supposed to be escalating. But its just going off the rails.

It's not a bad movie or dumb by any means. It’s just funny as hell and I kinda love it.

Especially when she begins doing what I mentioned we likely were in store for earlier. Doing detective work to research her curse. She’s using fucking google. It’s amazing.

She’s googling the trail of suicides. She tracks down the University professor who killed themselves in front of Lori. She tracks down his home and pretends to be a reporter so the wife will let her in. Of course the guy had a basement dedicated to hanging his drawings and art of smiling faces, teeth in the darkness and demon selfies.

It’s a bit ridiculous, but that’s a lot of these films. Everyone is an artist, and they always make fucked up art of their demons. It offers us one good scare, and the scene is exactly what I was talking about. It’s a nice, slow scene, discussing his life, how he was, what he was like. His descent into this darkness and how he killed himself. The movie shows us a very quick glimpse of this, an autopsy photo of his broken disjointed jaw and teeth and bloodied face. It’s genuinely creepy. And best of all. It’s allowed to breath. The scene doesn’t add on another jump scare, it lets what we were shown settle in. It keeps tense with the dozens of drawings, the dots Rose is starting to connect with these events, realizing how this curse moves from one person to another. Eventually the lady figures out she’s not a reporter, and when Rose tries telling her the truth, the lady calls her crazy and boots her out. Leaving her to sit in her car, biting at her thumb and trying to think what to do next, where to go. She goes to the one person she feels can help her and, that’s her ex detective boyfriend. She has him do actual police research, looking into the professor, looking into the woman he saw kill herself, and who that lady saw kill themselves in front of her. Giving her the confirmation she needed to know on how the demon works.

It's a good setup and scene. Well scenes. Nothing super scary happens. We get one scare, and the scene plays out. We get vital information, we get the setup for Rose to go find out about these people and see if anyone might be around that knows anything about what is doing this.

This is the setup for the next act in the film, it’s good, it’s great. It works. Then it returns to comedy.

In the most spectacular way.

She needs support, she needs help. She has files on the people who witnessed this suicides, she has proof now she feels, that shows a pattern. So she goes to her fiancé. Who has brought into their home her therapist. Because he’s concerned for her. Rose comically takes this the worst way possible. She cusses out her fiancé, she cusses out her therapist. The two main people you need to feel you are sane, you just do the most funniest insane fuck you shit too. She also ends their relationship more or less and walks out the door.

So time to ask Sister for help.

Because surely. The woman you resent for leaving you to take care of your sick mentally ill mother as a child and watche die. The woman who tries to have a normal life measuring up to your approval, and the woman who’s child birthday you ruined, and ruined for MANY other children for MANY years to come by gifting a dead cat. Surely this will be the person to lend you support.

OF COURSE SHE DOESN’T!!

It doesn’t just go poorly. It goes comically fucking bad. Like with her husband and anyone else. Ever. She starts out okay, and the moment. The second her sister tries to justify her position of being pissed at her, and trying to explain herself? Rose immediately jumps to the defensive and without any hesitation is jumping down her sisters throat right out her ass. Like she is deep in that ass just taring her up. BEFORE. Before. Calming her tits down, and trying to be nice again. Only to find that sister wants nothing to do with her and tells her to fuck off.

Now this movie has a pattern to uphold. So of course you know it’s coming even if the movie doesn’t think you do. We all do.

As Rose sits in her car, crying trying to collect herself. We see her sister headed out of the house, arms crossed, hurridly walking toward the car. She knocks on the glass, and as Rose turns to roll the window down. We get. A creepy visual. As her sister stands there, arms crossed. We see her head swing upside down by the car window, neck twisted and elongated. With a huge evil smile.

It’s a good scare. But immediately Rose is screaming, smashing her fist into her steering wheel, and the scare is undercut by showing us her sisters little baby boy, looking out the window, watching his crazy Aunt as she not only screams. Not in terror. But in frustration, pissed off shouting. Cussing as loudly as she can in her car. “FUCK YOU! YOU FUCKING FUCK! GODDAMN YOU!” just going all out, while shaking her head like a nut job in the car and he just quietly watches her, worried.

Maybe I’m fucked up, I mean that’s highly possible. But its just hysterical. I got a call from my sis and I told her I was watching this and she also laughed at all of this. She didn’t want to ruin it for me, but the fact we both were laughing made me feel better about myself.

Rose and how she acts is just. Completely stupid. Not even in the acting crazy way. She just makes no sense, and her reactions make even less sense.

It undercuts a lot of what happens in the movie and especially with the scares. There are good scares, especially once the demon starts fucking with her more. Like pretending to be her therapist and showing up in her home, asking how shes doing and if she’s okay. Only to have the real therapist interrupt and call, making the demon just grin happily at her. It’s good shit. But goddamn Rose is just. Not right for this.

It's hard to sympathize with a character you can’t get behind because they come off as a comical uncaring self centered bitch, that just makes you laugh when they go insane.

But there IS a movie in this mess. There is.

We setup the investigation and thanks to the work of Detective Ex Boyfriend. We discover there was a break in the chain of this curse. One guy managed not to die. Instead he went to prison. So the most understanding ex in the whole damn world. Agrees without question to let Rose see this inmate in an out of state prison.

She talks to him and we discover that this guy was indeed cursed. Not only was he cursed. He found a way out of it. No idea how. No idea if he goggled how to get rid of demon curses. Or visited the ancient tomb of knowledge known as the Library. But he discovered the way out.Instead of killing himself. He killed someone else. There was a witness. This witness became cursed. So he lived. He managed to slip the demon by taking a life, transferring the curse. We also learn this demon needs an audience. It has to have a witness in order to move from one body to the next. Each time it does. It tortures that person for a week, then claims them. It takes over their bodies, makes them kill themselves in front of another person, and moves on.

Again, good stuff, creepy stuff.

Only made funny once more, as she continues not to inform her ex about why she is doing all this, what the inmate said and keeps him out of the loop.

This bitch…wanted someone she could trust, and would support her crazy ass journey. She found them, and she won’t share a damn thing with them. That’s fuckin friendship right there.

Goddamn this lady.

So what is Rose to do? Well she grabs her nicest most expensive Damascus steel chef’s knife with polished cedarwood handle carked in a western style. I know this well, for reasons.

I’m a chef.

And Rose is, headed for the hospital.

Because she plans on killing the same guy she ordered to have tackled, restrained, and doped up.

This poor motherfucker. Just wants to relax, and not feel overwhelming anxiety. He gets tackled and drugged up by his insane doctor, and now she’s coming to murder his ass. I mean goddamn how much can you take before your stomach hurts from laughing. This is just so fucking stupid and fucked up in a comical way.

It’s like the first few SCREAM films where every film somehow Deputy Dingus ends up getting hurt and more gimped out.

Only this time it’s a poor guy trying to get his mind right, getting fucked over by his doctor.

What sucks is the scene we get played out when she goes to kill the guy. Is so obviously a dream, and it waste what would’ve really been a great shit yourself scare in this movie.

We see her walk into the hospital, find the guys room. Enter and the guy immediately starts freaking out. Her boss comes in asking what she’s doing there, she says I don’t know. Then decides to pull out her $500 knife and stab the guy 20 times. Each time he does he just howls in her face. She screams every stab, and her boss screams before ripping the skin off his fucking face.

THAT is a good fucking scare. But they relegated it to a fucking dream sequence? Come the fuck on movie!

You had a good thing. And you threw it away in an obvious this isn’t happening scene. Imagine if the scene played out differently.

Imagine if she intended to kill the guy and her boss found her, told her to come with him in his office. He takes the knife from her, tries to help her, shows fucking compassion for her. Then creepily smiles sitting on his desk and rips his fucking face off in front of her.

That would’ve been great! That would’ve landed a good scare. But no. It just gets tossed into a comical fake out, on top of the guy she’s stabbing going Oooh Aaaah each stab letting us know it isn’t hurting him.

It’s just a damn disappointment.

It was a great effect, and could’ve been a good scare. But it got relegated to being a supportive scare.

So anyway…this movie is still going on.

Rose has decided as she can’t kill someone and thank god she can’t because the guy needs a break. She instead will go with option B. The can’t possibly fail plan.

What is option B? That is, to go out to an isolated location and presumably die away from everyone thus ending the curse…..or waiting out the full week that it takes for this curse to take hold? And hope that by being alone it will end the curse and no one has to die?

It’s a bit fuzzy honestly.

She is hedging her bets here on the belief that, it is a set schedule. That within 5 days, or whatever. She HAS to die, or kill someone. And it has to be seen. In order for the demon to pass on to someone else.

Okay cool. So if you self quarantine out in the country, away from everyone. Ensuring no witnesses. Does the demon just kill you anyway? Then go back to hell since it cant pass itself along? Or does it just stick around until someone shows up because there is no set schedule?

Like wouldn’t that be a great twist ending? She stays at this cabin the rest of the time she has left. No one dies. She doesn’t die or get possessed. She makes it. Heads home with happy music and life is good vibes. Only to get gas at a gas station and immediately get jump scared by the demon at a gloryhole in the gas stations restroom where some unlucky trucker expecting to give a blowjob witnesses a woman kill herself and now carries a demon curse?

That’d be fun.

But that’s not what we get here.

If you’ve seen a minimum of 10 horror films? You can guess what happens here, and you’d be right. 90% of the time.

Rose is headed out to the home their mother died in. The same home her sister told her they need to sell but she wouldn’t. The one place no one will find her. Except they all know where she is going.

To make it even worse, when she left the hospital her boss went out side to her car to see why she was there. He saw she had a knife in her car. So you got a mentally ill woman people are worried about, identified as driving with a weapon. Of course her boss called the cops out of concern. So YES her detective ex now knows she has a warrant out for her arrest as she is seen as a threat to herself, and potentially others.

What’s even better? The detective CALLS Rose, and ask her what the fuck is going on. Surprisingly she tells him. Good for you finally trusting someone Rose. Only problem is. Detective ex is on our side. He tells her this plan is bullshit and makes no damn sense. Which he is right. She has no ideas the rules this thing works under. So she hangs up on him because no one is gonna tell her she’s crazy when she knows what she is and isn’t. So off to the cabin we go.

Where you guessed it. We get a bunch of flashbacks, and spoops from the demon. Because as we learn, and would’ve been a LOT funner earlier in the film to have messed with. The demon is in her mind. It has access to her thoughts, her memories. It can use all of these against her. So its going to use the visage of her mother to fuck with her, and at one point it even tells her as she stares it down “You aren’t real”, the demon grins and chuckles at her “Oh but Rose, your mind makes it real”.

More of this, please.

More of this would’ve made good scares throughout. We got small taste of it, but the film followed formula and escalated as the movie drew toward its end. But even when it tried to escalate it was mostly so so.

So what is our grand finale?

Rose in a run down cabin…shack…We will call it a 5 star AirBnB

So Rose enters the five star Airbnb, and immediately is beset upon by visages and memories of her mothers death struggle. Watching her die. Watching her call out for Rose to help her. The demon using this against her to fuck with her. Being forced by it to admit to herself, that she did in fact watch her mother die instead of helping her. Because her mother terrified her. It’s a poignant moment, or would be in another film, if not for the fact its immediately cut back as the demon chuckles, and she knows oh no this is all in my head, and we begin battle.

Yes, she battles her mind demon.

Now.

I am going to be respectful, and say you all are of a relatively good mind and intelligence. Far better and higher than my own.

If a demon tells you. They are in your mind, and you can’t escape your mind, and how real your mind makes things.

How do you beat a demon, that is using your mind to fuck with you?

Obviously Rose fights it with her own mind. She even says so. She ‘thinks’ of being able to over power the demon and snaps its arm. It WORKS! She can over power it, as the demon threatens her “You can’t escape your own mind”, she snaps back “Neither can you” and she’s right. It’s like Freddy logic. Once you take away the power you give your nightmare, it no longer has any power over you. You can destroy it.

So Rose just has to mentally beat the demon, and pull off some Professor Xavier mind shit.

Instead Rose see’s her lantern she brought collapse to the ground and start a fire in the Airbnb. So she struggles and manages to push the demon toward it. Setting it ablaze along with the house. The house is literally on fire and she is running out of that place as the demon screams and shrieks her name.

Rose has won. She is driving not to her fiancé, but to her ex dick.

Well Detective Ex.

She ask him if she can crash there and sleep. That things are finally over and she’s gonna rub one out in victory.

Of course its all a dream, her ex dick is the demon, and she is still at the Airbnb in the woods.

What’s more though, is Detective Ex has arrived. Because well no shit. Her sister figured Rose would be there, so she told him and boom here he is.

SO

Demon has its witness. Rose fucked up. We have the best shot in the fucking movie, right at the end.

If I were to recommend this movie? I would do so as a comedy, and tell you the only thing worth paying the price of rental, which even that is hard to justify at this point. Is the end scene with the demon in all its glory.

In a different film. This would have been absolutely amazing.

Rose runs back into the house hoping to keep her ex away, only to find the demon as her mom waiting and laughing. The demon finally reveals itself, gloriously. It stares wide eyed at her, and rips its face and flesh off. As it does. We are greeted to an almost Tim Burton Beetlejuice like face. Large white eyes, and several jaws. That just layer one over the other, over the other. You’d imagine the demon intends to devour her. But no. It plans to possess her. Which makes the scene EVEN BETTER!

We see a full size demon crouching beside Rose who has fallen to her knees on the floor. This thing is stretching open her jaw, and sliding into her mouth. It’s disturbing and I love it. The next thing we see is Detective Ex breaking down the door, calling out for Rose. Only to find her. Pouring gasoline all over herself, turning to face him smiling the demons possessed smile, and setting herself on fire. Passing on now, to him.

Hit the jukebox and the credits roll while playing “Lollypop”, because Don’t Worry Be Happy likely cost too much.

The End

I went in expecting a good horror film, and walked away having laughed through the funniest dumb horror in a while. Is it the worst? God no. There is another. Far worse film. And we will get to that one soon enough, oh trust me. We will.

It was just good dumb fun. Which isn’t bad. It had decent scares, but again they all got severely undercut by not being allowed to just rest and settle in. Moving forward while throwing little scares here and there that just make it feel like you wasted your effort. Sort of like Joker told Batman, if you start off with the head, the victim gets fuzzy and can’t feel the next assault. If you bombard your viewer with scares. Its less scary and more like a cheap carnival hall of horrors ride you went on as a kid. It’s more something to jump and giggle at versus shit yourself at how scary it is.

And it almost feels insulting because a good deal of these scares would’ve honestly landed well and hit hard if they just let them be.

One of my favorite examples is still the second Grudge film in the American remake series. There are some damn good scares in that and they all happen relatively closely. But not so much that you feel bombarded with them. Even the lesser moments play out so damn creepily. For example, and I don’t even have to google the damn thing because its still stuck in my mind.

The shower scene in the Grudge 2. The semi bitchy blonde gets into the shower, she washes her hair, you expect a hand to pop out from her hair but no. Instead things seem fine. Until she begins to find nest of black hair within her wet gold hair. She tries shaking it off and ends up pulling out more. Freaking herself out and leaving the shower. She goes to her locker and just to her right. Between two lockers. You see a very distinct shape outlining what could be the grudge woman. But it turns out to be a coat and sleeveless top. She got spooked by it but never minded it. She still feels something isn’t right and looks back. Nothing. But this time there’s a tiny guest of wind and the next thing we see. She realizes there is a leg there, and black hair cascading over a white slip. The girl is full of terror and begins pissing herself, back peddling and we hear that throat music start up. She takes off terrified and as we focus back from the spot she pissed in and ran from? Once again that shape is just a top and coat. Nothing more.  It’s simple, effective, scary and she’s allowed to escape before the next attack comes. Which isn’t too far off as I recall. But it happens at such a good pace it makes sense, it doesn’t throw everything at you at once, and the terror is allowed to take hold of you.

The whole film is like that. Good paced scares that were spread out enough to hold their effect, to fake you out and then grab you.

Not like this.

You can’t claim success when stabbing someone you can tell isn’t real. Repeatedly stabbing them, making it even more clear how unreal this is, Then top it off with a bloody face ripping before going “HA! It was a fake out, we got you yeah?”

No. You didn’t.

It was a wasted effect.

More over Rose was just not that good. Her character was a bit insufferable. They weren’t someone the viewer sympathized with. She was kind of a bitch. But not to a degree you wanted to see her die. Or rooted for it. She just had a lot of bad arguments. Bad logic, and how she treated everyone was more odd and funny than it was meaningful and sad.

Like I am sorry but, if you honestly have a curse, and you are freaked out that your pet. Whom you loved, was killed, and stuffed into a gift box? And everyone thinks it is you that did it? You know they see you as crazy, so you have to let them vent that out. Let them say what they gotta say, then come back with sincerity and plead your case.

Just like an argument in a relationship. If you forgot something, if you did something and it upset your partner. Let them vent, let them get it out. Hell even if there wasn’t a fight, if your partner needs to vent let them. What you don’t do. Is gaslight them or throw it back in their face.

If your partner tells you “Omg I can’t deal with this anymore, my friends were upset and I tried helping them but they wouldn’t listen to what I had to say, they just ignored it and it felt like I was trying to tell them how to live their life instead of help them” you don’t tell them “Well, you do be like that sometimes”. I mean you can tell them that. If you want to make the rest of the night interesting.  But no! You don’t!

Same as you don’t call your sister a cunt when you were the crazy ass that traumatized a house full of 6-8 year olds at her sons birthday. That’s so stupid it hurts. But still so, so damn funny.

The effects in the film weren’t bad. They were pretty okay. Some moments were better than others. I really did enjoy the smile demon at the end, I really did, and it looked great. The faceless doctor was also really well done. Something about the man looking tortured and screaming while ripping his own face off. Was a nice touch.

Just poorly used.

Honestly looking at this film as a whole, and with what they showed us, what we learned. It would’ve been nice seeing more of that used.

Like have some more random encounters with fake people on the street. Maybe sneak some smiling faces in the background while shes out with people. Enhance the paranoia and build it up more for her out burst. It just felt like when she had her outburst, they wee excessive and unexplained. Had they been fleshed out, it would make more sense.

Like the scene at the birthday with her dead cat.

We go from the boy lifting up the dead body and showing it to everyone. Everyone cries, Rose picks it up and she hugs the body, confused. She begins shaking her head telling them “I am not crazy” see’s a ghost and falls cutting herself up. Screams, boom in the hospital now seen as more crazy.

If they built it up, played it out a bit differently…

Have the boy display the cat, Her distraught and shaken. Picking up the body and looking it over. Shaking her head in disbelief. Show her go to her husband in a panic “ I didn’t do this, someone killed mustache. It wasn’t me! I swear to god it wasn’t me! Who did this” have her freaking out before addressing the room. Have her sister and everyone else start staring at her, toss out a few “What is wrong with her” THEN have her start the I’m not crazy chant, throw in a few smiling demon ghost and have her fall back.

Something. But instead she just, forgets she’s holding a dead cat. Doesn’t question how it died, who did it. She just starts going off about not being crazy, while holding her dead cat, and falling back cutting herself.

Playing it out a little different, would add a bit more emotion to her cause. It might let us sympathize for her or realize she has more than one setting. She goes from calm to crazy in .5 seconds, and expects you to not treat her as such, and if you try to talk back god help you because she will lay into you even while holding a dead cat.

I felt bad for the husband. Dude had legit concerns but she did not give one fuck. If anything? It’s sort of a funny lets twist it around character study.

Like maybe the fact she was supposed to be so successful, doing so well, better than her sister, great life and fiancé, well off and well adjusted. Only to have a mild inconvenience tare apart these lies and show her as being the same scared girl she was when she cared for her mom and no better or worse than those she looked down on.

That too, would have been something. But that’s not what the movie gave us.

The movie presented her as a do good, people caring psychologist, out to save all the lives she can and make the world a better place. Helping the mentally ill, to keep them from becoming like her mother did, someone she tried to help but couldn’t. That’s the character we were given, and she came off insufferable at times.

I really hoped this would be a good horror film. It had a good premise, it had promise. But it wasn’t what I was expecting I guess. Which isn’t always bad, no. Not at all. But what the trailer presented, and how it was selling itself. It just ended up a run of the mill mild attempt at something. Which could’ve been played to a grander scheme and had a larger impact.

Like seriously if you go so far with your marketing as to pay people to go out to televised events and social gatherings. JUST to give creepy smiles in the crowd to promote you film? You better offer something worth the hype. And this just didn’t.

If they let the demon fuck with her more. If they had it stalking her in public, caused more scenes, versus having her gas light the same people she expected to have help her. It would’ve made a difference. Good or bad it would have it it would have proven itself better in the end, versus just giving is a comical horror film.

Which I still love it for. Because goddamn I needed a movie to make me laugh like that. My sister and her husband. Also laughed their asses off. Her official review was “That was the stupidest fucking horror movie. It wasn’t scary it was just dumb. She was a total bitch to her fiancé and sister. At least the demon had fun”

I can’t argue with her on that.

At least the demon had fun. Where the rest of us just had to make it through a long movie, that burned itself out trying to grapple us with all its scares, only to run out of juice, and have just enough gas in the tank to deliver two solid scares. While dragging itself to the finish line.

It didn’t need to be as long as it was. If you make a film that long, give us something to chew on. Give us some lore. Give us something to make it interesting. Not the same gimmick played over and over until the end. Where you STILL played it over one more time. Because why not.

In the end it was still entertaining. I can’t find anything else as a possible reason as to why it went the way it did. I don’t feel the film needs an autopsy to explain itself and the cause of its hiccups. But it was still a fun time so I can’t hate it. I will continue to hold out hope for a good demon scare film and keep this in my library as a film to entertain friends with. Much like another film I will not yet name. But oh I am looking forward to sharing with all of you.

For now yes. I recommend seeing it if you are having a bad day and want something funny to watch, and to get a glimpse at a pretty darn well done though wasted demon. So absolutely. Check it out.

And until tomorrow as always. If someone is smiling at you. A smile only a demon could give, and it looks like they’re going to kill themselves? Tickle them. Tickle them, pinch their nipples, kick them in the groin. Put your fingers in your ears, close your eyes and skip away going “LA LA LA LA LA LAAAAA” They won’t be expecting it, they’ll be highly confused, and as they took over a human body they’ll feel that pain from the kick so. Your welcome.

Or go the exotic route, strip naked and tell them “HAHA YOU FOOL! I’M INTO IT!”

Eitherway. GOODNIGHT!!!