Thursday, October 1, 2015

31 Days of 31 Horror Movies for Halloween: Day 1 - Smiley


Day 1: Smiley
Via: Amazon Prime
Release Date - 2012
Synopsis: A mentally fragile college student (Caitlin Gerard) believes that she will be the next victim of a serial killer who can be summoned through the Internet.

SPOILER ALERT - If you have not seen the movie do not read.
Well, for starters I chose a movie suggested by Amazon after my history of Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal were put into consideration.

Psychotic breakdowns, a weird love story between a pretty girl and a nerd, internet gibberish and kids getting killed through a rip-off of Chatroulette. Yeah, it sounds interesting, but because it lacked good writing and acting, it was subpar at best. 

Our protagonist (Ashley) is some big-boobed, young blonde who has issues from the get-go. She is moving away to college and is presented as this innocent, little thing that has been dealing with mommy issues. She is seen throughout the film talking to therapists, talking about her therapy or mentioning her therapy to someone else. It’s like they really want you to know this gal is insane. She’s the typical awkward new kid in town trying to make friends. She befriends some brunette (Proxy...get it? It's an internet thing) who is clearly the one to help her break out of her shell by being the "bad-chick". They end up going to a college party where Proxy introduces Ashley to some of her friends. Enter the cult-like group of hackers who are surprisingly handsome, social and cool. A dweeb crashes the party, gets kicked out, but not before grabbing the attention of our blond beauty. They have a "moment" and shortly after gets thrown out. Nothing really happens for about 20 minutes besides a few kids being killed by Smiley, Ashley acting "cray" and the dweeb getting closer to her. The premise of the “scare factor” is that some unknown killer goes around slicing kids after they type “I did it for the lulz” three times while doing a video chat. It's like signing in to your Facetime or Chatroulette and the person on the other end wishes death upon you and it happens. Swiftly, I might add. Let me tell you right away how ridiculous this idea seems. Even if you knew the exact IP address of the person on the other side, you still have to factor in location, travel time and the skills of a ninja to pull off a Smiley-type of murder. Granted, boogieman stories aren’t supposed to be logical...which explains the lack of urgency from anyone, including the police regarding the murders of all these kids. 

Our poor, little, innocent Ash is clearly developing some "cojones" and wants to put an end to the senseless violence so she takes action. I won't go into details, but I'll say this...the ending seems like a rip-off of Scream with the “reveal” of the cult-like group being the ones behind the murders all along. There are several typical horror scenes where our big-boobed girl walks in the wrong direction, gets surprised by the killer walking slow and screams for her life without anybody noticing. Even the surprise at the end showing the “real” Smiley killing the hot friend, Proxy,  seemed predictable. This flick wasn’t even good for background noise. Not very exciting for the first of 31 flicks.

The obvious: Writing is weak, acting is poor, plot has holes and is predictable, special effects are cheesy.
The only good thing about the movie was the cinematography; well edited and shot.
I would steer clear from this one and watch Unsolved Mysteries instead.

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