Just Watched: Smiley (2012)

Don't know what "lulz" is?? You shouldn't be watching this movie

In this age of web chatting, memes, You Tube and internet culture it was inevitable that there would eventually be a horror movie about it. That all happend in 2012 with the release of what was promoted as a slasher named Smiley. In this film they even went as far as having a couple of so-called You Tube celebrities play a few of the characters.

Smiley starts with a girl named Ashley, who is about to start college shortly after the death of her mother. We meet her roommate and they immediately become friends. They end up getting involved with an urban legend where typing "I did it for the lulz" three times kills the person you are talking to. After Ashley does this she becomes paranoid and is being haunted by Smiley. Or is she?? Are people really being killed or is this all a joke??

Meet some of the most annoying guys to ever be in a horror movie

Really, the joke is on the audience as Smiley is awful in just about every way imaginable. Those hoping for the slasher film that was promoted will be stuck watching a pathetic thriller that moves at a snails pace, with barely any sign of blood, gore or nudity that slashers are know for. There really isn't much of a story either as the goal of the film seems to be about internet culture, showing us that hipsters are actually really cool and we should be nice to them, possibly a vague message about the dangers of web chat and a college professor preaching about his psychological theories about our existence.

Many involved seem extremely high on themselves about being in the movie, as many actors just drip with smugness. It almost feels like a vanity project for our two You Tube "celebrities", but the reason these guys are only popular on that site is obviously a lack of talent. Guys like Shane Dawson are only going to appeal to teenage girls, and will be hated by everybody else. It's really odd the filmmakers expected audiences to go out and pay for this in theaters or on DVD while featuring people whose material is usually viewed for free.

There really is nothing original about Smiley. It seems the writers were huge fans of movies such as The Ring and the Scream series and wanted to make their own version for hipsters. Basically every scene feels like it was ripped out of another movie, and it is absolutely loaded with predictable jump scares that try to make you jump at something as simple as someone walking into the room. There's also long periods where the whole urban legend seems forgotten about as Ashley visits a psychologist and her teacher about her problems.

Thought Smiley looked cool in the trailer?? He mostly looks like this in the film

Availability: You should be able to pick it up on DVD for around $5 used, with newer copies sometimes tripling that. There's no region one release on Blu ray but there is for region 2. It's interesting how the main selling point on the Blu ray case is "over 30 million trailer views", which doesn't bode well for the quality of the movie itself. You can also watch it free now on the official Smiley You Tube channel by clicking here, apparently the filmmakers must have felt embarrassed they were charging money for this.

If there's horror movies from the last several years that you should avoid, one of them should be Smiley. Unless you're a hipster, you're not gonna find very much enjoyment here, and if you regularly watch horror films you've seen the same thing done better several times before anyways.

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