nickmesafilms Review of Smiley

Smiley (2012)

Smiley (2012) - A Disaster of "YouTube" Proportions!

[1/10 · 22 October 2012]

You know what happens when a group of talented YouTubers on the Internet team up together to make a movie for the first time in their careers, a movie that will change their careers forever, one that they worked really hard on, one that they hope will win the support of their beloved YouTube partners, viewers, and subscribers? Well, you end up getting this piece of crap! "Smiley" is an independent horror film that tells the "story", if I can call it that, about a young college girl who becomes haunted by the legend of the serial killer, Smiley, a killer who appears after someone talks to someone they don't know on an online video chat, and types the phrase, "I did it for the lulz", three times! Can you guess what happens after-wards? After the phrase is written three times, Smiley will appear and murder it's prey! She has so much belief that Smiley is real, she ends up going insane, having hallucinations, and freaking out whether she's dreaming, or if she'll become the next victim. Haven't we seen this type of bit before? Yeah, that's what I thought! "Smiley" is such a complete atrocity from start to finish. Although I have my respects for the YouTube people for working very hard on achieving their dreams of making their first movie, but does that save "Smiley" from being a truly awful film? Of course, not! Director Michael Gallagher, of "Totally Sketch" fame, seems like a really nice guy, and is a talented filmmaker when it involves making videos on the Internet, but when it comes to directing full-length motion pictures, it needs a little work! The movie's only actors are just a variety of YouTube celebrities from Caitlin Gerard, Melanie Papalia, Shane Dawson, Andrew James Allen, Steve Greene, Richard Ryan, and others. All delivering one horrendous performance after the next. Besides the performances from Keith David and Roger Bart, most of the young actors delivered laughably terrible performances. Well, not all of them were bad, because I did think that Shane Dawson actually delivered a pretty decent performance, even if he was the only young actor that was really trying. But the worst performance came from Caitlin Gerard, delivering one of the most annoying, unlikeable, headache-inducing, unbelievable, and stupidest characters I've ever encountered. Every time this chick appeared on screen, I just wanted to laugh! The writing feels childish, the editing is sloppy, and all the horror clichés were everywhere. At a pace of 90 minutes, the film's utter indulgence easily increases, making it one of the most insulting horror films I've ever seen. Whenever this movie tries to get a scare, it just falls flat, and leads to a collection of pointless "jump scares". Whenever it tries to be scary, it just becomes cliché. Whenever it wants to be funny, it fails miserably. Then, we get an ending that will leave audiences throwing their popcorn at the screen, and have their intelligence become insulted! Completely idiotic, and undeniably painful, "Smiley" is definitely, so far, the worst movie I have seen this year. Horrible acting, horrible writing, horrible editing, horrible use of clichés, horrible use of "jump scares", and overall, a horrible movie! That's the perfect word to describe this movie! "Smiley", in my review, "Unfortunately, I'm not smiling".