Review of Smiley (2012) by Michelle A — 04 Mar 2013

From the director of YouTube video series "Totally Sketch," Smiley is a 2012 slasher film about an internet urban legend that kills the person who receives the message "I did it for the lulz" three times.

College freshman Ashley gets caught in the middle of this legend when her and her roommate try out the legend on a stranger. When the person on the other side gets killed and Smiley sees both of them, he begins to haunt Ashley trying to get his knife to stab and kill her.

I will admit, Smiley started off pretty strongly. There's a mysterious vibe in the air when the first victim is killed. As the film goes along, I was enjoying watching the film. The acting was decent and the scares (while cheap) were pretty good.

The actors from YouTube really rocked this film, especially Shane Dawson as Binder (pronounced Ben-Der). His presence in the film felt really fresh and exciting. I also enjoyed Toby Turner (aka Tobuscus), even though he didn't really have a major role.

Like his series on the internet, he plays a pretty comedic role that had me chuckling. The only thing that I cringing at was the dialogue, which was pretty awful. Everything seemed to be going well. This was before the hour mark.

Once the film hit an hour in runtime, the plot started to get really convoluted. Everything from before this conundrum is still in play (i.e. the decent acting). However, I felt myself getting confused as the killer was going from Scream to Nightmare on Elm Street territory.

This is where the film really started to lose steam. Once the ending happened, I was just done. The ending was one of the worst that I've ever seen because it just ends up being confusing. Fortunately, the last 30 seconds of the film deliver a good scare.

Unfortunately, this doesn't make up for the bad dialogue and convoluted plot after an hour of runtime. The film is an okay DVD rental, but just remember that I warned you about this plot and dialogue.

Smiley didn't leave a big smile on my face. Rather, I had a face of disappointment.