Hollywood's Debt to Texas Cattle Baron Robert J. Kleberg Jr.

"Let's put a smile on that face of yours" said the prince of crime himself as he took a razor blade to martial arts legend Michael Jai White in The Dark Knight. Putting a sharp razor in my mouth and intensely swiping left and right is about the only way I could have left the cinema smiling after seeing the rather awful studio horror, Smile. Now, if you ever wanted to time travel back to the early 2010s and witness the worst of movie trends, jump scare excessiveness, Paramount's latest offering is your cheapest bet.

It comes at the worst possible time considering I'd been moderately impressed by the last couple of studio outputs. Dark Castle came back with some silly fun in Orphan: First Kill. Esther driving to Michael Sembello's Maniac (from the Flashdance soundtrack) is peak pop trash. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it. It may have been 13 years since we last saw Esther but she reminded us why she's a 'maniac on the floor' and she may have even been 'dancing like she's never danced before'. New Line Cinema came in strong with Malignant, which saw James Wan returning to his unpolished raw roots. Nods to women in prison flicks and torture porn. Sloppier and gnarlier, the Wan we loved originally who made neo-grindhouse movies like Saw and Death Sentence. Before he went all boring with Insidious and The Conjuring

Even bloody Blumhouse almost had a decent movie with The Black Phone. A little King lite with joey boy at the helms and a rarely miscast Ethan Hawke underwhelms with the kiddie nonsense but even that had a few skilfully directed scenes. Scott Derrickson's cross cutting to Pink Floyd's On the Run during the climax was very impressive. Also, any film discussing going the drive in to see Bruce Lee movies like Enter the Dragon and staying up late to watch Repulsion is bound to get me excited even if the film itself is mixed.

All 3 of these studio horrors suggested some promise and hinted at moves away from the jump scares that have plagued mainstream horror for the last few decades. Smile is a completely hopeless case and reveals that these films have moved past regurgitating the '70s and '80s and in to the 21st century. Not in the sense that they are now in the future, nope we're just copying hits from the early 2000s and 2010s now. They simply refuse to produce anything truly new. James Wan can do it, James Wan can do it all he likes cause he made those films to begin with. These are just being lazy and not very forward thinking.

Mostly, I find them utterly disgusting these studio horrors. All they've done over the years is take ground breaking independent horrors from the '70s and '80s and then water them down for fresh 15 year olds. Don't get me wrong, that's an audience and they should have their cinema but there's something fundamentally wrong with these big studio fuckers barging in, taking what was already successful due to the little guys, watering it down and then commercialising it to a bigger audience. In this I already mentioned New Line Cinema. Known for giving us Boogie Nights, Lord of the Rings and Seven. You know what that studio is nicknamed? 'The House that Freddy Built' after the success of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. If I see Freddy Kruger in my dreams, I'm gonna hug the mad cunt, we owe it all to him. It's the Sean S. Cunninghams, the Wes Cravens, the John Carpenters and the George Romeros that started this shit and here's a bunch of other fuckers profiting off it all. Plus it only comes at a detriment to the fans as our beloved series become studio property and involved in battles over ownership. We finally got Freddy Vs Jason in 2003 but this crossover was teased 10 years before at the end of Jason Goes to Hell. Do I even have to mention how long we've waited for a follow up to 2009s Friday the 13th ? Shame because that was genuinely a decent movie. Trust me it was not money reasons, these films are big box office. Finally those court battles are settled and we're supposedly getting a new one.

Not to sound extreme but to tell you the truth I don't even know if you can call a lot of these studio releases horror movies. Along the line, they've lost their punk and anti-authority appeal. This is not exactly new discourse and probably came in around the '90s and 2000s with endless studio sequels being targeted. Still, I can tolerate so many of those because the DNA was somewhat there. The characters were similar even if the package was glossier and a move away from the exploitation faux documentary aesthetic. More recently, it's the characters and cultures involved that have changed too much. Once, they disappeared so did my interest. I've mentioned previously how all the dumb jocks and babes have been replaced by these boring woke self-righteous moralisers. Adding to this, the newer characters tend to come from wealthier and more educated backgrounds so it just descends into elitism and snobbery. All this moralising going on comes at a cost of the comedy and satire.

Music and fashion wise, where's all the alternative stuff gone? The goths? The punks? The metal heads? Where did the outsiders and the freaks go? Bring back leather jackets and latex immediately cause I'm done with these boring sweaters and jeans combos. Too many colours going on, let's uniform these people in all black. I miss all the soundtracks blending hip hop and metal me. The shitter the better. Where are the Method Mans? The Rob Zombies? The Static Xs? The DMXS? Not even saying we have to just revert back to that but is there not any interesting scenes about that can be explored cinematically? Probably why that Bodies Bodies Bodies was alright cause they brought in Charlie XCX and Azealia Banks. I've always been slightly disappointed by the state of post-industrial since Sophie died, hope seemed to die that day too in a way cause any one around my age would agree that genre was ours or was going to be had it progressed. Regardless, its fresh and easily the way to go. Hip House too for that matter. Culture wise we're too bland at the moment in horror.

Each new one of these saturated films becomes increasingly less shocking and violent too. I was genuinely unaware that Smile was given an 18 certificate. Seeing that appear on the screen before the movie began was the peak of my cinema going experience that night. Gave me some hope but inevitably I came out cinema wondering why on earth that was an 18. Why didn't it take advantage of the situation? Surely that's what you're here to do when you're after that sticker. Otherwise being branded with it is pointless. Another waste of my God Damn time. Criticise Zombie and Gordon Green's Halloweens all you like for empty headedness but they sure do have the violence going for them. Lionsgate's contributions to the torture porn cycle slapped as well. Smile has to be one of the tamest I've seen in a while.

Throughout the film, it frequently repeats that this story is about a "pattern". Could not disagree with that one. Let's talk patterns then. Patterns like this are all about the source. We go now to the source. In this case, that would be Ringu. Forget that Gore Verbinski shit. We're talking about Ringu not The Ring. Got no time for that bland American remake. That's not to say I'm not a Gore Verbinski fan, love his Keatonesque movies like Pirates of the Caribbean and The Lone Ranger. His horrors though like The Ring and A Cure for Wellness are no good I'm afraid. When it comes to horror, he's not the one.

Hideo Nakata's 1998 original Ringu was undeniably terrifying because it tapped in to the phenomenon of black and white dots on TV screens. A collective fear of technology's latest advancement: video. Arguably one of JHorrors biggest statements, it managed to be culturally relevant and could well be the one which kicked off the concept of the 'Loop' formula in which characters have to 'pass on' curses like illnesses.

Everyone will recall 2014's brilliant It Follows, which was passed on to us from the excellent David Robert Mitchell. Here, the 'loop' structure is used in tongue in cheek fashion to reference sexual diseases. Praise be to this for not constantly resorting to jump scares but establishing a horrible atmosphere via Disasterpiece's score. The intro to the track 'Inquiry' never fails to send shivers down my spine. Thing to note here is that when the track plays nothing overtly scary is happening but the camera drifts around the halls of the hospital and we see a character in another location casually sat in a chair. In the frame, we see no visible threat and still we perceive an invisible force coming. We don't know when but we know it is coming. Nothing loud, nothing irritating just the power of suggestion. If only Smile was brave enough to follow in its footsteps with regards to this aspect too.

Before I forget, David Robert Mitchell's sophomore effort Under the Silver Lake is superior to It Follows. Upon release, an extremely polarising movie, which is clearly destined to go down as the next cult classic. That movie had it all. Nods to Hitchcock, Carpenter and Paul Thomas Anderson. Marlowe noirheads like myself will find it irresistible. I'd even go as far as to call it Pynchonesque with the post-modernism and popular culture dissection. It even features musical clues as though occupying the same world as The Crying of Lot 49. Those who haven't seen it, time for a viewing. Those who have and weren't so keen, time for a re-evaluation.

Many will come rushing to Smile's defence (as they did with the equally abysmal Joker) on the grounds that it uses the common formula to comment on the timely issue of mental health. Firstly, it's pretty light in that department and too dumb to be accepted as having anything decent to say on the subject. Secondly, don’t you dare give this any credit for using the 'loop structure' from Ringu and It Follows to discuss mental health. It had already been done. Cast your eyes to indie banger She Dies Tomorrow.

Our good friend She Dies Tomorrow combined mental health and the familiar formula a few years before this Smile shit. Not calling it a masterpiece for a second but the way Tomorrow nails its tone for the full running time is so admirable. Wrongfooted would be the word I'd use to describe the experience. It holds you down with a particular emotion. Depression is obviously a big part of it but it handles the matter with this kind of rare indifference. Its characters accept their fate with a stoical stance and so you're constantly put off guard by it. Unsure how to respond to what you're seeing in the best possible way. On the other hand, Smile deals with the issue in the most straight forward manner possible.

Aside from the 'loop' formula, Todd Haynes's Safe is a genuine masterpiece. Although, not openly a horror movie it is frightening in a way Smile could never be. Depression and anxiety is a lot less refined. Safe's touch of genius is never fully trying to explain the horrors involved. You can't quite express what it is but you know it's there. The perfect document of what it's like to live in the modern world. This came out in 1995 and has only grown more relevant in the last 26 years. Lars Von Trier's depression trilogy is another one to compare to. He shoots depression exactly the way it is with Melancholia. A character so out of touch with the world and suddenly feels right at home when the worlds ending. Their internal environment becomes the external.

Going back to Hideo Nakata, only the other night did I finally see Dark Water. Returning to J horror reveals the difference between the Japanese and yanks. Japanese shoot their ghosts in near darkness with limited lighting. They're usually hidden in the shadows or behind long hair. This technique allows you to project more on to the ghosts. In the same instance, they can be shapes or tricks of the light and your deepest fears. Each viewer sees something very different in the darkness. Your imagination fills in the missing details. That's how these ghosts become powerful figures.

Americans are guilty of defining their ghosts too much. Therefore taking all the intrigue and horror out in the process. The fully formed apparition loses its terror because it bears no personal or spiritual significance. You can't project anything on to the ghost on screen. You're taken out of the film world accepting it as just silly. Leads to generic cinema with the yanks failing to address what you're really scared of. Who's ghosts smile at them? Why is this so common in cinema? Pack it in yanks with the close ups of silly shit like smiling for the love of God. Honestly, if depression was as simple as its depicted in this film, a shouting muppet and Marilyn Manson figure crawling across the walls, depression would be a lot easier to overcome.

Only under one condition could I ever have allowed them to get away with the smiling was if Julia Roberts was cast in the central role. Of course you'd naturally have to change the title to 'Cryle' and make it this meta parody of her most famous facial expression. You know the one. That smile she pulls but on the inside you know she's crying. The very thing that makes us love her. Imagine a movie like that called Cryle Something that works on multiple levels away from this very literal horror we get these days. Horror works best when you have multiple responses all at once. None of this going for simple scares all the time. I want to be appalled, blown away, horrified and ashamedly giggling all at the same time. Stop playing everything so straight!

Who wouldn't want to see Julia Roberts in a horror? Get that fucking horny bastard Gere on board as well. Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride slap you know. Yes you heard me correctly. That includes the latter of the two cause some of you fools think it don't. Richard Gere and Julia Roberts could announce they were teaming up again tomorrow for any project and I'd be at the cinema as soon as it arrives. Gere the blinking and breathing heavily boyfriend. Roberts the Cryle girlfriend. That's chemistry baby. Every time they team up it's the stuff of legend. Wine consumption goes up and fucking increases across the globe.

Come to the conclusion, Smile is not really a movie at all but rather an assortment of random jump scares. There's no proper story and everything just seems designed around the jump scares. An assembling of parts of other horrors from the last few years without a drop of originality. Not that horror always has to have substance and originality but this shits taking itself way too seriously to be even considered remotely fun. It's noisy and irritating, serving primarily as an excuse for jump scares. Therefore, discussing mental health and Smile in the same sentence is to give it undeserved credit as its clear what came first in the making of the movie.

As a narrative it doesn't even work anyway. Think about it. The thing that drives the protagonist is her guilt which resulted in her wanting to be a psychiatrist. There's this disgusting scene where she goes on a meal out with her sister. Starts going off on her duties to people, which she declares that she would do for free. I was like oh come get over yourself, did you just happen to walk in to money on the way? I've seen your house, bird! Anyone can say they'd do their job for free when they're getting all that. This cunt even left a regular guy on lower salary living in a standard flat and straight in to a mansion. Doesn't really add up babe. Ok you could tell me there was this dark side in her that gave up that life, she didn't think she deserved it and directed herself towards another abusive relationship but was that really explored in the movie? It didn't really find time to fit it in with the jump scares. No chance this film has even the first idea of what trauma really is like.

About the only thing close to acceptable in Smile is Utopia legend Cristobal Tapia De Veer's score. Hearing this separately would be wise because you might miss its great qualities in this shit heap. My man's work is ruined by some dreadful sound mixing. Any time Cristobal's score is attempting to suggest some atmosphere, they come in with a random loud bang to unnerve you. All I could think was still cranking that music up loud in the year of our Lord 2022 because you can't deliver on the visuals? How pathetic. Thought we were past this malarkey seen in previous Conjuring movies.

How can you draw our attention to invisible menaces lurking when you're constantly breaking the action up like this with erratic editing? Can we please go back to Ridley Scott's Alien with long takes and cameras drifting across spaces? It's insulting that these studios think our attention spans can't handle such an approach any more. Also, if you have to get your audience responses by increasing the volume to such an extreme that's cheating to me. You don't earn that. The ears can only take so much. It's cheap. The effect is like being punched, you're blatantly going to react to that.

Smile did actually have one moment that almost put me on edge. Namely the scene when the protagonist is in bed and a voice calls her off screen. Finally, a slower scare that takes its time! But what do they go and do? If you guessed throw in the most mistimed and pointless jump scare you're on the ball. For no reason at all, they jump to the next day and the protagonist is nearly run over. I'll admit sometimes the jump scare can be an effective tool to cleverly and seamlessly connect scenes. See Gordon Green's Halloween when the Jack White looking fella blows up a pumpkin and it cuts to a locker being slammed in a different location. One or two of these well timed jump scares can be effective but for the whole movie? You're having a laugh! Smile has one of the worst jump scares I've ever seen in the history of jump scares. I refer to the sister's head spinning. Definitely one of the dumber things I've seen in the cinema all year.

Destroyed a perfectly good moment. Being scared doesn't mean you have to go loud all the time. This was an opportunity to go quieter, the actor had it in him too because that's the way the scene started. He proved himself capable. Why couldn't they just let the camera roll on for longer at times and let Cristobel's score do its magic? Do the filmmakers have no confidence in their abilities? Where's the motherfucking dread?

Everything considered, the film becomes an accidental parody. Those that are liking it, I could only understand it on those terms. You've got to be laughing it at to enjoy something like this and if you were able to do so fair play to you. I'm sick of the whole haunted hay ride/haunted house style of horror. Those things are great in real life. Always up for that shit every year come Halloween but in cinema it doesn't exactly translate well. This gorehound doesn't go for it.

How Smile isn't being talked about as the death of jump scares I don’t know. If they were ever good, their time is certainly over. I'd have expected this one to kill them off but I guess we still have the final stage of any genre as mentioned earlier, the intentional parody. We're getting towards that point if we're not already there. Mark my words, it's coming.

These jump scares are also called 'cattle prod' scares after Texas Cattle Baron Robert J. Kleberg Jr's wonderful invention back in potentially the 1930s (the exact date is undecided). Perfectly sums up the experience, which is like being poked with an electric stick for 90 minutes. For fuck sake, why didn’t the studios realise when we said we wanted these horror movies to be more like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre we did not mean remakes and we didn't mean turning tools of the meat industry in to cinematic identities either. How on earth did this happen?

Oh well. Either way, times coming for this awful type of movie, since I don't like to be a moaner though I'll agree to it going out in style. Here's the way I'd do it. We need to go back to the beginning to Mr Kleberg himself. I'm suggesting we make a meta horror fictional biopic about this guy. We go out acknowledging the guy that started all this. Someone gets cattle prodded every five minutes on the dot. Loudest sound effects ever. Ear drums decimated. That intentional self-parody will be the final nail in the jump scares coffin. Richard Gere is playing him and his wife is going to be, you guessed it, Julia Roberts.

Bonus Points:

-Utopia legend Cristobal

Tapia De Veer's score

-Verging on unintentional self parody and bringing us closer to the eventual death of jump scare dominated movies

Overall Score: 1.5/5