Smile (2022)

After witnessing the shocking suicide of one of her patients, overworked therapist Dr Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) finds herself harassed by a demonic grinning entity that only she can see.

Inside the victim's head, the entity will wear the face of anyone (usually someone they know) and conjure up convincing hallucinations to mess with their grasp on reality.

Rose's life spirals out of control, and she eventually turns to her ex-boyfriend, a police detective called Joel (Kyle Gallner), the only person she meets through the entire 115 minute movie who comes even close to believing her story.

His research unearths a long chain of suicides where the sole witness of each has then killed themselves within a week.

However, there was a break in the chain; somehow imprisoned murderer Robert Talley (Rob Morgan) has escaped the demon's curse. But what he reveals to Rose throws up a whole new ethical problem.

Having lost the support of her fiancé Trevor (The Boys' Jessie T Usher), her family, and her own therapist, Dr Madeline Northcott (Deadwood's Robin Weigert), Rose's only hope is the sanctuary of her late mother's abandoned cabin in the middle of nowhere.

Written and directed by Parker Finn, Smile (now available on DVD and Blu-Ray in the UK) has set the ball rolling by the time the opening titles appear, then continues to ratchet up the terrifying tension until the mid-point of the film, where it switches into investigation mode.

There's a spell of about 20 or 30 minutes - where Rose is first coming under the influence of the smiling demon - that's so full of jump scares, fake outs, and pure horror that it makes Smile a truly intense, visceral experience.

We are Rose, unsure of what's going on and who she can trust.

By the third act, Smile has morphed into a more traditional monster movie and it's usually around this point, as it heads towards its denouement, that the wheels come off a lot of modern horror movies.

However, with some canny misdirection, and a laser-sharp focus on its protagonist, Smile stays the course.

By always sticking with Rose - rather than worrying about the supporting cast after they leave her orbit - the character's increasing sense of isolation becomes more real, heightening the fact that nobody believes her claims about being stalked by a supernatural creature.

The trailers - and brilliant marketing - for Smile had made it look intriguing, but I was genuinely surprised by how unnerving the film turned out to be.

Coupled with disorientating camera angles and an occasionally freakish soundscape that blends the diegetic and non-diegetic, Finn's direction is guaranteed to keep a willing audience member constantly off-balance.

While the ending may feel obvious, its inevitability underlines the horrific conceit at the heart of Smile.