Smile - How scary can a 'smile' be?

In a timid, trembling and hoarse voice, like a voice recording on repeat;

she's going to die.. my mom's going to die..
I will die... everyone will die...
she doesn't matter...I don't matter...everyone doesn't matter...

and then adding 'you will die' may be the beginning of fear, but it has also become important for whom and for what. Is it for the one who lives the story? For the reader? For the viewer?

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I think it's for the viewer, but by watching I don't just mean watching on a screen! It could be witnessing a murder or being the last person alive to see someone commit suicide because in both cases you are watching someone say goodbye to life.

Witnessing such traumatic events will definitely have an impact on the mind. When this effect starts to affect life over time, there may be a situation that requires 'reckoning'. It can be assumed as confronting the 'day or event' that created the trauma in order to leave behind the difficulties created by the trauma experienced as a child as an adult.

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Even though it is a deception for the mind to make the unreal 'real', aren't there hundreds of people around us receiving treatment for this reason alone? In the later stages, the treatment may impose a solution or no solution on the person with no choice. I think schizophrenic patients would fit this example.

Smile, a 2022 production, focuses on a psychiatric doctor whose patient, whom he has known for 10 minutes, commits suicide in front of his eyes and the difficulties he experiences afterwards. I think the movie in the genre of suspense, mystery, horror focuses only on the horror aspect, I didn't see any evidence of suspense or mystery during the viewing... but the movie handled the horror aspect well without overdoing it.

In situations like this, it is obvious that it is our own mind that needs to be feared. Not being able to resist the mind's tricks, such as making what does not exist, can reach dangerous dimensions and direct our whole life. I can give examples like being kept against your will in a mental hospital instead of living your life outside.

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Sosie Bacon as Rose Cotter was a joy to watch because she perfectly portrayed the physical and mental breakdown of a psychiatric doctor as she goes from treating her patient to becoming ill.

Call it damnation, demonic possession or the mind's grand gala; in the end, each can be interpreted as a reaction to an effect, but the fact that the ending is conditional on a single condition is quite meaningful. While it is possible to witness lives ending (deaths) or lives beginning (babies) every second, the fact that this is the condition for the end of the curse, demon or mind game (whatever you want to call it) is what makes the movie most appealing.

This appeal may be the reason for its box office success, because otherwise the movie is a psychological take on ordinary horror. For me personally, it was more than just horror, it was good in terms of developing a story that started well and moving it to the end. I might hesitate about the ending, was there really an ending? I'm still not sure!

Trailer for the movie;