Recently, smiles spread across the corner of the Bronx after the Yankees defeated the Red Sox in a 5-4 home victory. During last month’s game at home one man in the stands behind his plate looked so excited he got up with a very big grin. The expression was captured on camera and shared. widely on social media.
But this wasn’t a Yankees fan: this beaming weirdo part of promotional activities of a very creepy new horror movie “smile.” The movie, which is playing now in theaters, stars Sosie Bacon as a therapist. The therapist encounters an evil force that feeds on the trauma associated with suicide, and gruesomely manifests itself in humans as it gruesomely moves from body to body. “Continue”
Jeannette Catsoulis, in her review for The New York Times, called it a “precisely crafted picture” with a smile that acts as an “unstoppable bleeding wound”. Last weekend, she had a strong opening in North American theaters, earning around $22 million.
Parker Finn, who directed “Smile,” said in a recent video interview that he was fascinated by the ominous smile, but not so much because of how horrifying that smile was. If you wait for the end credits of Ti West’s new movie Pearl, you can see Mia Goth holding a maniacal grin for a long time.
It’s what it hides, Finn said, that scares the smile enough to make a movie about it.
“We walk around with trauma, and we wear our smiles as masks so no one can get in,” he said.
Finn, 35, grew up in Akron, Ohio. Her father was a movie buff and wandered the aisles of video stores in search of her art on her quirky VHS boxes. In making his feature film debut, Smile, Finn was drawn to horror films about “urban legends that you in essence always know, that always come before you in full form.” He said he had been beaten. Medit Contagion in Japanese Movies”Ring” When “cure.”
He also turned to films that blend melodrama and terrorism. “Rosemary Baby” When “safety.”
“I was interested in exploring what it was like to have your mind turn against you, to feel like you were being chased by an unknown evil that you couldn’t escape from definition,” he said. Told. He said.
“Smile” didn’t have a consultant to create a smile, but Finn said he sort of acted when he asked the cast to scare his own smile instead of the people at Digital Effects. , the actors stood a few feet apart from each other and took turns curling their lips, tightening their gaze, and giving feedback until they landed on the creepiest grin their faces could express. You must have seen it,” Finn said.
The formula that worked best was an uncomfortably large, toothless smile. The real trick is in the eyes, specifically a “dead gaze that doesn’t quite match the smile” and no blinks – “a human face that pushes you creepily”.
Science backs him up. Nathaniel E. Helvig, an associate professor of psychology and statistics at the University of Minnesota, said in an email that the kind of smile Finn describes “contradicts our expectations of what a smile should look like. It adds a little shocking value.” He added that some people find smiling ominous, while others do not, depending on physical aspects such as mouth shape, eye warmth, spatio-temporal dynamics, and body language. .
of Investigation A study conducted at the Minnesota State Fair in 2017 found that respondents responded positively to smiles that were medium in width and had fewer teeth. Smiles with extreme width and angles were rated as the worst, and open smiles indicated fear or contempt.
No wonder horror loves to smile.of “Laughing Man” (1928), Conrad Veit’s aristocratic character was forever condemned for laughing. grin, the muscles of the face contract and make a grimace. In “The Shining” (1980), Jack Nicholson smiles and greets Shelley Duvall through the door. axe and “It’s Johnny.”and Betty Gabriel hopeless tearful smiledirected by Daniel Kaluuya, marks an ominous turning point in “Get Out” (2017).
Of course, there’s a smile on the face that inherently holds the promise of friendliness – like a clown jokerdoll-like chucky And ventriloquist dummies like giving hell to Anthony Hopkins “magic” (1978).
Director Jeff Wadlow said that the malevolent grin in his horror film Truth or Dare (2018) is a supernatural thriller about a killer version of a party game that uses the user’s exaggerated facial features. He said he was inspired by the popular Snapchat filter, which looks like a cartoony enlargement. Eyes and grins.
Such effects “confuse the brain’s ability to understand what’s going on with the person you’re looking at,” Wadlow said. “The Curse of Bridge Hollow” It will start streaming on Netflix on October 14th. “Even if someone cries, it’s the same as saying they love you. It doesn’t count.”
There are psychological considerations when evaluating smiles. Do you know someone who smiles? Have you seen them smile? how are you feeling how are they feeling?
Lisa Feldman Barrett, author of How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, says in an email that context is important in movies.
“Facial muscle movements by themselves have no inherent psychological meaning,” says Barrett, a psychologist and neuroscientist who wrote for The New York Times. “Movements that produce a smile can be meaningful within an ensemble of other signals.”
In film, these signals can come from music, events that occur before the storyline, actions of other characters, and “uncertainty about what happens next,” she said. rice field.
If Finn is considering a “Smile” sequel trafficking in such inherent contradictions, it sounds like he already has an idea, starting with a snapshot.
“When you stop and see a group of people taking pictures, what’s interesting is how they smile broadly and disappear when the picture is taken,” he said. It’s a very strange thing to do.”