There was a lot of hype surrounding this movie when it came out. Supposedly people were fainting in the aisles and walking out because it was too scary. Judging from that movie poster it sure LOOKS scary. I lurk around on movie message boards and i hear rumors like this and they make me want to watch the movie right away, but I had to wait until my friend Ed graciously bought the movie for me. I was stoked, and I couldn't wait for October to come so I could check it out for the horror challenge this year. I know nothing about the plot at all, just that creepy poster with the smiling lady and the tag line "Once you see it, it's too late." The main character in this movie works in an emergency psychiatric unit, and that reminded me s lot of the guy who ran psychiatric services while i was in jail.He was pretty cool, and he dealt with a lot of patients like me who had psychotic episodes, so i thought about him a lot while i was watching this movie, and that made me like it even more.
This movie is about a psychiatrist who is good at her job because she cares about her patients more than the rules (I like her already). in the first few minutes of the movie, she experiences a traumatic event with a new patient and it leaves a mark on her. Soon she is experiencing strange happenings in her life, like something evil is following her throughout her life and she can't explain what it is or why it's targeting her, but it defies all logic and reason, and she can't explain it away with logic and facts. What is happening to her, and more importantly, can she stop it before it takes her life?
This movie reminds me a lot of "It Follows" (and i mean that as a compliment because I love "It Follows." It has a similar feel to this movie, with an unknown evil thing following people through their lives once they catch it. In "It Follows," the evil thing is passed on by people having sex with the person "It" is following, and the only way to survive is to have sex with someone and pass it onto someone else. In this movie, whatever evil thing is haunting the psychiatrist (Rose) is seemingly passed on when you see someone giving you a creepy smile like the one on the movie poster. I was pleasantly surprised to see Kal Penn in this movie playing a doctor again (Rose's boss) who doesn't understand her plight and suspects that she might be having mental issues of her own. I can't really blame him, because her story is a bit over-the-top, and he's used to seeing mental health issues affecting people's lives, so of course that's what he thinks of when Rose starts to lose it.
Rose's fiancé in this movie is hot, and I liked him. He tries to be supportive, but that's hard to do when the person you love is slowly going insane and there's nothing you can do to stop it or help her out. Even the psychiatrist Rose sees when she is trying to get help just tells her that she's probably reacting to the death of her mother years ago. The psychiatrist wants to help her, but she just doesn't understand what's going on, and Rose just wants the doctor to prescribe her a pill to help her with whatever is going on (she thinks she is having psychotic delusions, whichmakes sense, being that she'sa psychiatristand that'swhat she sees every day among her patients). Once she starts to break down, things start going to hell pretty quickly. There's a scene at her Nephew's birthday party that is particularly horrible. I always feel bad in these movies for the main character, because something evil is stalking them and no one else can see it, and they think the main character is going crazy. I always want to scream at them to get them to believe the main character, but they never listen to me.
From my own struggles with mental illness, I know that it can seem daunting, and from my struggles living in an abusive household that no one else believed was abusive, I know it's hard trying to get other people to see that you're not crazy and you're not making it up. I really identified with Rose and wished there was something I can do to help her. This movie is big on jump scares, which, while low on the totem pole of creative scare attempts, are very affective (my mom still remembers one jump scares scene in the movie "House on Haunted Hill" that scared one of her brothers so badly that he jumped in his seat and screamed). I'm glad Rose finds someone to help her who believes her. I wonder what I would do if someone I loved came to me with this story of being cursed by something evil. I've watched enough of these movies that I hope I would be the one who believes the main character and helps her out. I'm glad I have this review here to remind me that I said this in case I need to be reminded sometime in the future.
I've been told by a lot of people that I need to smile more and I don't smile enough, but I've always thought of smiles as something kind of creepy, especially big fake smiles like the ones in this movie. Smiles that don't reach the eyes are extra terrifying to me. Maybe I've had one too many experiences where people were smiling while doing terrible things, who knows, but seeing the huge fake smiles in this movie definitely creeped me out. I'll think about this movie the next time someonetells me i should smile more. Getting back to the movie, the idea of an evil force that feeds on terror and needs trauma to spread is pretty horrifying, and the only way you can save yourself is a harsh, mean spirited little twist too. I really liked this movie and im glad I watched it. You should watch it too.
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