SMILE

Seven friends decide to spend a holiday in Morocco discovering the most unusual and mysterious places in the country. At the beginning of the adventure, however, they end up off the road and a gypsy steals Clarissa's camera. Determined nevertheless to immortalize all the stages of the journey, the girl enters an antique shop and receives an old Polaroid as a gift from the owner. Arrived at the first of the predetermined places, a gloomy forest said to be cursed, the guys start dying in strange ways and apparently linked to Clarissa's Polaroid, in fact all the people who are photographed seem doomed to death. The slow recovery of Italian horror cinema production is composed of a new piece, "Smile", by Francesco Gasperoni, but, as has happened with the most recent works of the genre in our country, the quality is clearly an optional. Gasperoni, who also took care of the screenplay, started from a simple and immediate idea on which it is rather easy to build a memorable plot, what is called in jargon high concept. The problem of "Smile" is, however, the inability to use the basic idea properly and the banality of the same idea. The film is, in fact, a mix of things already seen and that do not blend well together. The beginning makes one think of the tourist horror that has been in vogue in recent years: a group of young tourists characterized with the stamp, an initial omen of misfortune, the inevitable "sballo" and then the massacre. But when the introductory carefreeness gives way to danger, "Smile" assumes a paranormal approach that is rarely found in tourist horror, usually dedicated to realistic horror. And here comes into play the cursed photographic apparatus that very much reminds the beautiful Thai ghost story "Shutter", but instead of revealing disturbing ultraterrestrial presences, the 1960s Polaroid of "Smile" predicts death in a way too similar to how it happened in "Omen – The Presage" and especially in "Final Destination 3". So, there are young people looking for fun – a bit older than the standard of recent years –, there is a cursed forest that serves to create the atmosphere, there is even an eerie cabin with a rocking chair on the porch (what does that remind you of?) and there is the technological object vehicle of death. In short, a beautiful blender of what can appear in a horror film but continuously everything out of place. The story does not succeed in involving, the actors often appear unsuited to their roles and many developments of the plot seem forced, starting with the way the camera is introduced. The same solution of the "mystery" is the most banal thing you can imagine and seems thrown there only for narrative closure needs, also showing more than one logical flaw. Subject and screenplay, therefore, are absolutely failed. Then there is to see how the film was made and then "Smile" can appear convincing at least under the purely technical aspect. The work is an Italo-Moroccan co-production, made with the support of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, the School of Arts and Trades of Casablanca and the Lazio Region, so, although not many, the funds available were nevertheless there and it shows because the film presents an excellent staging characterized by a beautiful photography (work of Giovanbattista Marras) that manages with functionality to alternate the warm colors of Morocco with the cold ones of the forest location where the second part of the film takes place. The sets also appear very fascinating (the landscapes of Morocco) and in part unusual for a horror and the same direction of the esordiente Gasperoni is very fluid and in some cases seeking virtuosity and original framing. The cast appears a bit lame since not all actors are credible in their roles, starting with Robert Capelli Jr. (who plays Paul) and Giorgia Masetti (Jameela), to whom is entrusted the only insipid nude scene. For the rest, we have the interesting face of Harriet MacMasters-Green (the fiction "Tutti pazzi per amore"), in the role of the protagonist, and the presence of the only known Armand Assante ("Reed"; "American Gangster") in the roles of the mysterious Tollinger. The numerous death scenes, on which the entire second half rests, are not very imaginative and very modest, if not ridiculous, thus tempering what could have appeared as the sure shot of the operation. The film, therefore, is all here: a beautiful packaging for a banal subject and an ingenuous and botched development. One would like to make a film with an international flavor but one ends up resembling (involuntarily) those C-grade horror films that were produced in our country at the end of the 1980s: an attempt at a rebirth that ideally continues the trend of those who brought Italian horror cinema to death. It deserves half a pumpkin less.