Smale 2

Here's the secret: it's 100% Unreliable Narrator.

This is the one where people smile. No, not that one. The one where only the person infected can see the creature. No, not that one. This is the one where trauma is a creature. No, not that one. This is one of the other ones.

In this one, Skye is a poor little rich girl, who has fame and love, but also trauma. She's got a show coming up, but after an accident needs pain meds, and can only get them from someone who was previously infected and so gets infected herself with the Smile. And from that point on you basically can't trust anything you see. There are lots of moments where we see something silly and then immediately switch to them not being there (the scene where there are tons of people crawling towards her is just funny), but there are longer moments to... but since we know from the small moments we can't trust anything, why should we trust the longer moments? This is to give the audience a sense of hope, but the character in the movie never really has any, they just don't know it.

And you know what... that's not actually enjoyable to watch. That's just misery porn trying to hide out under a big audience twist. It's not actually enjoyable.

But I don't think that will stop the hundreds of sequels this film will yet have.

[END]