Horror-mystery thrillers based on real-life tragedies can emerge as a powerful source material for well-crafted cinematic narratives, as epitomized in David Fincher’s Zodiac and Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs. The period between the late 1990s to early 2010s saw a sizable number of drownings across several Midwestern American states, wherein around 150 young men were found dead in bodies of water. The premise of these apparent accidents turned murky when authorities discovered graffiti depicting a smiley face near most locations, giving birth to the Smiley Face Murders theory. Although this theory was widely debunked, writer Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho) and director Tim Hunter (River’s Edge) loosely base their latest collaboration, Smiley Face Killers, around this conjecture, crafting a horror-mystery thriller that attempts at a creative retelling of these events. Despite featuring a few well-executed, tense gore sequences towards the end, Smiley Face Killers is mostly uninspiring and makes for a tedious watch.
After opening with a needlessly graphic animal slaughter sequence, Smiley Face Killers shifts its focus on teenager Jake Graham (Ronen Rubinstein), a proverbial well-rounded college student who is constantly reminded by his best friend Gabriel (Amadeus Serafini) and girlfriend Keren (Mia Serafino) that he has been acting “withdrawn” and “super depressed” for quite a while. While it is hinted numerous times that Jake has been struggling with his mental health, having consulted a therapist in the past and being on and off medication, it is never imbued with depth or fleshed-out in a compelling manner. To make matters worse for Jake, an ominous white van driven by a hooded figure (Crispin Glover) stalks his every move, to the extent of invading his home and laying out cryptic clues for him on his bed. Unbeknownst to Jake, whose cell phone and computer is hacked by said figure, he has been chosen as the next target for a ritual murder-of-sorts.
The killer(s) take their time toying with Jake, sending frantic texts like “THE WATER WANTS YOU” along with graphic images of animal mutilation, which feeds further into Jake’s paranoia that it is in fact Rob (Cody Simpson), Keren’s ex, who has been creating these disruptions in order to mess with him. These events take place at an excruciatingly slow-burn pace, punctuated by empty conversations and long, lingering shots of Jake indulging in diurnal things such as taking a shower or cycling back home, which fail to add meaning to the film’s core narrative. While the presence of the hooded figure lurking in the shadows does evoke an atmosphere of dread and foreboding, the build-up to the climax feels long-drawn out, tinged with the essence of narrative predictability.
Perhaps the most disturbing part about Smiley Face Killers is the extremely tactless way in which the subject of mental health is approached, wherein words like “delusional” and “manic” are thrown around without an informed understanding of the deeper implications of these terms. The ostracization of Jake by the other characters, simply due to the fact that he is struggling with some sort of repressed trauma or depressive episode, is irresponsible to say the least, further adding to the stigma surrounding the issue in more ways than one. Apart from this, Smiley Face Killers relies heavily upon teenage drama tropes to advance its plot, leading to scenarios, character outbursts, and motivations that seem vapid against the greater evil that stalks the fringes of the town, hence disrupting cinematic immersion and the successful suspension of disbelief - two elements that are a staple of compelling and effective horror.
In terms of performances, Smiley Face Killers has nothing special to offer, as Rubinstein’s screen presence is scattered and inconsistent, while almost all of the supporting performances are bland and forgettable. However, the sole highlight of the film is Glover’s hooded figure, who succeeds in imbuing the narrative with much-needed suspenseful thrill, but is ultimately a wasted potential as his character seldom speaks, getting lost in the medley of secondary characters. Nevertheless, Smiley Face Killers does have a few well-put-together violence and gore scenes towards the end, which are edited with kinetic force, and formulated as sudden and heavy-hitting. However, these scenes are not nearly enough to salvage the rest of Smiley Face Killers, which is an uninteresting and underwhelming mystery-horror through and through.
Smiley Face Killers is set to be released by Lionsgate on digital, on-demand, and DVD/Blu-Ray in North America on December 8, and in the U.K. on December 14. It is 96 minutes long and is rated R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, sexuality, nudity, language, and some drug references.
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