‘The new face of fear’
Smiley is a 2012 American psychological slasher horror film directed by Michael Gallagher and produced by Level 10 Films.
The movie stars Caitlin Gerard, Melanie Papalia, Shane Dawson, Andrew James Allen, Toby Turner and Liza Weil.
Plot:
After discovering an urban legend of a demented serial killer, who has nothing but a carved ‘smiley’ on his face, a mentally fragile teen must decide whether she is going insane – or will be the next victim…
About a week or so before the film’s official release, the movie leaked onto the internet, catching the attention of the image board 4chan. The website has a part in the films plot; this enraged many users of the website, namely the infamous /b/ board who took offence to how the website was portrayed in the movie.
In response, some of them attacked director Michael Gallagher, sending him death threats and going so far as to harass members of his family and his girlfriend. Gallagher reported the incident to the FBI.
Buy: Amazon.com
Reviews:
“There were plenty of flaws throughout, but it remained entertaining the majority of the time and, above all, it tried something new. Smiley was a completely original idea and as a debut feature, I give Michael Gallagher props. It’s not as groundbreaking as I had hoped, but it was good fun…” Cinema Slasher
“Smiley feels like a late-arriving film class homework assignment that the students didn’t really care about. That might fly for chemistry, but keep it out of the horror movies.” FEARnet
