Film Theory: How to BEAT the Smile Monster! (Smile 2022)

You MUST resist the urge to smile, Loyal Theorist! Otherwise, the Smile Monster might getcha’. . . You see, the monster from the 2022 movie, Smile, transfers from person to person via - you guessed it - a SMILE. So how do you SURVIVE such a creature? And can it be defeated? Watch to find out!

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Credits:
Writers: Matthew Patrick and Forrest Lee
Editors: AbsolutePixel, Danial "BanditRants" Keristoufi, and Dom Sealion
Sound Editor: Yosi Berman

#Smile #Smile2022 #SmileMovie #Scary #Horror #HowToSurvive #HowToBeat #HorrorMovies #Theory #FilmTheory #Matpat #Trailer

[puppy_pink_beach_bunny]

Mat the main character did try to take medication and seek out therapy. She asked her therapist for Risperdal which is an anti- psychotic. The problem with your solution is that just like in the movie no therapist is going to just outright give you medication without first doing a few consultations to determine whether medication is absolutely necessary. That and at least here in the US it takes months sometimes to even get a therapist. So the main character is most likely still going to die.

[mothman]

Came here to learn how to be a better Winchester, left learning the power of love and the dangers of mental illness. Nice one, MatPat. Nice one.

[funkmasterhexbyte]

I think Rose was on to something. She didn't *just* isolate herself, she confronted the biggest trauma in her life. We were told that it feeds off of trauma, so if you're able to heal from your own trauma then theoretically it should starve and die.

tbh, i thought that was 300iq from her and wish it paid off, would've been a wonderful theme to end the movie with

[justin]

About the isolation theory, I think Mat may have missed one detail from the movie. The curse feeds off of trauma. It is stated multiple times, and even heavily stressed, that no one survives more than four days. In the movie, as it neared the fourth day it is explained that the curse gets more frantic and desperate, all of which implies that the curse can be starved, which also suggests that the curse can die if it doesn't get the trauma it needs within a timeframe. Isolation may not necessarily be a lifetime commitment, just until the curse is starved and dies off.

[Funnyjoke]

A problem with killing your two friends is also the fact that that would traumatize *you.* The demon would just come back to you, and you would have two dead bodies to deal with.

[jacobslump]

I love how he just said, "pacifist run" in the context of a story based in more or less reality and none of us even blinked an eye.

[Gogetta]

Really was rooting for Rose here. She never did anything to hurt anyone and says she’d work her job helping people for free

[VicWingz]

The thing that is scary about the smile curse/demon is the fact that you can't trust what you see but also what you do so anything you think you're doing to "solve" your plight could be a hallucination in itself and you could be physically doing nothing at all like you see when she thought she beat it or when she was wrapping the gift but actually killed her cat and wrapped that instead so you'd need someone else to help you but couldn't really trust that either so it's one big rabbit hole in itself

[elfinnch]

I thought she was just going to K.O herself in an alone area. Since no one was there to witness it, the trauma is erased and thereby the demons stuck. Right?

[matthewstock]

But if the demon can make them hallucinate literally any kind of sensation or action or reality how could she ever be sure she was taking the medicine in the first place? Couldn't the demon just make her think she's taking the medicine when really she's swallowing tic tacs or peppermints or something?

[ghoraxe]

It's definitely not going to go away after one defeat... She needed to repeat what she did .. face it and burn it.. but in the end she just lost.. Her acting was Incredible.. the scariest scene wasn't the monster ..it was seeing what was left of her disappear after screaming and suddenly going silent

[queenofthecapes]

I love when MatPat is able to wring a wholesome message or concept out of something abjectly horrifying.

[jamesmullisjr]

What about faking a murder in front of someone? Or simply breaking into someone's house? Or empty threats? Trauma isn't exclusive to death.

[aaronk]

If trauma was the pathway into the person’s soul, I bet a sociopath would be the end to this thing. The sociopath would witness the person the demon was possessing die and not feel anything and then that would be it.

[abject_hovercraft]

Or hear me out… “Medically Induced Coma”

[helgageraldine]

I hated the ending because it made me sad. I really thought she was gonna make it. She wasn't able to beat her own demon even after confronting it. In the end, she succumbed to it. Maybe what she did wasn't enough? I don't know. But I was really rooting for her specially after recognizing that the smile curse was a methapor to mental disorder.
There is a so-called smiling depression. I think my brother had it. He committed suicide in 2021. He was the happiest and most unproblematic person I knew, who would have thought he was suffering deep down.

[alliepaige]

When I first heard of this movie, everyone was saying how traumatic and horrific it was. I was low key excited to watch it.
I suffer with my own mental health. The feeling of hopelessness and helplessness are feelings I know all too well. While watching the movie I immediately understood the underlying message in it, and it just made me sad more than anything.
Her crys for help and no one listened. She tried taking matter into her own hands, secludeding herself and cutting off contact. It really was an amazing movie on mental heath and the stigma behind it.

[CIassyMidget]

If you really think killing two randoms isn’t going to traumatise you and just pass the demon back to you anyways, you’re kidding yourself.

[-Apothecary-]

The thing about this movie is it seems like a massive metaphor. The demon doesn't feed off of trauma, it *IS* trauma. It represents how it can haunt you, isolate you, mess with your mind, and come back after years when you thought it went away.
Someone mentioned that in a later scene where her therapist calls her, you can see in the background some sort of letter or sign saying "LAST CHANCE". This is because taking this call would be her last chance to go to therapy and confront her trauma.

The way to win is to heal.

[mattiasmartens]

This theory that the victims should have gone to a therapist is pretty compelling. It reminds me of the film Smile (2022), where someone goes to a therapist and gets ganked by a demon, passing on the curse to that therapist; and then that therapist tries to go to her own therapist, and the demon manipulates her reality to prevent her from doing so.