Welcome To Our Nightmare III: Terror, Wooley... and TAKOMA!

So obviously violence against women exists, and is often gendered, and obviously also it's a terrifying thing to imagine that happening to you. I am not bothered by the idea that this clown/being/demon does these things because of the fear they evoke in the victim and not for "personal" reasons.

I think the problem is that we don't get the context for this particular woman. Why is this a mutilation/torture chosen for her in particular? Because when it comes to male victims, we see that he has killed one in a quick, unknown way (and is then cutting his head off), while another gets a bullet to the head. So where's the terror for the dudes? They even seem to be setting something up with

If they had given more background on the babysitter, maybe something to indicate that she had a history of being slut shamed, or having body image issues, then at least you'd feel like this really represents a nightmare come true for her. But without this, it just feels like what I always call "boardroom horror", where I just get this visual image of a bunch of guys sitting around a table coming up with terrible things to do to women.

I think a good deal of this is a skill issue and biases on Leone’s part. I believe that Leone recognizes that audiences are more empathetic and upset by violence against women than men and exploits that fact. Like the far more talented Lars Von Trier, worse things happen to his women characters because that is also where his empathies lie. They get to have characterization and be our vessel into the world.

He does this rather carelessly and his depiction of femicide is fairly tone deaf, especially at the start of his career. I think looking for consistency in AHE is also a struggle because these were unrelated short films that he eventually shot a wrap around and a few connective scenes to tie them all together.

He may be a misogynist, though on-set accounts seem to refute that. I believe he’s a provocateur trying to illicit an extreme response while showcasing his SFX skills first and foremost, with narrative and themes becoming an afterthought. I think he has grown exponentially with each film and as his skills refine, so do his narrative talents and we’re really just witnessing a ham fisted handling of sensational content.

Speaking of Leone's work, other than both Terrifier films, I've only seen his first short The 9th Circle, in which Art has a rather brief appearance. However, I can't seem to find the original Terrifier short from 2011, or All Hallow's Eve. If anybody has means to find these, uhhh, shoot me a PM.

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AHE contains the Terrifier Short (along with the 9th Circle) and is available on Shudder and Tubi.

But . . . she doesn't have characterization that is consistent with what happens to her, nor does that moment feel like one in which empathy is meant to be the dominant emotion. It's the camera pointing proudly at this woman going "Look what I did!", which feels like the absolute opposite of empathy.

Again, I think that when you're trying to provoke and show off, it shoves any intention of empathy way to the back burner.

Well this is what can happen when you don't solicit any opinions before you watch a movie.
As I’ve said, in October at the very least, I'm not looking for Horror movies that are allegories for real-life bummers, I'm not looking for retreads of well-known ideas with bad dialogue carried entirely by jump-scares, nor Horror movies that are over-long (not the same as just long), and I always loathe a lot of expository dialogue in general.
Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Smile.


Oof. Where to begin. As the movie started I thought that it looked and felt pretty conventional but highly competent, like everyone was a professional and knew what they were doing. And I thought the opener was pretty effective, big shocks, set the tone, left your heart pumping.


I made a note that this all seemed to indicate that the floor was high.
And then the rest of the movie happened. Or rather, the padding of an 11-minute short film to a 2-hour run-time happened.
I first noticed it with the police detective in the scene following the opener. He was a cliche... but a cliche from like network TV or maybe a 90s movie. No one talks or acts like that in real life. But I shrugged that off. But then the fiance' was just a brutal nothing as well, no consistency of character, no behavior that any normal person would do, no credible dialogue. The actor looked lost.
The whole script seems to be written to set up jump-scares or little shocks or actions that fill out the run-time as opposed to being how humans actually talk and behave. The shrink was just as bad if not worse. She would be unemployable instead of highly successful. I was squirming.
I kept checking the clock. I checked how much time I had to keep enduring five times during this movie. At the 55:30 mark I made this note, “Oh my god, there’s another hour of this?” With 35 minutes to go, "I’m determined to finish this but this is just a by-the-numbers 90s Horror movie draped entirely on shock moments and jump scares. And it doesn't really make any sense."
And then the exposition dumps began. Poor Kyle Gallner, he looks so lost in this, like the dialogue is too much chewing gum. The longest scene he has in the movie is him just explaining to the main character how we're gonna get from this middle-of-nowhere point to the climax. Over the phone. Ugh.
22 minutes to go, I just want it to end as soon as possible. Of course, that's when the 11-minute short-film that fueled this nearly 2-hour movie actually started. And this was the only time since the opening 5 minutes that I remotely enjoyed the film. It was nice to actually meet the curse, a mean-spirited, nasty business, because, even though many say "don't show the monster", this movie had to have it to survive.
And then it all ended on a huge bummer to boot.

To close, I will leave you with a few snippets of reviews I wish I'd read before I wasted one of my 31 on this overlong, poorly-scripted ripoff of better Horror movies like It Follows and The Ring:

"Smile is often a gimmicky, even corny horror movie, packed with so many jump-scares that the sheer pile-on borders on laughable.”

"In padding out the concept from an 11-minute short into a nearly two-hour movie, Smile leans too heavily not only on formulaic mystery plotting, but also on horror themes and imagery lifted from popular hits like The Ring and It Follows."

"... sadly, this horror movie is content to fall back on noisy jump scares."

"... it's achingly derivative and dull."

That actually all sounds plausible.

I’ve followed the behind the scenes materials and especially in Terrifier 2, he’s by all accounts, a nice guy that just loves gory gags. Lauren LaVera, who plays Sienna, the final girl of 2, speaks very highly of him as a professional and a person. Her character is the biggest symbol of growth as a storyteller and his growing mindfulness as he attempts to balance out his unabashed love of grindhouse.

I’m not sure he’s entirely there or that he will ever be due to the simple nature of wanting to create and showcase extreme gore SFX, but he talked a lot about making sure to brutally punish men and possibly even kids, in 3, to make it all fair and equal. Whatever mileage that gives someone is definitely dependent on how willing they are to follow him into such scuzzy and shallow territory but I’ll be there tonight, watching whatever splatter Art throws on the screen.

Hmm, I thought I browsed Tubi and didn't see it. Will check out tonight again.

This was my take after some early interviews I'd seen. He came across as a makeup/FX guy that didn't have much to say of any depth. I came away more disappointed that he was kind of shallow rather than hating him for being misogynistic. How's that for a compliment?

Haven't seen any recent interviews, so I can't say if he's progressed at all intellectually.

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Just to hone in on this for a moment, I'm not saying he hates women. But I think that when your art treats women and their bodies as objects to be used to generate shock, then you're just emulating misogyny, even if your heart isn't in it.

Oh yeah. I didn’t intend to imply you didn’t. I just wanted to frame it in the context that I think he was playing with misogynistic imagery rather than the images coming from a place of genuine misogyny, like some of the films that clearly influenced him (hello, much of 70s Italian horror!)

In a weird way, this is almost worse?

He is Art the Clown in that moment, proudly showing off a woman's mutilated body. For funsies, I guess!

Really the problem with that sequence is the way it nosedives the whole mood that the film had done a decent job of building with the character of the babysitter and the clown.

Agreed! Well, not necessarily about it being worse (I liken it to telling bad joke) but that it torpedoes what came before it.

If you liked the preceding moments, it may be worth giving a shot. The violence is worse and arguably more offensive but he doesn’t play such a sour note that takes the tone in a different direction.

LOL, I'm obviously feeling a bit salty. A side effect of watching a ton of horror movies all at once is being reminded that so many of them are about characters and/or their creators exploiting and destroying female bodies.

The Terrifier series, you mean?

I loved Smile when I watched it the first time, and very much disliked it the second time around. It's thin. Hereditary, a movie I wasn't a fan of, did a much better job of weaving the theme into the horror, and focusing on characters. There's something about seeing the lead not having control that just makes me uninterested in them, as in this movie. They're obviously not the one moving the plot forward, so everything just becomes, as you mentioned, padding.

I get that. The slasher genre is especially guilty of it and when they get nasty, like Terrifier does, it can rub the wrong way.*For me, it’s an issue of tone. I think the films (especially 2) do a more respectable job but it’s still in that exploitative wheelhouse.


Yup! I think I had a stroke when I was typing that. Somehow “subsequent movies” became “preceding moments.” I… should probably go to sleep soon.

I won’t. But I should.

I enjoyed Smile when I saw it in theaters. It’s well-made but wholly derivative fare. It Follows meets the Ring with Aster inspired camera moves. It’s fine though. Well-made and derivative is the majority of the Italian horror I love. Looking forward to part 2.

Smile to me just gave off "Hello! I am a sad movie, clearly an allegory about trauma, the dog is obviously going to die (feel free to correct me on this point!), and you're just going to be subjected to jump scares until the main character bites it at the end." And I was like . . . no thanks!

Violence against women in horror seems less misogynistic than showing female characters be weak or cowardly, which is WAY more common in action movies.


The Horror genre has the unusual dual nature of constantly showing graphic (often sexual) violence against women, while in the same films having women become brave and strong survivors.


There are outliers of course, but i feel extremely graphic and sexualized violence isn't misogynistic in itself. It all depends on the context, and how female characters are presented in the rest of the movie.


For example, a genuinely misogynistic horror movie would be "The Invisible Maniac" (1990). The women in this movie are little more than props, to be stripped naked and murdered in turn, with absolutely no ability or inclination to fight back. To me, that's what makes a movie misogynistic.


Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, of course.