Smiley

Smiley
A slasher flick that appeals to Internet users? How could you be able to screw this up? Well, Michael Gallagher found a way.
Genre: Horror Slasher Directed By: Michael Gallagher Produced By: Michael Wormser Written By/Screenplay: Michael Gallagher Glasgow Phillips Starring: Caitlin Gerard Melanie Papalia Andrew James Allen Liza Weil Toby Turner Roger Bart Keith David Jason Horton Shane Dawson Distributed By: Fever Productions LLC MIJ Productions Release Date: October 12, 2012 Runtime: 95 minutes Country: United States Language: English

Smiley is a 2012 slasher film, directed by Michael Gallagher.

Plot

The "Smiley" is an Internet killer that appears if someone types "I did it for the lulz" three times on ChatRoulette, whereupon he kills the typer is chatting with, and then the typer.

Why It Doesn’t Make People Smile

1. The Entire Premise: an emoticon that kills you when you say "I did it for the lulz", is ridiculous and impossible to take seriously.
2. The characters are all flat and uninteresting, and are hard to feel for, and continuing with that, all the characters are annoying and unlikable.
3. The acting is very poor and bad as some of the actors look emotionless, and stiff.
4. Like a lot of horror movies about the Internet and computers, it seems the writers have no idea how technology works, given the large number of mistakes and misused terminology.
5. The many references to Internet culture are incorrect and outright cringeworthy.
   • Many of these references, when seen from a current-year perspective, are horribly outdated.
6. Terrible cinematography; the camera frequently shakes, and sometimes, shots are focused on the wrong things.
7. The entire plot makes no sense; it relies on a lot of things happening in a really specific way, and relies on the characters to be as stupid and unreliable as possible.
8. Inane and unrealistic dialogue.
9. The movie is overreliant on horror movie cliches.
   • In particular, there are a lot of jump scares, which are obviously telegraphed, and of which three are caused by one of the characters.
10. There are a lot of pointless scenes that just drag on.
11. Just to Add to WHS#2 and WHS#3, Shane Dawson is in this movie. Yes Shane Freaking Dawson, One of the most Controversial Youtubers ever, is in this movie. Similar case to Logan Paul in The Thinning, But Fortunately, Shane doesn't have that much of a big role.
12. Mean-Spirited Plot Twist Ending Spoilers: It turns out Smiley is nothing a big prank on Ashley without any hints. While it is kind of Orginal, its also to clarify they did this entire prank just to make Ashley Go Insane and commit Suicide.
    • The Reason they did it wasn't even Good or even Justifiable, They did for the Lulz, Yes, Not Even a joke.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The moment where Ashley goes crazy and smashes her computer in the library is funny.
2. Smiley's appearance at the end (though it raises many plot holes) was pretty cool.

Reception

• The movie received negative reviews, with an 18% on Rotten Tomatoes. Criticism centered on its lack of originality and generic plot.

Trivia

• The director, Michael Gallagher, and his family reportedly were doxxed by and received threats from Anonymous, over the group's portrayal in the film. Some people believed Gallagher made it all up as a publicity stunt, though he contends they were real.

External Links

• Smiley (2012) at the Internet Movie Database
• Smiley (2012) on Rotten Tomatoes

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