"Smile" shocks with Box Office hit: HOLLYWOOD SPOTLIGHT

Horror is back. "Smile" is a unique horror film that sneaked into the top spot at the box office this weekend. The Parker Finn directed/written horror pic had a very strong opening weekend with $36.5M. What a surprise considering the opening clashed directly with "Bros" wich had big expectations and lts of marketing behind it.

Here's the basic symopsis. After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can't explain. As an overwhelming terror begins taking over her life, Rose must confront her troubling past in order to survive and escape her horrifying new reality. Here's a little hint, the story does indeed include a rather sarcastic and chilling smile throughout.

According to the website COLLIDER, The success of the flick with B-rating from CinemaScore can at least somewhat be credited to Paramount’s marketing with the simple, yet terrifying visual of the smile.

In addition to an intriguing, scary trailer that played prior to the start of mega hits like Top Gun: Maverick and Nope, Smile pushed hard to get attention by putting on a marketing clinic for smaller films to learn from.

The film scared up a mighty buzz when, in the trailer several people in the scenes were standing still and calmly with murderous grins on their faces. It proved unsettling to drive people to the theaters to see if it was a chilling as he trailer looked. It worked. If you love horror, this may be the pick for you as the year is in need of a great horror film.

In addition to Bacon, who is also known for playing Skye Miller in 13 Reasons Why, Smile features Jessie T. Usher (The Boys, Tales of the Walking Dead) as Trevor and Kyle Gallner (2022’s Scream, Dinner in America) as Joel. Rounding out the cast of Smile are Robin Weigert (Deadwood), Caitlin Stasey (All Cheerleaders Die), Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle) and Rob Morgan (Don’t Look Up).

The horror flick, which is executive produced by Adam Fishbach, received its R-rating for violent content, grisly images and language. Its producers include Marty Bowen, Wyck Godfrey, Isaac Klausner and Robert Salerno.