The Smile Entity as it strangles Rose, and its most infamous quote. You can't escape your own mind, Rose. The Smile Entity, also called The Monstrosity or simply The Smile Demon, is the main antagonist of the 2020 horror short film Laura Hasn't Slept, as well as its 2022 film adaptation/sequel Smile.
So, the entity uses Rose's body to pour gasoline all over the psychiatrist, lighting a match just as Joel comes through the door. Rose's body is smiling while she burns away, and we can see in Joel's eyes he will be scarred for life by that disturbing suicide.
It is a sadistic and violent demonic entity that feeds off of the trauma of its victims, tormenting them to sustain itself, but also because it enjoys causing its victims to suffer, until they eventually kill themselves, or until it possesses them and forces them to kill themselves.
[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Smile.] The smile curse operates in a fairly consistent fashion throughout the film. One infected person is consumed, the entity forces them to take their own life and then the witness becomes cursed. But, what if multiple people witness that death?
Then, in the very last sequence, the demon removes its face to reveal its true appearance — a pale, lifeless entity with a seemingly endless grin. When the creature literally crawls inside Rose and completely takes her over, we're led to believe that this may have actually happened.
【AMV】Harmony (中/日/英/罗马字幕)| Ghost of a Smile-EGOIST
Is the smile entity a demon?
It is a demonic entity responsible for an ongoing series of gruesome murders, which it facilitates through a “curse” which passes from victim to victim in a “chain” stretching back to an unknown beginning.
The entity in Smile is powered by psychological trauma and thrives from feeding off of people's pain. Smile improves on other movies of its kind when it comes to demonic forces because it doesn't need to possess a vessel in order to maintain its strength, with its virus-like nature making it difficult to beat.
Ok so the movie Smile is based around a curse/entity that feeds and spreads through trauma. The main character Rose gets the Trauma both from her mother's death when she is young and also seeing her patient who had the Trauma die violently.
If there were no one to see her die, no new trauma would be created, and the curse would be broken. While still not ideal, given that Rose would have to die, this is the only way to stop the monster for good.
Smile 2 has been confirmed by Paramount following the runaway success of the first Smile film, which was released back in September 2022. A sequel to Smile has been confirmed following the incredible success of the first movie.
While its MO was for Rose to harm herself, the demon was also capable of physically interacting with the real world, as shown by the twist of it impersonating Dr. Madeline and attacking Rose. Thus, the monster could have feasibly killed Rose's cat.
Rose Cotter, who witnesses one of her patients die by suicide in front of her. The shocking death triggers a domino effect that passes a curse onto Rose, who begins having hallucinations of people with creepy smiles everywhere she looks.
Finn says the face at 1:48:20 is a “true look at the evil thing that's been hiding behind all the smiles.” They called the entity Lollipop — thus explaining the use of The Chordettes' “Lollipop” at the start of the end credits — and this is what happens at the end of every cycle as the beast physically enters the ...
Smile turns that into a literal monster only the victim can see, as though it's a hallucination. The parallels to actual psychosis are striking, and that's why everyone around the main character Rose Cotter initially believes it to be a post-traumatic breakdown as a result of witnessing a suicide.
A well-used method throughout the film is the technique of inverting camera angles so that you see the city from an upside-down point of view or from side angles. By inverting the landscapes, you see the world as askew. This puts you into the mindset of Rose.
With the colors, we wanted to do something unusual. We had read this study that was from back in the sixties where they found out that this sort of Pepto Bismol pink color somehow was supposed to make violent inmates less violent. So my production designer, Lester Cohen, and I, really grabbed onto that.
We learn that the young Rose allowed her mother to die rather than call for help because she was both afraid and angry with her mother. The demon believes this long-repressed revelation will paralyze Rose with guilt, making the task of subduing and overtaking her easier.
Smiling activates neuropeptides which are known to fight off stress. Smiling also gives you a burst of dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin, all feel-good brain chemicals that can wipe away that bad mood or help you put a stressful situation into a better perspective. — and that should put a smile on your face!
Not only is Rose unable to defeat the demon in Smile's ending but, in a truly vicious twist, the entity waits until Joel arrives before possessing and killing her. This means that it will be able to live on in him since the curse needs a witness to pass itself on.
Smile clearly wants the audience to see the connection between Rose's curse and mental illness. Throughout the movie, characters use therapy buzzwords and often suggest that Rose's mental state is a result of her genetics and past trauma.
The ending of the film is particularly sad since it proves that as soon as Joel agrees to help Rose figure out what's happening, he isn't able to extract himself from her, and he will never break free.
Her mind shut down and gave her a false happy ending. That is what the Smile ending explained. Forget about Rose leaving and believing she had escaped her fate. The trick here was making the audience believe she had won, and then pulling back the curtains and revealing she never escaped and was doomed.
One of the most heart-breaking casualties in Smile was Rose's cat, Mustache, but the film never revealed what actually happened to it. Smile follows Rose (Sosie Bacon), a doctor who gets cursed by an entity that presents itself through people with a sinister smile.
CANNOT stress this enough - Massive trigger warning for suicide. There was way too much of it, and not enough warning. Every 15 minutes there was another graphic suicide scene, and/or some scene involving a psychotic break. In my opinion, they could've had the same storyline without the gore.
The final image of the film is Rose's burning body reflected in the iris of Joel's eye, burning itself onto his psyche forever. Even though Rose did everything she was supposed to do — that we're supposed to do to process our own trauma — the monster still won. The cycle will continue.
