Editor's Note: the following contains spoilers for Smile.

From the moment when the unsettling yet goofy first trailers for Smile were released all the way to its even more playfully creepy on-the-ground marketing, there has been a sense that this really could be something special in a year that already has been a strong one for horror. Not only does the film prove to largely live up to the hype, but it also shows that the well-worn genre convention of introducing a transmissible curse can still get under our skin when done well. It strikes a more profound fear deep into your soul and doesn't let go.

Not only is writer-director Parker Finn’s feature debut gruesome and grisly while also being darkly funny, it is a film that shines precisely because of how it embraces the terror that can be found in a curse closing around you. No matter how much you think you could find a way out, there is no coming out unscathed when battling an almost cosmic force beyond our understanding. This tried and true element of the genre is something that has endured precisely because of how terrifying it can be to face down an inevitable force that has consumed everyone in its path before you. In telling the story of the compassionate yet troubled therapist Rose (Sosie Bacon) and how she gets marked as the next target, the film draws upon a history of horror cinema, yet provides a fresh twist by centering on the mental as much as it does the physical. The bread and butter of some of the most iconic works in the genre is interwoven throughout the film before being torn to pieces in frightening fashion.

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Image via Paramount Pictures

Some of the most immediate points of reference are the still-incredible It Follows or the classic The Ring as well as the original Ringu. Whether it is passed via sex or the watching of a tape, the curses closely mirror each other. With each entry in what is essentially their own cursed cinematic canon, the way this narrative device is deployed demonstrates its enduring potential to strike fear. The way the ideas and images at the core of this convention continue to echo through all of them proves to be quite fascinating. Indeed, there are many scenes when Smile wears these horror influences on its bloody sleeves. From the moment when Rose begins getting piercing phone calls that serve as a sinister shattering of the silence, it is hard not to think of when Naomi Watts as the unwitting journalist Rachel would get similar ominous calls in The Ring. Each are able to tease out profound terror from just the simple sound and, while Smile doesn’t have the same exact timeline until death, they share the same sense of grim terror as the days start to wind down. As Rose tries to desperately seek out answers and find a way to escape, the march towards her demise instills everything with delightful dread.

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When it then comes to a work like It Follows, Smile shares a visual language in the repeated use of a creepy figure that only the one that is cursed can see. You don’t know where it will be or when it will appear, though it is always coming. One moment where Rose looks out a window to see such a figure just silently watching her is particularly familiar. It recalls the moment when Maika Monroe's Jay looked out the window in her classroom and caught sight of an old woman coming towards her, passing people who were unaware of the dark presence right next to them. Though the figures in Smile don’t walk towards Rose in the same way, they are each united in just how scary it is to see something that you can’t point out to anyone else.

It then becomes extremely difficult to convince anyone of what is going on when only you can see it. Thus, characters will have to trace back through the trail of bodies that preceded them to try to find someone that could offer them answers. In Smile, this involves Rose getting access to and delving through police reports of death after death extending across the world. It is yet another point of connective cinematic tissue across all the films as each character has this moment of discovery that moves the story forward while further cementing how doomed they are unless they find a way out. We see the toll this begins to take on them as they grow increasingly desperate in their search for anything that can break the cycle. As we and they rack our brains for a solution, this ensures we get drawn into the dire circumstances.

Caitlin Stasey smiling creepily at the camera in 'Smile.'

Rose manages to connect with a man named Robert, played by the always brilliant Rob Morgan who makes the most of a brief scene, and learns how it is she can pass it on to someone else while still surviving. It is at this moment when the films all shift the tension from being based on characters feeling helpless to them being conflicted about what they must do. As all of them quickly learn, whatever chance at salvation they have carries with it a steep cost as they will have to condemn another to survive. While Smile does take a while in getting to this revelation, the journey is never lacking in scares both in the macabre individual moments, as well as the broader reality of her approaching demise bearing down on her. When we arrive at this moment in the curse continuum, it then shifts into being about grappling with this dilemma as the clock counting down keeps kicking everything up a notch. She now has a way out, but whether she can take it is another thing entirely. Characters have to reckon with their own pasts and whether they could live with themselves if they do it. As we see just how far they are willing to go to avoid the choice facing them, the terror reaches a fever pitch.

It is in this where Smile ends up owing a debt to horror auteur Sam Raimi and his devious film Drag Me To Hell. Much of the ending of that wonderfully mean-spirited and mischievous masterpiece centers on its cursed character coming close to thinking they have figured it out and are in the clear only to discover that all is not what it seems. To say any more beyond that would be to give away far too much that ought to be experienced for yourself with both films. However, there is one particular shot in each conclusion that ends up feeling undeniably linked. Indeed, all of these films are designed to create distress in their devastating yet devilish misdirects that pull the rug out from under you when you discover just how doomed all of the characters are. There is something uniquely unsettling about this type of story and, while each of these works brings its own distinct disposition to it, they all prove to be as dazzling as they are depraved. In having a threat that is literally everywhere, it takes on a sinister and supernatural quality that is suffocating in a way no other horror can replicate. Smile is but the latest to make the most of this premise, carving out a place all its own with a wink and a grin that shows these films can always find a way to rattle us to our very core.

Smile is out now in theaters.