There's an eerie teaser trailer playing ahead of Top Gun: Maverick and David Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future, drumming up curiosity over its mysterious premise. The trailer is for Paramount Player's new horror film, Smile, previously under the working title Something's Wrong With Rose, and it shows a woman passing by a hospital room where a man sits, frozen, with an unnaturally wide grin fixed to his face. The man appears unresponsive to the woman, and he isn't the only one with a big smile; the frightening grin seems to be spreading. However, the teaser released on social media is an abridged version and only shows brief clips of a man sitting in a hospital room, and a woman with a menacing smile.
Sosie Bacon will lead the cast in her first starring role in a studio film as Rose, a psychiatrist plagued by what she believes to be something supernatural. After a bizarre incident with a patient, she begins to experience inexplicable phenomenons that only she can see. Throughout the film, Rose grows more paranoid that what's pursuing her is something malevolent and, possibly, supernatural.
Smile is written and directed by Parker Finn and is adapted from his 2020 short horror film Laura Hasn't Slept. The eleven-minute film was about a woman named Laura, played by Caitlin Stasey (Reign), who sought help from her therapist over a recurring nightmare. The film received critical acclaim and even won the SXSW Film Festival's special jury Midnight Short award. Stasey returns for the feature-length film and can be seen as the woman smiling in the unsettling promo photos, though not much is known about her character in the movie.
Bacon began her career early on in 2005's Loverboy, directed by her father, Kevin Bacon, and starring her mother, Kyra Sedgwick; however, she gained traction in Netflix's teen series 13 Reasons Why as the sage barista, Skye Miller. Bacon went on to prove her horror capabilities in MTV's Scream: The TV Series, an anthology series based off of Wes Craven's Scream franchise, and more recently landed a role opposite Kate Winslet in HBO's Emmy-winning crime drama Mare of Easttown.
Joining Bacon in the psychological horror is a familiar face to 2000s horror fans, Kyle Gallner. The actor has made a name for himself in the genre with appearances in 2009's Haunting in Connecticut, the cult classic Jennifer's Body with Megan Fox, 2010's A Nightmare on Elm Street remake, and most recently Scream, the fifth installment of the Ghostface franchise.
Smile is slated to be released on September 30 just in time to kick off the Halloween season. In addition to Bacon, Stasey and Gallner, other cast members for the film include Rob Morgan, Jessie T. Usher, Judy Reyes and Kal Penn.
Smile's brief teaser concludes by announcing that the full length trailer will be arriving soon. Until then, check out the teaser below: