Excellent but underrated film

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

A killer that kills people if someone on chatroulette types "I Did it For the Lulz" (couldn't have been an intelligent person who came up with that idea) 3 times.The characters are stupid, the concept is stupid.Shane Dawson has always wanted to be an actor. Well, he should have stuck to Youtube because this movie shows he just isn't cut out for acting. He's terrible, and the scene at the end when it's revealed he's involved in the killings to be the first "Viral Killer" shows just how bad his abilities as an actor are. I've seen better acting in porn.I don't even know what else to say about this stupid movie. It's just horrible, and this along with the Smosh movie show that these Youtubers should just accept that e-fame that is slowly dying because Youtube's revenue is being choked by ad-boycotts is as good as it's going to get. Because you put them in a real movie or TV show and they just can't cut the mustard.Don't waste your time. I feel stupid for even watching it. I had the chance to watch it, and I had never seen it so I figured "why not". Waste of time.

In YouTube 2011, a sea of people (myself included), became mystified and terrified after a screen-shot of a bloody smiley face started circulating the web. Seeking out the source of the clip, I found the trailer for this film on "TotallySketch" YouTube channel. My thirteen year-old self watched it with intrigue and when it ended, I wanted to watch the movie. Sadly, I never saw it...until now.Now sixteen, I have a better index of horror films like "Jaws", "The Shining", "Halloween", "Psycho", and "The Thing", so I got my hands on a copy of "Smiley" and finally watched it.Moments after watching the film, I sat and wondered three things: a) Does Michael Gallagher (the director) know what a horror movie is? b) Hasn't been on the internet more than once? And c) Has he gone to a college in his life? Following this film, I watched an interview Gallagher did just before the film's release and said he used horror classics such as "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Shining" as inspiration, which made me walk away more confused than before. The reason for this is that both films had the following three things: a) A great, unique narrative propped up with stunning and beautiful cinematography, b) Real, complex, and relatable characters brought to life by an impeccable screenplay and great director, and c) An eerie, unsettling atmosphere throughout the film and a great, memorable ending to wrap it all up."Smiley" had none of these things.Why go in threes, you ask. And to that I say, "Candyman" rip-off!Within the movie's first three minutes, we're told the Smiley killer is an urban legend who is summoned via a ChatRoulette-like site with the phrase "I did it for the Luz" typed thrice, and Smiley kills a person on the other end of the chat room. And while ludicrous- sounding enough, the premise was fine and seemed original, until right after the first ten minutes, I realized what type of film this would be.Filled to the brim--no, overflowing--with jump scares to point of predictability and humor; predictable so, that should you invite your friends to your house and should agree to watch this film, it'd make a great drinking game. With the number of jump scares I'd watch it though, the 29-32 jump scares might give you a hangover.All the characters, like the film "Not Cool", are brought to life by Internet personalities (Shane Dawson, Toby Turner, etc.) and still wonder if the director assumed that their fame on YouTube transferred into the movie world or just though each YouTuber would bring a certain number of moviegoers. I'm assuming number two, primarily because, being a MASSIVE Toby Turner fan back in the day, I would've gone to see it solely because he was in it.The main girl, Ashley (Caitlin Gerard) is who we are supposed to root for, care about, and worry for after she kills an anonymous stranger by summoning Smiley and now thinks Smiley is after her, is the most annoying character in this film; with the vocabulary and mindset of a fourteen year-old girl, anything that came out her mouth just drove me crazy and her laugh was so dreadfully painful to hear, I'd think being stung by a scorpion would be less painful.The supporting cast simply added salt to the wound; Ashley's roommate, Proxy (Melanie Papalia) represented the typical cliché character of "nothing's really happening", then coming full circle to being "now that it's going down, I'm all screaming and whining". Her "love interest", Binder (Shane Dawson) is so wooden, a coffee table could give a better performance. Perhaps the biggest quarrel I have with this film was it's ending.*DEFINITE SPOILERS FOLLOW*This film has a twist ending, much like "The Village" and it's just as illogical as the latter, but the difference being that M. Night Shyamalan had build a pretty decent amount of suspense and story in "The Village" so that made me more angry than this film that build pretty much neither.As all the college campus kids are revealed to have been pulling an elaborate prank on Ashley and all "pretended" to be Smiley, it's also brought up that they're Anonymous and 4chan hackers bent on spreading the word of Smiley.It presents not just one plot hole, but so many that if the movie were a water balloon it'd burst. To list them; a) Why would "Anonymous" set-up such an elaborate scheme to just get one annoying girl? b) How were they everywhere "murdering" anonymous people anywhere online when they're is only seven of them? c) How would the whole confrontation scene boil down so much to coincidence? And d) What was the purpose of even trying to kill her??Mind-boggling.To wrap up, this movie was pretty terrible and only watch it with a friend, just to see him squirm in annoyance like I did. The last ten minutes destroyed whatever the movie had going for it and made me completely check out. But not to say "Smiley" didn't have OK moments; the classroom scenes weren't that bad and Roger Bart and Keith David bring all they can to the table. But the table is pretty bare...All I can say is, that if the director dreams building a franchise with "Smiley", then I say the dream is dead and it's time to wake up and smell the coffee.

There was only one reason I decided to give this movie a chance, after reading the reviews already made by other users. The reason was: Shane Dawson. I was one of his subscribers on www.tube.com and I remembered that he had an horror movie, so I decided to watch it. The movie start is actually not bad. It's kind of interesting, but when the story develops it simply gets worse. The plot simply makes no sense. The acting was not terrible, but was not good too. If you are considering to watch this movie, please think twice. You might be expecting a nice movie because it has a lot of tube celebrities, but trust me. You will get disappointed.

First off I have to say, for a group of people with practically no movie making experience at all, this isn't half bad. This is a teen slasher, pop-culture, amateur made movie, it isn't supposed to be the greatest thing ever, it's just supposed to be fun. These guy and girls that made this movie knew going into it that it wasn't going to be a hit, they just wanted to try it out and see what happened... For the actors, producers, and director, this is a HUGE learning experience, now granted, even without experience this movie good have been better in many ways. For a low budget independent film, it's not terrible, they did get it online, on DVD, and on major movie networks on T.V, and that's pretty cool!! So for the jerks in whom are crapping all over this movie with you over critical reviews, calm down and look at the big picture...