Smiley Face Killers

...and believe me, I've watched some bad ones.

Watched this because it was a Lionsgate films and generally they are fine but what even was this.

You take a premise of a well known spree of crimes and it becomes this boring mess.

Could have been so much more. Forgettable.

Yeh it's one of those movies where you could be on your phone the entire time and basically get the point.

This movie is not what the marketing shows. It's not a slasher. Having said that, I did enjoy this movie for what it was. Knowing already that it was written by Bret Easton Ellis tells me what I'm in for. It's very atmospheric with A sense of impending dread slowly closing in on the main character. I must admit that this movie is very disjointed. When the final act comes around you will swear you were watching a different movie. For a movie called The Smiley Face Killers, the killers are really only featured in it for the last 20 mins. The ending will leave you with more questions than answers. I recommend if you are into different types of horror other than the constant slasher death type. It's a slow burn 🔥 but the ending was worth it. Plus this movie is SUPER Homo-erotic. A lot of the first couple of acts reminded me of the tone of Nightmare on Elm street 2. There could be a lot to read into between the lines.

It got to the stage where I had to make a reference of the point at which something actually happened of any note. It's a 96 minute film and it took 64 minutes before anything remotely worth watching took place. In fact, of the entire runtime there is a sum total of around 1.5 minutes that are worth watching, and they take place in one short scene. How could anyone involved in this have sat through it and not realised how monumentally DULL it is?

And why on earth pay Crispin Glover to play a role in which he doesn't say a single word and is so heavily made-up that it could literally be anyone?

The two stars are solely for the one gory scene, as that is well done.

So themes of mental health, serial killing, and religious fanaticism I guess. Acting seems borderline dull and a bit too "on the nose" as college students. And the plot maintains very little other than he seems depressed and they are psychotic. Doesn't really go anywhere or get to anything of a point. Just there, flat.