“Smile” grossed an estimated $17 million this weekend, which was only a 22% decrease from the previous weekend. Its estimated domestic total now stands at $47 million.
In all, it’s made around $90 million worldwide. The budget is said to be in the vicinity of $17 million. These are immensely satisfying numbers for Paramount. Let’s just hope that it doesn’t get the “Paranormal Activity” treatment and get six more sequels.
I didn’t review “Smile,” but it’s a fairly tight and mildly engrossing horror jam. It uses familiar tropes in its storytelling, but some of the jump scares are absolutely frightening. Filmmaker Parker Finn is definitely a talent to watch out for, he knows how to tighten the screws of suspense with absolute clinical direction.
Smile’s surprising box-office success, not to mention that of many other horror films this year, especially this past month’s “Barbarian,” means that we can look forward to much more genre fare being greenlit in the next few years. Rejoice! The elevated horror genre is one of the most exciting cinematic movements in American moviemaking.
Variety’s William Earl has decided to rank the best horror movies of 2022, so far. This has indeed been quite the year for the genre. There’s something about using horror in 2022 that brings out a kind of fearlessness in filmmakers — you can play around and be more forthcoming when making horror, the risk-taking is more accepted as your audience won’t be as sensitive to certain topics.
If it were up to me, Mia Goth’s deliciously twisted performance in “Pearl” would be an Oscar lock (and I’m not the only person who thinks that). Even Martin Scorsese sung its praises last month.
Also, for my money, the best horror movie I’ve seen this year is Chloe Okuno’s “Watcher” — a film that honored ‘60s Polanski and even went as far as modernizing his style for the 21st century. Then again, Earl includes David Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future” on his best horror list, so, if that one counts, then it’s definitely up there.
As it stands, the 10 best horror movies of 2022:
“Crimes of the Future”
“Watcher”
Resurrection
“Pearl”
“The Black Phone”
“Fresh”
“Barbarian”
“Speak No Evil”
“Nope”
“Smile”
Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.