Smiley (2012) on Netflix
Ashley, new at college and grieving her mother, hears about Smiley, a killer with a carved smile summoned through a video chat site. She and her roommate Proxy test the legend.
- Netflix1.3/5
- IMDb3.3/1010,341 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes17%
Trailer
Plot summary
Ashley has just started college and is grieving her mother's death. At a party she meets Zane, Mark, Crash, Kells and Binder, and she hears about an internet legend: typing a set phrase three times on a video chat site summons an online killer named Smiley, whose eyes were stitched shut and whose mouth was carved into a smile, and he kills the stranger on the other end of the call before the person who typed. One night, Ashley and her roommate Proxy test the ritual on a stranger and watch that stranger die. Proxy urges Ashley to say nothing about it.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Smiley (2012)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Before the film's official theatrical release, Gallagher and his family began receiving threats from people alleging to be from 4chan and Anonymous. Personal information for Gallagher, his family and anyone who had worked on Smiley was posted online with the recommendation that people use it to harass them.
- Cole Strycker, author of Epic Win for Anonymous, questioned the claims and suspected Gallagher was using the death threats as a publicity stunt to promote the film. Gallagher responded that the threats were real and were not being used as a stunt.
- Gallagher initially debated using stockings with a smiley face painted on them as Smiley's mask, but discarded the idea because it "just wasn't scary enough". He settled on the final design after imagining a "guy who stitched an emoticon into his own face".
- Theatrical rights were bought by AMC Theatres, which gave the film a limited screening on its independent platform on October 12, 2012, and fans elsewhere could request to host screenings of Smiley in their own cities through Tugg.
