How to KILL the Smile Monster! | Film Theory

A problem with killing your two friends is also the fact that that would traumatize *you.* The demon would just come back to you, and you would have two dead bodies to deal with. Edit: Hey, after two years and 139 replies, I feel the need to clarify something: 1. Being a psychopath would change nothing, and even if it did, you likely wouldn’t have the demon to begin with. 2. Yes, you would care. It’s not a weak-willed thing, it’s a genuine psychological effect when a person kills another person. You can’t just decide that it won’t affect you. Ultimately I have not had a more successful comment than this one, and I’d like to thank everyone for the fact it is still getting likes and replies after two years. You’re all wonderful, and I hope you’re doing as much better after two years as you possibly can be.

Came here to learn how to be a better Winchester, left learning the power of love and the dangers of mental illness. Nice one, MatPat. Nice one.

I love how he just said, "pacifist run" in the context of a story based in more or less reality and none of us even blinked an eye.

Mat the main character did try to take medication and seek out therapy. She asked her therapist for Risperdal which is an anti- psychotic. The problem with your solution is that just like in the movie no therapist is going to just outright give you medication without first doing a few consultations to determine whether medication is absolutely necessary. That and at least here in the US it takes months sometimes to even get a therapist. So the main character is most likely still going to die.

About the isolation theory, I think Mat may have missed one detail from the movie. The curse feeds off of trauma. It is stated multiple times, and even heavily stressed, that no one survives more than four days. In the movie, as it neared the fourth day it is explained that the curse gets more frantic and desperate, all of which implies that the curse can be starved, which also suggests that the curse can die if it doesn't get the trauma it needs within a timeframe. Isolation may not necessarily be a lifetime commitment, just until the curse is starved and dies off.

I think Rose was on to something. She didn't *just* isolate herself, she confronted the biggest trauma in her life. We were told that it feeds off of trauma, so if you're able to heal from your own trauma then theoretically it should starve and die. tbh, i thought that was 300iq from her and wish it paid off, would've been a wonderful theme to end the movie with

When I first heard of this movie, everyone was saying how traumatic and horrific it was. I was low key excited to watch it. I suffer with my own mental health. The feeling of hopelessness and helplessness are feelings I know all too well. While watching the movie I immediately understood the underlying message in it, and it just made me sad more than anything. Her crys for help and no one listened. She tried taking matter into her own hands, secludeding herself and cutting off contact. It really was an amazing movie on mental heath and the stigma behind it.

But if the demon can make them hallucinate literally any kind of sensation or action or reality how could she ever be sure she was taking the medicine in the first place? Couldn't the demon just make her think she's taking the medicine when really she's swallowing tic tacs or peppermints or something?

If trauma was the pathway into the person’s soul, I bet a sociopath would be the end to this thing. The sociopath would witness the person the demon was possessing die and not feel anything and then that would be it.

What about faking a murder in front of someone? Or simply breaking into someone's house? Or empty threats? Trauma isn't exclusive to death.

I thought she was just going to K.O herself in an alone area. Since no one was there to witness it, the trauma is erased and thereby the demons stuck. Right?

If you really think killing two randoms isn’t going to traumatise you and just pass the demon back to you anyways, you’re kidding yourself.

Another way to defeat the Smile Curse/Demon is be willing to sacrifice yourself to end it. Don't directly do so within range of anyone else. Another option is transfer it to someone else who has no one else that they care about or cares about them that yet is willing to sacrifice themselves after you leave.

Idea; get someone to knock you out for two weeks, fed on an IV drip. You'd just need to know what was happening before the curse took full control, and have someone believe you. The curse needs to pass on to survive, that's why it moves so quickly.

Really was rooting for Rose here. She never did anything to hurt anyone and says she’d work her job helping people for free

The theory of killing the friend with the curse. Has another issue with the idea of self-imposed trauma because that would likely end up causing the curse to go to you since murder is probably traumatic if not already caused by trauma.

pov: you're deaf and you wear a blindfold so the demon has to give you hallucinations through brail

Rose would have already passed on the curse at the birthday party if following the movie's rules with dead cat gift cause that's pretty traumatising for the atleast one ppl in the party especially kids in the party so essentially she should have Survived after that while making everyone in that party a possible carrier of the curse.

Caitlin Stacey really really nailed the smile, there was no one through out the movie tht had such a terrible smile like her, and it's not even an "evil" smile but just a soul piercing creepy smile, props to her

A comic book scenario I imagined was the government discovering and brokering a deal with the Smile monster where trained agents would harbor it and pass it on to high-value targets to destabilize rival societies, only to be picked back up by the original government.