Next week will see Paramount Pictures debut their new horror movie Smile, and the studio has deployed one of the creepiest viral marketing campaigns in recent memory to promote it. Starting last night many viewers began to notice that every Major League Baseball game had a person sitting behind home plate who was not moving but also maintaining a creepy smile right out of the new movie. Each of the people appeared to keep up the act for most of the games, one person even appear on The Today Show seated behind Al Roker, all of them wearing “SMILE” t-shirts to boot. They did their job well because people around the country are officially freaked out by their presence, and now know about the movie.
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First reactions to Smile have begun to roll out after the film had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest this week. Currently the horror movie holds a 75% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes with critics praising its “effective, terrifying jump scares.”
Starring Sosie Bacon, Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Robin Weigert, Caitlin Stasey, with Kal Penn and Rob Morgan, Smile arrives in theaters on Friday, September 30. The film’s description reads as follows: “After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can’t explain. As an overwhelming terror begins taking over her life, Rose must confront her troubling past in order to survive and escape her horrifying new reality.” Check out the creepy viral marketing below!