Baseball Fans Creeped Out By ‘Smile’ Marketing Stunt
Published Sept. 26 2022, 8:00 p.m. ET
Halloween is more than a month away, but baseball fans still got chills down their spine on Friday, Sept. 26, as actors promoting the new horror movie Smile crashed baseball games across the country, sitting behind home plate and staring fixedly into the camera with a creepy smile on their face.
“Thanks for the 6 months of nightmares,” one person wrote on Twitter, reacting to footage from the marketing stunt.
“Stop showing her please. I plan to go to bed shortly after the game,” another person tweeted.
“Make it stop,” a third user begged.
The actors were part of a marketing campaign for horror movie ‘Smile.’
According to Sports Illustrated, the actors popped up on Friday night at the Red Sox vs. Yankees game, the Mets vs. Athletics game, and the Cardinals vs. Dodgers game. The magazine confirmed that the actors were indeed promoting the movie Smile ahead of the movie’s theatrical release a week later.
The trailer for Smile — a horror flick written and directed by Parker Finn, the filmmaker behind the shorts The Hidebehind and Laura Can’t Sleep — is packed with similarly creepy smiles. “Once you see it, it’s too late,” the movie’s tagline reads.
Footage of the creepy antics lit up TikTok and Twitter.
TikTok user @ari.natan uploaded a video of one of the Smile promoters sitting alone in the rain at Yankee Stadium before slowing turning toward the camera, the same unnerving smile plastered on her face. “WTF is this creepy-ass s—t at the Yankees game?” @ari.natan wrote in the video’s caption.
Another TikTok user, @adamshapiro4, also posted a video of the stunt, showing the actor who was stationed at the Oakland Athletics games. In that clip, a man seated next to the actor waves his hand in front of her face, but the woman hardly bats an eye.
Twitter user @Jayne got a selfie video with that same actor as she greets @Jayne’s coworkers at NBA Top Shot. “She was pretty cool, actually,” @Jayne wrote in the video’s caption.
Meanwhile, Twitter user @Steve_Perrault took a screenshot of a man with a creepy smile standing up at the Yankees game, while fans behind him crane their necks to see around him.
The movie, out on Friday, follows a doctor beset by “overwhelming terror.”
Smile stars Sosie Bacon, daughter of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, as a doctor who comes across creepily smiling patients as her sanity unravels.
“After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can’t explain,” a synopsis for the film reads. “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.”
In addition to Bacon (As We See It), Smile also stars Jessie T. Usher (The Boys), Kyle Gallner (Scream), Robin Weigert (Big Little Lies), Caitlin Stasey (Bridge and Tunnel), Kal Penn (the Harold & Kumarfranchise), and Rob Morgan (Stranger Things), and Judy Reyes (Scrubs). The movie hits theaters on Friday, Sept. 30.
