Halloween is more than a month away, but baseball fans still had chills on Friday, September 26, as actors promoted the new horror film to smile crashed baseball games across the country, sat behind home plate and stared at the camera with a creepy smile on their face.
“Thanks for the 6 months of nightmares,” one person wrote on Twitterreacts to footage from the marketing stunt.
“Please stop showing her. I plan to go to bed shortly after the game,” another person tweeted.
“Let it stop,” a third user bat.
The actors were part of a marketing campaign for the horror film Smile.
Corresponding sports illustrated, the actors appeared at the Red Sox vs. Yankees game, the Mets vs. Athletics game and the Cardinals vs. Dodgers game on Friday night. The magazine confirmed that the actors were indeed promoting the film to smile ahead of the film’s theatrical release a week later.
The trailer for to smile – a horror film written and directed by Parker Finn, the filmmaker behind the short films The hiding place and Laura can’t sleep – is packed with similarly creepy smiles. “By the time you see it, it’s too late,” is the film’s slogan.
Footage of the creepy antics lit up TikTok and Twitter.
TikTok user @ari.natan uploaded a video of one of the to smile Promoters sitting alone in the rain at Yankee Stadium before turning more slowly to the camera, the same unnerving smile on their faces. “WTF is that scary shit 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 stationed at the Oakland Athletics games. In this clip, a man sitting next to the actor waves his hand in front of her face, but the woman barely bats an eyelid.
Here’s a fun, clever movie promo – seemingly superbly placed #To smile Actors in the crowd at both the Yankees and Mets games last night, both in front of cameras. The results were indeed creepy. Are you going to a game this weekend? Watch out for the smile! ???? pic.twitter.com/aC3sqZjWvI
— Erik Davis (@ErikDavis) 24. September 2022
Twitter user @Jayne got a selfie video with the same actor as she greets @Jayne’s colleagues at NBA Top Shot. “She was actually pretty cool,” @Jayne wrote in the video’s caption.
Meanwhile, Twitter user @Steve_Perrault took a screenshot of a man with a creepy smile who stands up at the Yankees game while fans behind him crane their necks to see around him.
The film, which will be released on Friday, follows a doctor who is stalked by “overwhelming terror”.
to smile stars Sosie Bacon, daughter of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, as a doctor who encounters creepy-smiling patients as her sanity fades.
“After Dr. Rose Cotter witnessed a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, she experiences frightening events that she cannot explain,” reads a synopsis for the film. “As overwhelming terror begins to take over her life, Rose must confront her troubling past in order to survive and escape her terrifying new reality.”
In addition to bacon (As we see it), to smile also stars Jessie T. Usher (The young), Kyle Gallner (Scream), Robin Weigert (Big little lies), Caitlin Stasey (bridge and tunnel), Kal Penn (there Harald & Kumarfranchise) and Rob Morgan (stranger things) and Judy Reyes (scrubs). The film hits theaters on Friday September 30th.
