Over the weekend, some people were spotted in the stands at several baseball games sporting creepy and suspicious smiles. It appears they were hired actors taking part in a viral marketing campaign for Paramount's new horror film Smile.Smile is an upcoming horror movie from Paramount Pictures about a psychiatrist who begins experiencing very strange occurrences. One of her patients claims that some strange being is hunting her and appears in the form of a man or woman with an exaggerated smile. Soon after, Dr. Cotter begins seeing the smiling creature herself.According to Sports Illustrated, there were at least two paid actors who attended three separate Major League Baseball games on Friday night. At the Red Sox vs. Yankees, Mets vs. Athletics, and Cardinals vs. Dodgers games, the actors sat completely still for hours and stared directly into the camera while smiling creepily. In one of the games, the actor was prominently placed right behind home plate. Many baseball fans were confused and creeped out by the viral marketing stunt, including Twitter's Jomboy Media.
Jomboy Media, a popular sports fan account, Tweeted one video that shows an actor creepily smiling into the camera behind home plate, observing that he “hasn't moved for 40 mins.” In another video, they show a paid actor at a different game, a woman standing motionless in a bright yellow shirt with the word “SMILE” on it, until the stadium's security guard comes over and asks her to sit down. In their Tweet, Jomboy Media jokes, “The absolute balls on this security guard to confront a literal demon.”
It's quite a clever viral marketing campaign on the part of Paramount and is indeed getting a lot of attention. The concept nicely matches the premise of the movie, which is about a demon of some sort who possesses people around you and just stands and smiles creepily. The choice of doing it at a baseball game is surprisingly specific though, and it would be interesting to see how much baseball and horror fans overlap. The stunt brings to mind a similar marketing campaign in 2012, where The Ring's famous villain Sadako threw out the first pitch at a Japanese baseball game.
In any case, the savvy marketing tactic seems to have boosted interest for Smile, which comes out later this week. Smile premiered at Fantastic Fest a few days ago and has received generally positive reviews. It is the feature film debut of director Parker Finn and is based on his 2020 short film Laura Hasn't Slept.
Smile hits theaters on September 30, 2022.
Source: Sports Illustrated, Twitter/Jomboy Media