Miranda Smith was raised on horror movies, and not just in a metaphorical sense. She spent her childhood in the lobby of her parents’ video rental store, surrounded by shelves of blood-splattered VHS covers and the steady hum of thrillers playing on repeat. Horror wasn’t just background noise.
“My parents owned a video rental store,” she says. “Most school nights and summer days were spent watching movies in the store’s lobby or taking them home to binge-watch with my sisters. I was always drawn to the darker genres—thrillers, mysteries, and slashers.”
That early love of the genre pulses through Smile for the Cameras, a sharp psychological thriller that nods to ’90s slasher classics while digging deeper into the aftermath of fame. At the center is Ella, a former teen scream queen whose role in the cult horror film Grad Night refuses to stay buried.
Grad Night is the kind of low-budget, cabin-in-the-woods slasher that practically begs for a VHS release. “I wanted a premise that required a small cast and an isolated setting,” Smith explains. “I had the most fun writing the screenplay and imagining how the scenes would unfold on the big screen.”
But in Smile for the Cameras, it’s what happens after the movie that really haunts. “Reunions are all about connecting us with people from our past, sometimes revealing complicated truths about ourselves and how we have (or haven’t) changed,” she says. “This can breed deep connection and intimacy, as well as resentment and bitterness.”
As the Grad Night cast reunites, old secrets resurface, and a few grudges come back meaner than before. Ella finds herself trapped in a story that looks a little too familiar, only this time the danger isn’t part of the script.
“Ella allows her past to immobilize her present,” Smith says. “Sometimes making nice with the demons from our past can benefit us moving forward.”
But there’s only so much peacekeeping you can do when the past shows up wielding a weapon.
If Ella wants to survive, she’s going to have to channel her old final girl energy, minus the dramatic lighting and orchestral score. “A Final Girl leans into what makes her different, adapts to the situation unfolding around her, and emerges on the other side stronger for it,” Smith says. “Smile for the Cameras is all about whether she can possess those same qualities and survive in real life.”
