#smiley face killers

[shujubeelamoglia]

Ronen Rubinstein

Photography by Jonny Shoer

#ronen rubinstein #shirtless #911 lone star #tk strand #smiley face killers #follow me #no escape #dead of summer

[callmebrycelee]

HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY, RONEN RUBINSTEIN!!!

#happy birthday #happy birthday 2023 #november 7 #november 2023 #ronen rubinstein #tk strand #911 lone star #ahstories #oitnb #smiley face killers #actor #bisexual #scorpio

[maurawrites]

Ronen Rubinstein as Jake Graham SMILEY FACE KILLERS

#ronen rubinstein #ronenrubinsteinedit #smiley face killers #911lscastedit #911lonestarcastedit #maura makes things

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/20/2022: SMILEY FACE KILLERS

I'm doing this project on movies that claim to be "based on a true story", and SMILEY FACE KILLERS is a really interesting example for multiple reasons. The first is that, while its opening on-screen text declares that it is "inspired by true events", it is actually based very loosely on a rather fantastical theory that attempts to weave mundane, unrelated tragedies into a vast conspiracy. Many movies make the "true story" claim vaguely or spuriously: THE STRANGERS comes to mind as something that leveraged the notion of factuality in order to amplify the terror of its home invasion scenario, but its marketing materials provided no further details that could leave the claim vulnerable to closer analysis. (It seems likely that the writers were thinking of the Keddie murders, but I remember coming up empty when I tried to find out what "true story" was being referenced when the movie was being advertised) But when SMILEY FACE KILLERS talks about "true events", it's really talking about something people think, and not something that concretely happened.

The other point of interest in this "true story" here is that the smiley face murder theory offers an explanation where none is required. When we hear about something like the Dyatlov Pass incident, in which a group of people met bizarre and horrific fates through no obvious means and for no obvious reason, it's completely understandable that conspiracy theories form in order to help us grasp at the comfort of an explanation. If we think we know what happened, then maybe we don't have to worry that it will happen to us. The smiley face murder theory seems to just do the opposite, creating dread and fear where logical explanations already exist. The opening text continues:

"Since 1997, more than 150 young men across US college campuses have drowned under suspicious circumstances. Symbols spray-painted at the scenes have led some to propose these accidents are in fact serial murders. Though many dispute this as nothing more than urban myth, there are many who do not."

The film completes the masquerade of authenticity by dating its events to March 14, 2017 in Santa Clarita, and using a mosaic of yearbook-like headshots to make up its title card. The smiley face murder theory is actually the concoction of authorities who you'd like to be able to trust: retired NYPD detectives Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, and gang expert Dr. Lee Gilbertson. Their concept takes the sadly ordinary drowning deaths of intoxicated, careless, self-destructive, or simply unlucky male college students, and uses their proximity to graffiti of smiley faces to suggest that their deaths were deliberately orchestrated, despite the extreme generality of this "pattern". Last year, WHO identified drowning as the third-leading cause of accidental death worldwide, "accounting for 7% of all injury-related deaths." and it's fair to say that the smiley face, which has been in commercial use since at least the early 1960s, is probably one of the most ubiquitous images in American vandalism, if not across the globe. There is no special need to form a relationship between these two items; you have to really insist. One might further ask why the smiley face murder theory focuses on young men specifically, but the CDC may provide an explanation there, as its website notes: "Nearly 80% of people who die from drowning are male. Many factors might contribute to higher rates of drowning among males, including increased exposure to water, risk-taking behaviors, and alcohol use." The smiley face murder theory faces a further challenge beyond the commonness of its key elements, which is the national dispersal of the deceased. In order to resolve the geographic disparity between the alleged dump sites, the smiley face murder theory proposes a nationwide network of perpetrators. To my knowledge, the theory does not include a motivation for such a thing to exist.

With the movie SMILEY FACE KILLERS, Bret Easton Ellis offers a motivation that, considering the state of this conspiracy theory, is as reasonable as anything else one might think of. It describes the final days of (fictional) college student Jake Graham (Ronen Rubenstein), whose personal life is imploding as his tragic fate closes in on him. The film is directed by Tim Hunter who, perhaps ironically, is most famous for the cult drama RIVER'S EDGE, whose title refers to the watery scene of a murder that transpires within a circle of teenage friends. Where that film describes the need for young people to responsibly accept their harsh reality, the reality of SMILEY FACE KILLERS is elusive, haunted, and unpredictable. When its hero experiences a lapse of responsibility, he is done in not by the direct consequences of his actions, but by a more fantastical form of doom whose true nature is unknowable.

Jake is a haunted young man, alone among friends, and missing a full understanding of his own behavior and circumstances. We, the audience, understand immediately that foul play will become a part of his story, but Jake is already on the verge of a personal apocalypse. Like Mary Henry in CARNIVAL OF SOULS, he fails to connect to the world of the living, and seems to sense that the walls are closing in on him. To some degree, his friends are aware of the spiral he's in, including his girlfriend Keren (Mia Serafino), who discovers that he has stopped taking his mood stabilizers. He acts depressed and paranoid, experiences memory loss, loses track of time, and fails to perform in bed. Meanwhile, he begins to receive threatening text messages from an unknown sender, including graphic images of slaughtered animals and the cryptic phrase "THE WATER WANTS YOU". This feeds right into Jake's existing unease, encouraging him to accuse Keren's lingering ex-boyfriend Rob (Cody Simpson) of messing with his head. As Jake continues to spiral, a worse fate than youthful alienation draws near in the form of a sadistic murder cult that is already responsible for a string of local disappearances.

The other disappearances are never acknowledged by the cast of SMILEY FACE KILLERS, which is consistent with the social disconnect found in Bret Easton Ellis' stories. To my mind, this movie is the single best representation of what Ellis offers as a writer, succeeding with the one element that is missing from most adaptations of his work: a sense of irresolvable mystery, an entrapment in one's flawed subjectivity, and an inability to know the details of your own life. Contrarily, Mary Harron's endlessly lauded AMERICAN PSYCHO is flatly literal; Patrick Bateman's murder spree escapes notice because of the blind narcissism rampant in his time and place. In Ellis' novels, AMERICAN PSYCHO included, things are rarely so simple or consistent, as characters are prone to delusions and hallucinations that are not comfortably identifiable as such, creating an unshakable feeling of isolation and mistrust. The ambitious (and unpleasant, but underrated) RULES OF ATTRACTION makes the mistake of literalizing characters and plot elements that the book leaves as uncomfortable question marks—things that are possibly imagined or dreamed by the main characters, that add up to the sensation that reality is never quite graspable, that one can be pushed to the margins of one's own life, haunting it like a ghost instead of fully living it. These adaptations, along with LESS THAN ZERO, tend to be satisfied with the pat conclusion that their characters are self-centered and shallow, and there is little more to do with them than demonstrate their character flaws repetitively. SMILEY FACE KILLERS succeeds at evoking Ellis' sense of cognitive dissonance and the loneliness that ensues when a person can't fully participate in consensus reality.

The people in Jake's life all seem to be hiding something, and even his best efforts to face situations head on only result in greater ambiguity. He finds evidence that Rob is still pursuing Keren, but no evidence that Keren is responsive; however, when Jake confronts her about Rob's persistence, she refuses to address Jake's material causes for concern, instead reminding him of a frightening blackout during which he wrote her a four-page email that he can't remember. Worse still, when Jake shows Keren the disturbing text messages that he believes Rob has sent him, she accuses him of sending them to himself, urging him to go back on his meds. His only other source of comfort is his best friend Adam (Garrett Coffey), who also has a frustrating reaction to the harassment Jake experiences; he suggests that Jake has a secret admirer, and jokes uneasily that maybe it's Adam himself. "Maybe it's me… Do you ever think about my feelings? How I feel about you?" he teases, awkwardly groping Jake who wants no part of it. It seems highly likely that Adam is in love with Jake, but this is never acknowledged, leaving Jake with the nagging feeling that, like Keren and Rob, Adam has undesirable intentions toward him. We also understand that Jake's mother has been calling Keren behind his back to try to get information on what is happening to him. Despite his mother's concern, her sneaky behavior contributes to a sense of conspiracy surrounding Jake, who suffers from the suspicions and accusations of all of the people who are supposed to care for him.

The astute reader may have guessed by now that most of the movie is made up of this interpersonal intrigue. However, it remains tense and unsettling, not only because of its atmosphere of uncertainty and discord, but because only the audience perceives the very real and mortal threat stalking the edges of Jake's life. The film begins with a shocking act of animal mutilation that is well outside the bounds of what an audience expects from an essentially mainstream movie. These explicit images of what one can assume are real animal remains let you know that you are never quite safe with this movie, even though the disfigured, hammer-wielding cult leader (RIVER'S EDGE alum Crispin Glover) doesn't really make his debut until almost an hour into the 96-minute running time. However limited it is in duration, the violence in SMILEY FACE KILLERS is profoundly shocking by any standards, leaving the viewer with a feeling of despair as much as revulsion.

Because of its somewhat fractured narrative structure—Jake's life implodes while, on a completely separate and unrelated track, a gang of vicious psychopaths have marked him for death—SMILEY FACE KILLERS tends to represent a worldview rather than a traditional story. Jake's fate is not the result of his actions, yet what happens to him makes sense in a world where parents do not relate directly with children, lovers are stubbornly ambiguous in their commitments, and friends plot to get more than what they have offered one another. A feeling of abandonment and unfairness dogs this film as it uses the smiley face murder theory not to make sense of life, but to hyperbolize its senselessness.

This twisting of the logic of conspiracy theories is especially cruel, as people seem to turn to such theorizing to create order out of chaos, which is comforting even if the order in question is a daunting one. With conspiracy theories, urban legends, and other forms of folklore that challenge our normal understanding of how life works, there must be some personal motivation to invest faith in them; some emotional or spiritual reward for the perilous rejection of conventional thinking. In the case of the smiley face theory, we see a painful need on the part of the bereaved to find meaning in the shatteringly meaningless fate that has befallen their loved ones. The aforementioned architects of this theory—Kevin Gannon, Anthony Duarte, and Dr. Lee Gilbertson—participated in a true crime series on the Oxygen Network that I'm a little ashamed to admit I watched. It's hard to tell if these men truly believe in what they are proposing, or if this has all been a greedy grab for attention and/or cash, but it is abundantly clear that the bereaved parents who appear on the show are grateful for any explanation for the deaths of their children that does not impugn their children's upbringing or good character. The drowning victims that the investigators have chosen to focus on tend to be white, athletic, popular, and academically promising; that is, people who their communities think can do no wrong. It is simply too difficult for the parents of these young men to accept that their deaths, which often involved alcohol, were their own faults, or that they were simply random. Which is worse: not being able to trust your loved ones, or not being able to trust the basic structure of reality? Sometimes it appears that any orderly explanation, however outrageous, is easier than accepting that your concept of how the world works is incomplete, or that you yourself have been irresponsible somehow. When the locus of blame for your loss runs contrary to your personal beliefs, you can simply blame another party. Blame video games. Blame horror movies. Blame heavy metal music. Blame the smiley face killers.

#blogtober #blogtober 2022 #smiley face killers #bret easton ellis #true crime #conspiracy theory #tim hunter #horror #thriller #slasher #cult #serial killer #serial murder #crispin glover #cody simpson #smiley face murder theory #garrett coffey #mia serafino #Ronen Rubenstein #based on a true story

[messymindofmine]

When will someone write me the LS/Smiley Face Killer crossover fic that I keep imagining? Just imagine, cop Carlos Reyes gets a call from a scared student named TK Strand who's terrified someone is after him... No pressure to any of the wonderful fic writers, I've just been obsessed with the idea lately lol. I'd write it myself but I honestly don't have it in me 🥲

#911 on fox #911 lone star #tk strand #carlos reyes #tarlos #ronen rubinstein #rafael silva #smiley face killers

[rubinsteinsilva126]

#FlashbackFriday to when Smiley Face Killers came out! I love seeing Ronen so happy about the movies and shows he’s acted in! I wish that this hoodie was available for fans to purchase!

#ronen rubinstein #Ronen #Jake Graham #smiley face killers #horror movie #hoodie #flashback Friday

[btownstoriesblog]

Do you know about cody simpson biography?

Are you searching for Cody Simpson before and after? BtownStories provide you with full information about the Simpsons' transformation. he has built his body with muscles. He is a famous singer, songwriter in Australia. For more details visit us today!

#Anastasia (Musical) #AwesomenessTV #cody simpson #cody simpson before and after #cody simpson biography #cody simpson body #cody simpson gym #cody simpson six pack #Extreme Makeover: Home Edition #Golden Balls #Head Above Water #Instant Mom #PrankStars #Ridiculousness #simpsons transformation #Smiley Face Killers #the simpsons transformation

[reverseskittles]

10.8.23

Halloween 2023 costume..

We are playing with fx blood and trying to get the right consistency to gore out these masks..

Stay tuned..

The masks before the work

How's it looking?

#pacific northwest #halloween #costume #cosplay #gay ftm #gay guys #couples costume #smile #pretty smile #smile for me #smiley face killers #smiley face #arts and crafts #artwork #artsystuff #fake bl00d #fx makeup

[moonfromearth]

- ...

Day 12 - The Killer "Iconic. The bringer of doom. It gives them pleasure to pick of the cast, reveling in their own cat and mouse game. No matter their backstory, it always leads to slaughter in the end."

from @windbrook's Slashed Challenge.

#he's a bit of a lazily designed killer #but i thought the smiley face was a mildly creepy touch #😅 #by the time i got to twelve i wasn't sure what to do #and i was done downloading cc so #i had to improvise with the hats/masks in the game #which turned out to be fun the eco living bag is kind of a good option like he could have got it anywhere #i can't believe it's the last prompt though i had so much fun with these #going to work on a character page i think for them all #because i'd really like to work on some edits for the plot #thanks everyone for enjoying the sims it's been super fun to see the likes they got so thank you 😁 #slasher dude #(i never gave him a name... #i had one but i feel like it's already been used) #day 12 #windbrookslashed #sims 4 #ts4 #sims 4 screenshots #ts4 screenshots #tw murder mention #tw murder #tw death mention

[birdclowns]

Re: Ronen's horror movies; I've only watched No Escape and the movie overall was meh, imo, but he was hot. What are your thoughts on it, and do you have any other recommendations for his other movies, specifically horror? Other than that and Lone Star I haven't seen any of his other shows and movies

rubs my hands together. I spent like two weekends watching all of his horror movies. I also sent a cameo and asked him about his faves + why a lot of the endings end the same for him. "I don't sign onto them because of that but it's funny it just keeps happening" he's so cute I love him

it was good only because he was in it. I wouldn't have gone out of my way to find it if we didn't get a sexy ronen rubinstein with a russian accent and leather jacket. and a knife. and a gun. alexei I love you. you deserved better

I will ALWAYS recommend dead of summer first; it's a tv series and not a movie. but it's so good and ronen? looks fucking amazing as a preppy little rich kid with a sad past. and also named alex(ei) and a russian accent Occasionally.

he's perfect. alex powell love of my life.

he's ALSO really good in the american horror stories episode "ba'al". I'm not a fan of ahs, but he's in that one episode and he gaslit girlkept girlbossed so hard. he looks good in prisoner orange

he's in a zombie. condemned horror movie abt a condemned apartment complex he lives in for free with friends + girlfriend. it's fucking disgusting and I will never rewatch it, but he was good in it! like always - it's called condemned!

if you want the movie for the gif of him being (basically. dick is covered i guess) naked and SAD sad. smiley faced killers beloved. he gets covered in blood! and he's got ISSUES. he's pretty and sad and I want to hold him

and there's some kind of hate with sierra mccormick. he's sent to a camp bc he's a troubled kid (emo, bullied. depressed motherfucker) and he meets a ghoul? ghost? girl of someone who went there before him. it's okay. his hair is BAD. but it's 2015 he was emo it fit I guess.

he's sad, he's naked, he's afraid, he's covered in blood and probably dead. it's ronen rubinstein in horror movies! I hope he does more in the future 💕💕 they might not be great movies but he's so pretty to look at when he's running for his life

#i love horror and i love him #youd have to look up the warnings on those if you need #dead of summer and smiley faces killers is 👌👌 #asks #ronen rubinstein #thanks for letting me gush abt him

[guardian-angle22]

no hot take but those gifs on TK needing to be more teary, holy FUCK HIS EYES ARE SO FUCKING PRETTY I MIGHT DIE

not even like just the expressiveness or the shininess but the colour? I literally can't think of a single person with the same colour

[referencing this post]

I have nothing to contribute to this really, except yep he has fucking pretty eyes. so have some more gifs of them:

#anon answered #hes a basic white boy so i'm sure theres a ton of people out there who have his same eye color lol but doesn't mean they're not pretty AF #also they are at their PEAK when they have light hitting them just right like this scene in smiley face killers #this is not technically tk but... it is lol #ronen rubinstein #(all queued up)

[shujubeelamoglia]

Rafael Silva & Ronen Rubinstein

#rafael silva #rafael l silva #ronen rubinstein #911 lone star #shirtless #carlos reyes #tk strand #tyler kennedy strand #tarlos #tk x carlos #no escape #follow me #dead of summer #smiley face killers #jake graham #american horror stories

[callmebrycelee]

MY MAN CRUSH MONDAY...RONEN RUBINSTEIN

FULL NAME: Ronen Rubinstein

DATE OF BIRTH: November 7, 1993

PLACE OF BIRTH: Rehovot, Israel

AGE: 29

SIGN: Scorpio

BEST KNOWN FOR: Portraying as first responder Tyler Kennedy “TK” Strand on the Fox procedural drama television series 9-1-1. He also played opposite Billie Lourd in the episode “Baal” of the anthology horror series American Horror Stories. 

HEIGHT: 5 feet and 11 inches tall

#mcm #mcm 2023 #man crush #man crush monday #man crush mondays #ronen rubinstein #tk strand #911 lone star #lgbtq #biseuxal #ahs stories #smiley face killers #no escape 2020 #scorpio

[maurawrites]

Ronen Rubinstein as Jake Graham SMILEY FACE KILLERS

#ronen rubinstein #jake graham #smiley face killers #ronenrubinsteinedit #911lscastedit #maura makes things

[fabrickind]

Listening to Youtube "true crime" videos about the Smiley Face Killers so I can feel something (anger at the fact that people think this is real)

#real talk with fabrickind #shitposting #even the smiley face thing doesn't make sense! #oh the most common graffiti was found #somewhere in a multiple block radius of a body being found #in a body of water #aka not at all something where BODIES MIGHT MOVE IN UNPREDICTABLE WAYS? #must be an organized group of serial killers #killing attractive young white men because they're jelly or whatever #also LMAO “not enough alcohol was found to explain intoxication” #“he had enough alcohol equivalent to six drinks” #SOUNDS LIKE ENOUGH TO ME

[gaykarstaagforever]

"YES BUT WHY WOULD THE VERY DRUNK MAN EVEN GO DOWN TO THE HARD-TO-GET-TO DANGEROUS DARK PLACE, NEAR THE DEEP FLOWING WATER??"

Oh my god, sober normies.

Guys. I am morbidly obese and am terrified of leaving the house except to go to work.

But get three shots in me? I become The Batman.

I'm not exaggerating. I've climbed mountains that were on private land, in the dark. I've buzzed-driven onto military property, with my headlights off, at 2 am, because I wanted to get a better look at the full moon shining on a tin roof. I walked across a 4 lane highway once to get to a river because I thought I saw a cool bird (it was a plastic bag). I can't scale fences, but I can certainly Hulk-open a weak point and stumble through a dangerous construction site, because the basement foundation looked like a labyrinth. That I then got lost in. For 2 hours.

Drunk people have a lot in common with bipolar people and toddlers, in that we demonstrate amazing feats of strength and agility, getting into incredibly dangerous places, for the absolute STUPIDEST reasons imaginable.

It's almost like the human animal's default is mindlessly wandering into hell unless someone stops us, or something.

I should have been dead like 14 times. And I'm boring! I got lucky. When people don't, they die, and they die weird.

It isn't a serial killer with a bizarre MO, or something paranormal. You need to appreciate how extraordinarily goofball people can get when you cut their brakes.

Which is 100% why we love getting screwed-up in the first place!

#smiley face killer #true crime #drinking