The Smileys are the fifth gang of hunters the player encounters in Manhunt.
Background[]
Cut from the same cloth as James Earl Cash, the Smileys are the insane inmates of Darkwoods Penitentiary set loose by the machinations of Lionel Starkweather that he may use them for his latest snuff videos.[1][2] Named after their off-putting smiley masks and facial paintings, the Smileys torture and murder their victims out of their irrational and inscrutable reasons and desires, making them all the more dangerous and nigh-unpredictable.
While idle, the Smileys' odd behavior includes acting like dogs, hitting their heads to force the voices away, and spontaneous laughter.[3]
According to Valiant Video's Winter / Spring Catalogue, the Smileys are very good hunters. They are said to be better at hunting than even the Wardogs gang, are frighteningly intelligent (perhaps why they seem to be organized for a bunch of crazies, even having the mind to seal the tower's entrance by building a brick wall,[4] having a strange guard routine,[5] and sticking to the script[6]), seem to communicate well despite speaking insanities, and move in and out of the shadows. But their most distinguished move is their post-mortem violence in which they catch their runner to relish in the act of carving flesh, scraping bones, gouging out organs, and splattering blood.[7]
Members[]
During the development stage, the Smileys used to have a leader before the idea was scrapped. His name was Kenneth Jesperson, the former head hunter of the Smileys who was stripped of his mask and rank by his own gang for being responsible for an incident known only as “The Piggsy Debacle” that could be related to the barring of his Smileys gang from the hunt for their gross disobedience. This backstory, along with almost everyone and everything tied to it, was scrapped from the final product.[8]
- Notable Members
Apparel[]
Just like with most other gangs in the game, there are three Smileys models in the game files and three textures for each model. Some models may have varying heads.
| Image | File name | Description |
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Smi_B1A | The Smiley is a muscular white man with a mohawk. He is topless but wears dark pants, black shoes, a pair of black leather gloves with spiked knuckles, and a black leather bracer with spikes on his left forearm.
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Smi_B1B | The Smiley is a muscular white man with a mohawk. He is topless but wears jeans, black shoes, a black leather strap on his right elbow, a black leather bracer with spikes on his left forearm, and a pair of black leather gloves with spiked knuckles.
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Smi_B1C | The Smiley is a muscular black man with a magenta-colored mohawk. He is topless but he wears camouflage patterned pants, black shoes, a pair of black leather gloves with spiked knuckles, and a black leather bracer with spikes on his left forearm.
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Smi_M1A | The Smiley is a bald, clean shaven, and muscular white man with hairy forearms who wears a torn blue shirt, black overalls, black shoes, and brown gloves. His distinguishable features include a scar on the right side of his scalp and a marijuana leaf tattoo on his right bicep.
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Smi_M1B | The Smiley is a bald, clean shaven, and muscular white man who is topless but wears blue overalls, brown gloves, and black shoes. His hairy chest and forearms are covered in blood and he has a smiley face painted on his back with blood.
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Smi_M1C | The Smiley is a bald, clean shaven, and muscular white man with hairy forearms who wears a torn orange plaid shirt, black overalls with the words “DIE” and a cross-eyed smiley face painted on the front, blue gloves, and dark olive shoes. He has scars all over his arms.
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Smi_S1A | The Smiley is a white man with a hairy chest and forearms. He wears a woman's lacy bodysuit, fishnet stockings, a grey skirt with its hems torn, a pair of black gloves, and a pair of boots with red shoelaces.
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Smi_S1B | The Smiley is a bald white man who wears a black sleeveless shirt with a design of a pink cow skull that's sticking its tongue out, bulging out its left eyeball, bleeding from the nose, and superimposed over a crossbones, a blue and green kilt with torn hems, a pair of blue socks, and a pair of black boots. He wears a very damaged and slightly bloodied smiley mask with a large crack extending from its left eye hole that reveals his forehead.
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Smi_S1C | The Smiley is a black man with a wave haircut and a hirsute chest and forearms. He wears a torn and bloodied pink dress with floral designs and a pair of black boots. He wears a very damaged and slightly bloodied smiley mask with a large crack extending from its left eye hole that reveals his forehead. |
Relationships[]
With Valiant Video and the manhunt[]
Along with the Innocentz gang, the Smileys are a recent casting done by snuff film director Lionel Starkweather for his latest productions. They have never participated in any of Starkweather's or Valiant Video's previous productions before their debut in the 4-star rated snuff film Mouth of Madness.[9]
Like the rest of the gangs in his snuff film, Starkweather bailed the Smileys out so that they can take over the asylum as hunting grounds where Cash can murder them for the Director.[1][2][10] The release of the Smileys may also be connected to the closing of their prison, possibly done to shut both the Smileys and Cash inside while keeping the snuff film shooting secret. Just like what he did to the other gangs, the Director compromised the positions and plans of the Smileys for Cash to exploit.[4][5] They are the only group of hunters who actually impress Starkweather,[11] but they are still below him as he sentences them all to die by his script.[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]
Enemies[]
Although long scrapped, the Smileys had a fierce rivalry with the Clowns. It is said that the Smileys were considered the superior group over the Clowns. Like the Smileys, they were supposed to be the final “in-hunt” gang because of them being the most high-ranked pack in the hunt and the exclusion of the Smileys from the hunt.[21]
History[]
Events of Manhunt[]
The Smileys are first introduced in Mouth of Madness in what seems to be a video recording of them going insane in the decrepit confines of Darkwoods Penitentiary as an audio recording presenting the prison's “exceptional” facilities plays over the eerie footage that says otherwise. Meanwhile, Cash's body is dragged into the prison with a bag over his head by the Cerberus who drop him off and take the bag off before leaving him as he awakens. He is then briefed by the Director about the new Smiley gang and his usual script of killing hunters, but the Director has added a new objective that requires him to bring proof of the tower walkway Smiley's death to the Guard Room. Cash does so and goes to the next scene through a hole in the Guard Room floor.
Cash is Doing Time when the Director tells him to take some time in killing Smileys in a bunch of cell blocks using a Hammer and a Metal Bat. Successfully using both weapons to perform Violent and Gruesome kills, Cash is praised by the Director and instructed to head to the end of the cell block in the shower block where a “surprise” awaits him. He goes through many gun wielding Smileys (and perhaps acquires the Shotgun as a reward from the Director if he brought the tower walkway Smiley's head to the Guard Room) on his way there and leaves the decrepit cell blocks as he enters the showers where the Director ominously tells him to go down the rabbit hole.
In the next scene Kill the Rabbit, Cash meets the White Rabbit in a locker room. The Rabbit runs off as the Director tells him to play the role of a “big ugly Alice” in a sick and twisted version of Alice in Wonderland where he must follow the White Rabbit around the prison. He kills his way to the Rabbit until he reaches the workshop where he is left to die by the Rabbit who sics the remaining Smileys at him. As the Rabbit flees and the gate he went thru is shut, the Director acknowledges his performance before retiring him. However, he defies his second death and kills the last Smileys to go after the Rabbit, leaving their corpses to be found by the police in a news report in Deliverance.
Scenes of Appearance[]
- Manhunt
- Mouth of Madness
- Doing Time
- Kill the Rabbit
- Deliverance (Outro cutscene as corpses)
Gallery[]
Official Screenshots[]
Bonus[]
In-Game Screenshots[]
Trivia[]
- The Smileys' name and smiley face theme were likely inspired by the real-life serial killer Keith Hunter Jesperson, who may have also inspired the name of their scrapped honcho Kenneth Jesperson. The former was also known as the “Happy Face Killer” for signing his written confessions of his murders to the media and police with smiley faces, similar to the tags written by the Smileys on the walls of Darkwoods Penitentiary.
- In Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the "Las Venturas While Male Young Criminal (VWMYCR)" pedestrian has a t-shirt with a print similar to Smi_S1B's t-shirt. Also, his vest texture is exactly the same as HodM1B's from The Hoods.[22]
- Smi_M1C's head is used as an icon for the game's executable.
- Additionally, a Smiley mask is used for the game's save icon in the PlayStation 2's memory card browser.
References[]
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| Organizations and hunter groups in Manhunt | |||||||||
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| Hunter organizations |
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| Non-hunter organizations | Darkwoods Penitentiary Staff | ||||||||
| Cut content | Camheds | The Clowns | The Jury | The Lost | ||||||||