Review: Unfriended

Shelley Hennig and her high school pals (Renee Olstead, Moses Storm, and Will Peltz among them) are stalked online during a Skype session by an online presence known as Billie. Billie wants to talk to them about Laura Barns (Heather Sossamon), a teenage acquaintance who committed suicide on camera. Laura was distraught after a video of a humiliating incident went viral. Meanwhile, Shelley starts to get harassed on Facebook (or this movie’s fake, can’t get sued facsimile of it) by someone using Laura’s account. The menace stalking them threatens imminent death if any of them log off or shut down their computers, and one by one they are bumped off anyway. It seems Billie/Laura wants these kids to know that what happened to Laura was all their fault, and now they are going to pay.

 

One of those gimmicky concepts that was bound to be dated quickly, possibly before even hitting theatres (the producer tellingly came up with the basic idea in 1999-2000!), this 2015 social media horror flick is the drizzling shits. Learning nothing from “Hellraiser: Hellworld” or “Halloween: Resurrection”, director Levan Gabriadze and screenwriter Nelson Greaves eschew interesting characters and interesting plotting in favour of a cool stylistic gimmick that is so incredibly uncool. I don’t know what Skype is (I’m being slightly facetious, save your comments), but if this is Skype, then Skype sucks balls. I do, however, have a basic understanding of how technology and social media tend to work, which at least puts me ahead of Gabradze and Greaves who don’t have a frigging clue (Nor does the main character, who in 2015 inexplicably needs to be told by her friends what an online ‘troll’ is. Fucking what now?). I know it’s a horror film and with a certain bent to it that tends to skew towards an inherent lack of reality, but even within its own world, this is seriously stupid stuff. After 16 minutes, the film shoots itself in the head by not allowing the dead girl to be unfriended. Yes, it’s a film with a supernatural vibe, but c’mon, that’s not how social media works. If you need to bend the rules this far, start over from scratch and make something else. And why not also block them? Oh, because then there’d be no movie? Good. It’s not worth looking like a dumb arse. I mean, the idea of a phantom online menace hacking into everyone’s accounts to start arguments is actually the kernel of a good idea. But you need more than that to base an entire film around, and all this film gives you is supernatural silliness failing to mesh with actual known technology. Get rid of the ‘phantom’ part and stick to the rules and facts, and I think you can still make this basic idea work, with a little more meat on the bones. As is, this is like “Prom Night: Social Media” with a touch of “Ringu”, another film I didn’t care for, though this is so much worse. I mean, I don’t give a fuck about being threatened with death if I turn my computer off, I’m turning the damn thing off and making a run for it. Any sane person who isn’t beholden to the script of a movie would do the same. Go to a crowded place, for crying out loud.

 

Meanwhile, in addition to being stupid, the gimmick creates another problem: Crushing boredom. The whole film is a bunch of characters either talking through Skype or typing on a keyboard. We know precious little about them, so why should I give a rat’s arse about them or this stupid plot? It’s like watching someone play a computer game for 80 minutes. Not. Fun. At. All. As for the characters…these people are horrible. Irredeemably, uninterestingly horrible from start to finish. All of them are varying degrees of awful. I understand wanting to see the occasional awful character get what’s coming to them, but you can’t have an entire film full of arseholes. Who do you relate to in that situation? That’s the thing…bullying and suicide are valid, important issues that deserve to be discussed in the hopes (however faint) that we can put an end to such things no pun intended, I assure you). This film isn’t going to do that, because you won’t give two fucks about anyone or anything here.

 

I’m sure there’s some gullible twits out there who will see this film and actively go online and look this stuff up (all of the accounts in the film apparently do exist online), but it’s just gimmicky bullshit for a tweeny market. I wasn’t buying it for a second, I was too busy struggling to care. Terrible film all around, the highlight is the buffering Universal logo at the start. It’s all downhill after that. If not the worst horror film of the decade, it may at least be the dumbest. Yes, even dumber than “Zombeavers”.

 

Rating: D-