'Unfriended' Movie Review

Unfriended Movie Review:

Cyber-horror

BY IAN TAN

Unfriended follows a group of six friends on Skype who are suddenly threatened and haunted by an “internet ghost troll” of a recently deceased friend of theirs.  Said friend committed suicide a year ago due to cyberbullying and now comes back to terrify the ones responsible for her misfortune.

Like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, Unfriended has created yet another unique and (arguably) effective subgenre horror film for the contemporary horror moviegoer. The concept of having the entire film seen from the point of view of a laptop screen is an intriguing one, one that will most likely capture the interest of pretty much any college student out there who uses Skype (and has a thing for horror).

Whoddat?

With such a unique premise, and if the movie performs well in the box office, there’ll surely be other rip-offs, sequels and/or spin-offs of this newfound style of moviemaking ala the Paranormal Activity series and other found footage horror movies, which have now become a cheap way for studios to spend a couple of dollars on a movie and make back millions because no matter how stale these movies have become, people still line up to see them, and their sequels. Let’s hope the same doesn’t happen with Unfriended’s filmmaking style.

But let’s get to the movie itself. The performances here are fine; nothing to shout about. They’re all serviceable enough to the story. Shelly Hennig's performance as Blair in particular really made me feel as frightened as her character was in the film, which is good as she’s the character in focus most of the time; it is her laptop we’re experiencing the whole movie from.

The stress is real

I really appreciated the little things director Levan Gagriadze incorporated into the film i.e. glitches during Skype calls, quality shifts, lag and other little touches of reality that every other movie featuring the internet and Skype does without. That attention to detail ultimately makes the film a whole lot more realistic and scary – so full points for the production design of this film. Other than that, the way the film provides exposition for characters and descriptions of certain internet terms (e.g. “internet troll”) are done with a good sense of believability – there’s always one in a group who isn’t too well-versed with certain terms.

There are a few downsides to Unfriended however. The main one being that after leaving the theatre, you’ll look back at it and realise that it actually wasn’t all that terrifying. Tension is built, sure, and it does get intense when it has to be, but that scare factor The Blair Witch Project and the first Paranormal Activity nailed so well simply isn’t present here. While the latter two films made us afraid of things that go bump, Unfriended doesn’t really make us shy away from that group Skype call we’ll probably have after watching this movie.

The horror of Skype lag

Besides that, instead of serving up scares through eeriness and atmosphere, Unfriended takes the gore/violence route method of scaring, which is disappointing for a concept with such potential to be scarier in other effective ways.  Also, watching all this happen on a cinema screen takes away some of the realism of the movie. I’d say the best way to experience Unfriended would be on your laptop - a Macbook preferably. That would probably send more chills down your spine because Skype-sized horror upsized for the big screen doesn’t work as well as Skype-sized horror on, well, an actual Skype-sized screen – your laptop.

Final Verdict

Unfriended gets 6.7 out of 10 stars – Interesting, but never as frightening as you’d expect it to be.