MEAN TWEETS
Unfriended
Review by Paul Preston
“Unfriended” is an interesting horror film in that the characters are so shallow, obnoxious and unlikable that I think it’s a pretty accurate portrayal of entitled, tech-addicted youths and there’s great reward in watching them get offed.
The entire film takes place on the computer screen of Blaire, a teenage girl who gets together in Skype hangouts to either flirt with her boyfriend or meet up with all of her friends to discuss that week’s time-wasting superficial topic. It’s senior year and one year since classmate Laura Barns has killed herself due to cyber-bullying after a video of her drunken exploits was posted on YouTube. When the friends gather to chat, another “friend” has joined the conversation, with no profile pic or live-cam, claiming to be Laura, back to expose these morally bankrupt teens for who they are.
It’s a unique concept and the gimmick of never breaking away from the computer screen the entire movie doesn’t get stale and director Levan Gabriadze keeps Blaire jumping from Facebook to Spotify to Skype to YouTube to Gmail with great skill that kept my eyes and brain busy. Pretty odd to see all these online entities sign up to be represented in a film that clearly is denouncing the petty people who populate them. But I suppose there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
The one downfall of the gimmick is that the film can’t help but throw in loud noises to scare you, noises that clearly are put in to punch up a scare moment, but noises that are also clearly not coming through Skype to Blaire’s computer speakers. The same can be said for some low hums that are thrown in to underscore creepy moments as the kids try and determine if Laura has gone beyond stalking them online to stalking them in real life. Those hums and droning beats are standard horror fare to ramp up tension, but break the gimmick to pieces. I wonder if the film might’ve gotten more mileage with eerie silence.
In the end, I was rooting for Laura. I know I’ve gone on and on about how self-centered and insufferable these teens are and I’ll cop to sounding like an old man on the porch yelling at technology, but I couldn’t wait for all of them to die. And there’s a “Friday the 13th” vibe about that, another franchise where you just wait for the teens to get picked off. But most of the time Jason Voorhies’ victims are punished for just having sex or making a stupid move like going to a cabin they clearly know could be dangerous. But these kids…have it coming.
It’s probably not an anti-bullying film that StopBullying.gov is going to get behind anytime soon, but seeing some just desserts doled out for kids who have no problem typing into the anonymous internet ether that you should “kill urself” does have some power.
The actors all seem up to the task, some heavy lifting goes on emotionally and they deliver. I wish the film ended about one minute before it did. Someone had an idea on how it should end, yet to end the film one minute earlier would’ve really driven the film’s title home.
So in the end, “Unfriended” is a mixed bag. Although a satisfying knock-‘em-off-one-at-a-time horror film, you do have a lot of annoying people shouting on Skype to wade through. Then the whole thing is capped with some random rap song in the end credits, a new trend that Hollywood loves for some reason, regardless of the tone or genre of the film that came before it. If you end the film they way I wanted to, that song could’ve been playing on Blaire’s Spotify to send you home still thinking of the movie, instead you’re just sent home ‘cause it’s over.
Directed by: Leo Gabriadze
Release Date: April 17, 2015
Run Time: 83 Minutes
Country: USA
Rated: R
Distributor: Blumhouse Productions
