A group of seemingly innocent friends log into Skype to chat after school. But an anonymous user who hacks into their dead friend’s account is listening in on their conversation—and they can’t hang up on it. Weird stuff ensues.
“Unfriended” is a horror-comedy film. Sometimes, I see that genre and immediately run away because these movies usually suck. But “Unfriended” didn’t suck. It was kind of entertaining and had the right amount of gore.
This film was supposed to be a made-for-MTV movie that received such a strong reaction on social media that Universal was like, “Hey, we should put this in theatres.” And they made the right decision.
The movie opens with a video of Laura Barns, “the dead girl,” shooting herself in the middle of her school’s lawn. Maybe due to cyberbullying, maybe due to demons- the world never really finds out.
Slowly but surely, secrets come out about her friends throughout this Skype chat. A girl cheats on her boyfriend with his best friend. Another girl starts a rumor about cheating girl having an eating disorder. One of these people is the one that posted the video that made Laura Barns kill herself. These are horrible people. As one woman put it, “from the very beginning, I just wanted them to die.”
They play a game of ‘never have I ever’ with the anonymous user. If you don’t answer before the timer runs out, you die. Ultimate game of life right here. There’s a finale plot twist that honestly, I never saw coming. But I’ll leave it to you to go see it.
This film will probably be very successful for a few reasons.
It’s aimed at us: college students, millennials, Gen Y, whatever you want to call us. We watch more movies than anyone before us and social media controls our lives. We all know someone who has been affected by cyberbullying. A horror movie based on social media, cyberbullying and demons? Obvious moneymaker right there, what more do you want?
The entire movie plays out on a computer screen. Genius. 1. This is genius because of the low budget it required ($1 million). 2. In the movie world, if they lose any money, it’s not that big of a loss. But this film is expected to make at least $48 million.
It’s gory, but not “Saw” series gory, and makes you jump, but still provides laughs. Not sure if that’s what they were going for, but it works. For those of you that cringe at the thought of scary movies, I’d say this is the one for you to see. It’s mild, but still very entertaining.
Would I see it again? Maybe when it’s live-streaming on Netflix, but I wouldn’t go back to the theatre. It left me feeling a little jumpy as I left the theatre, and it didn’t suck. If I were to give it a letter grade, maybe a B-. Pretty good grade in my book.
