The Weekend Review: Unfriended

In which I review a selection of last weekend's entertainment.

When I first saw this movie's trailer, I figured that it was an easy one to skip.  This inane-looking take on Millennial angst over social media seemed like it was the latest in a long string of mostly terrible movies trying to make the Internet frightening.  But when word started coming in on the movie - from sources that I typically trust - it was surprisingly, even begrudgingly, positive.  While nobody was saying that this was the must-see horror movie of 2015, their take-aways from the film left me some hope that it would at least be worth the second half of my weekly double feature.

It's been a year since Laura Barns tragically killed herself as the result of a merciless campaign of cyber bullying instigated by her supposed friends.  But while they may have moved on from their complicity in her death, she has not.  When the six people most responsible for her harassment casually sign into a Skype chat to discuss their plans for prom, Laura's there with them with a sinestral plan of her own.

Unfriended is in every respect a far better movie than it deserved to be (and a far better one than it was marketed as).  It actually makes better use of its found footage gimmick than most higher-profile horror movies.  Because we are privy to just one of six computer screens, we're treated to a more intimate perspective on the unfolding events than we would have had access to otherwise.

We see what Blaire is privately looking up in the middle of her Skype chat, giving us snippets of information (like the infamous Laura Barns videos or the meaning behind California police codes).  We see Blaire repeatedly type, consider and edit her mid-chat IMs and PMs: granting us insight into her internal struggles with the truth of Laura's harassment and far more information about Laura's personal problems than the other characters are aware of.

The computer screen that we saw was likewise verisimilitudinous enough to really make it feel more realistic than it otherwise would have been.  We see overlapping windows, multiple running programs and numerous open tabs: if not an exact replica of our computing habits, than a reasonable approximation of one.  It even replicated for us how the protagonist would tune out the Skype chat in order to focus on any number of different things that she was also doing on her computer: lending an eerie air of realism to the film.

While the movie has found footage down almost perfectly, the script itself is about as weak as you'd expect from the trailer.  Every single character in the movie is the most hilariously unrealistic "worst person ever" despite only being in high school.  While I could get behind them being inherently bad people - or each one uniquely terrible in his or her own way - I can't buy the extreme absurdity of them being this bad by the time that they're in their late teens.

We have the cheating love birds with multiple counts of infidelity between them.  We have the narc who ratted out his friend to the police.  We have the girl who stole hundreds of dollars from her supposed friend.  We have instances of malicious slander, grave defacement, DUIs, rape and even forced abortion.  This is in addition to the cyber bullying that resulted in a girl's suicide.

On top of that, it really kind of flounders when it comes to the horror part of its description.  The kills are all thoroughly lackluster, seemingly there just to move the only somewhat interesting revenge plot along.  While I loved the fact that they did show the typical Skype glitches (frozen screens, lagging video, pixelated images), they really went overboard with it near the end.  I get that Laura's presence was supposed to be interfering with the computers, but it was obviously done because it was an easy way to make things look creepier.

So while I can enthusiastically say that Unfriended was actually a lot better than it let on, I still can't really recommend that people see it, especially when there are so many better horror movies coming out later this year.  Hell, there's even a much better horror movie that's still hanging around in some theaters.

Rating:  5/10

Buy on BluRay:  No (seeing it once was enough for me).

So what is your favorite found footage film?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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