If you’re forced to release your found-footage horror movie in the middle of April during the yearly cinema dry spell, odds are your film isn’t all that scary.
This is purely a speculative statement, but it’s one that seems to hold true. Around this time of year, cinemas typically run dry of prominent, anticipated films as theaters begin prepping for the inevitable summer blockbuster season. Many films released this time of year tend to fly largely under the radar as people are simply too busy looking ahead. Since people rarely pay attention to movies this time of year, the quality of these films typically takes a dip.
However, one of this year’s springtime snooze-fests sought to break free from this negative stigma and assert itself as a worthy entry into the horror genre. Unfriended, directed by Russian filmmaker Levan Gabriadze, broke out onto the scene last week following one of the most aggressive advertising campaigns in recent memory. Keeping true to its cyberspace setting, advertisements for the film were plastered over nearly every website and YouTube video for several months, each promising a chilling psychological thriller that audiences would never forget. Coupled with recognizable social media platforms and prevalent social issues, does Unfriended give audiences something worth seeing?
The basic plot of Unfriended doesn’t really have much more substance beyond what is seen in the advertisements. After unrelenting cyberbullying due to an embarrassing YouTube video, a teenage girl named Laura Barns commits suicide. A year later, a group of teenagers, including Laura’s one-time friend Blaire Lily (Shelly Hennig), find themselves being stalked by a number of online accounts that are traced back to Laura.
Initially believing these accounts to simply be some sort of elaborate prank, it soon becomes clear that something more supernatural is the source. The haunted account begins exposing the atrocities these teenagers committed, subjecting them to an onslaught of online abuse before finally executing them one by one. The group must find a way to salvage their own reputations as well as placate Laura’s vengeful ghost before it’s too late.
On paper the film sounds absolutely ridiculous. Haunted Skype accounts? That doesn’t exactly carry much fear on its own. However, it actually proves to be quite an interesting take on the horror genre, giving it a unique technological spin not typically found in these sorts of stories.
Unfriended is told in a found-footage style similar to films such as The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield. Unfriended sets itself apart from other found-footage style horror movies because the entire film is presented through a computer screen, often bouncing through YouTube videos, social media platforms and recorded Skype calls. This makes the film a bit more modern while simultaneously allowing it to connect with its central themes regarding cyberbullying. This approach is very intuitive and worthy of attention for its inclusion alone.
Unfortunately, while the style is inventive, its presentation falls a bit short. Through connecting every separate scene through various program tabs, websites and such, the film ironically begins to feel jarringly disconnected. For lack of a better comparison, it feels almost as though one is watching a series of YouTube videos about these characters rather than a movie itself.
While this may have been the effect Gabriadze had been looking for, it tears audiences away from the atmosphere of the film. Nothing is added through the medium beyond a feeling that the film is trying to be rather gimmicky.
And that’s really the biggest issue with the film: everything about it feels like a gimmick. The medium is a gimmick, and the jump scares which play entirely with Internet-connection issues and limited webcam-visibility are all products of the gimmick. Even the main protagonist’s name feels gimmicky — naming the protagonist Blaire in a film clearly inspired by The Blair Witch Project almost feels jocular.
The issue with these gimmicks is twofold. First, because of the style of the film, not a single “scary” scene in this film packs any sort of punch and feels instead like a cheap jumpscare at the end of a prank YouTube video. This is by no means helped by the complete lack of atmosphere in the film, preventing audiences from feeling any sort of tension or mystery in the moments leading up to the scares.
Second, the film adds nothing of substance to the film outside of its storytelling method. The characters are uninteresting one-note caricatures, the plot has been done before and it squanders an opportunity to tackle a real social issue.
The manner in which the film addresses cyberbullying is actually surprisingly intricate and interesting. Not only does Laura’s ghost by its very existence highlight just how awful the consequences of cyberbullying can be, but the pure malicious vengeance behind a victim of cyberbullying turning that exact fate upon the bullies should theoretically lend itself perfectly to the horror genre.
The film actually presents a cycle of cruelty that could have at once been frightening and also posits very important and relevant moral questions. Instead the film opts for cheap thrills in a gimmicky package.
Despite its aggressive marketing campaign, Unfriended has very little to offer for horror fans, and it fails to even offer a meaningful look at the horrors of real-life cyberbullying. While its ambitious approach and techniques deserve commendation, their implementation unfortunately only detracted from the quality of nearly every other aspect of the movie.
Overall rating: 2/5
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