Take a piece of everyday technology and turn it into an object of uncommon terror and you’ll have the chilling cyber nightmare “Unfriended.”
The story follows a group of high school teenagers haunted by the spirit of their dead friend Laura on the one-year anniversary of her tragic suicide. One-by-one, each friend is stripped of his or her secrets and lies as the spirit maliciously attacks each with gruesome deaths. Here’s the catch, though: this all takes place online, visualized through her friend Blaire’s desktop.
The storytelling is an incredible combination of Skype video/chat, Facebook posts/messages, Google searches and search histories, YouTube videos, memes and webpages. Even Blaire’s cursor movements help to tell the story. The intricacy is refreshing and effective.
“Unfriended” follows a familiar formula. From the awkward cyber-sex that opens the film to the one-by-one jarring deaths, it’s a classic set-up, and it works surprisingly well.
What makes this film successful and quite enjoyable is its foundation in real fear. Like all great horror, “Unfriended” accesses the zeitgeist of a generation, tapping into our subconscious and conscious terrors: loss of privacy, incriminating or embarrassing content existing forever online, secrets broadcast to the world in a second, only to define us for the rest of our lives.
The film portrays not only the fear of external forces but also our inner-most fears: those secret wrongdoings we hope to hide from the world, terrible things we do when we believe we are anonymous. Like all beloved scary stories, “Unfriended” exists to teach a valuable lesson.
Writer Nelson Greaves creates one of the more competent techno-horror thrillers. The reason to see it — and the reason some probably won’t — is the fact that it all happens in real-time on the laptop screen. We never see any of the characters, except when they’re visible in a Skype window, and there are long stretches without any spoken dialogue because Blaire is busy typing.
The film’s vision of the Internet is generally very convincing; all of the programs, apps and websites (Google Chrome, Skype and YouTube) are real, and director Levan Gabriadze litters the screen with small but smart details, paying attention to everything from the other tabs in Blaire’s web browser (Forever 21, Jezebel) to the way typos get shifted by the autocorrect function.
Because we’re voyeuristically intruding on Blaire’s private screen, we have access to her thoughts as they’re formed; she might type “He didn’t do it, I promise,” and then hesitate and cut the “I promise” part — or delete the whole thing and send an entirely different text message. Naysayers will say this is irritating and a gimmick, but it’s a novel and persuasive one.
The so-called “gimmick” of watching only a computer does not wear off. The windows shift around at a quick-enough pace to promote changing settings, like you’re reaching a new scene. If you have poor eyesight, I suggest you sit in the front row or bring your glasses because you will be doing a lot of reading. You’re always darting around the desktop looking for possible clues, and societal behaviors become moments of tension.
As the movie unravels, it gets creepy, comical and just plain weird, as the chilly atmosphere gives way to silly histrionics and gore effects. The initial moments are scary because they seem genuine, a quality lacking in other scenes.
The only thing that holds back “Unfriended” is the limited nature of its scares, brought on by the hellish scenario of fuzzy Internet connections. The Skype connection is constantly breaking up, which at first is annoying but quickly becomes unnerving. The video chat contorts human faces into unrecognizable, inhuman shapes.
The jumps are pretty generic, and they only come when video feeds cut away, which is what we’re expecting. The microphone picks up loud noises at the most inopportune moments to provide some extra jolts, but it’s nothing that techno-horror flicks haven’t pulled on us before. Don’t worry though, there’s a saving grace: the kills.
You remember the drinking game “Never Have I Ever,” right? Well, what if instead of drinking a beer when you lose, you get a bullet to the head? “Unfriended” finds new and creative ways to kill off its whiny, spooked victims (who are funny, entertaining stereotypes), and even though the action is only caught in a chatroom frame, each payoff is pretty brutal in the most gratifying of ways — like, let’s stick your hand in a blender or force a flaming hot straightener down your throat.
“Unfriended” is a 21st century nightmare; someone can post hurtful pictures, videos, text messages and more on social media venues without your permission. What’s worse is you’re at the mercy of the Internet, something so vast it could never be contained — unless it’s in a paranormal haunting by a vengeful ex-classmate.
For such a manipulative genre to survive, filmmakers have to adapt to the times and find horror in the ways people are living today, and that’s exactly what “Unfriended” does. It’s a smart, thrilling and addicting “byte” of horror that’s worth thinking about. It’ll be a while before your mind hits CTRL + ALT + DEL on this one.
“Unfriended” comes out in theaters April 17.
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