I stumbled across this film late at night on the HBO network and since I didn’t have anything else to do because I was in a hotel room on a work trip I decided to watch it. I wasn’t sure what to expect because I wasn’t really paying attention to what it was about when it was in the theaters. So I start to watch the movie and as it goes I begin to think things like ok…huh…that’s different…well…sure I guess that works like that. The vantage point of this film is fascinating and at the same time agonizing and it wasn’t all that scary but I will give it an A for some originality but it’s not really very good.
Unfriended is a story about a young woman named Blaire , played by Shelly Hennig (Ouija,) and her four friends that are either online through Skype or summoned online on the one year anniversary of the suicide of their friend Laura, who is played in YouTube video by Heather Sossaman (Bunch of TV Guest appearances.) Laura committed suicide after a video of her surfaces on YouTube called “Laura Barnes kill yourself,” that showed Laura at a party and losing control of her bodily functions while passed out drunk. The five friends discover that a mysterious person has summoned them all online using Laura’s old Skype account and things begin to turn sinister as the person uses the account forces the five to answer questions online or be murdered.
The reason why I feel this movie is original and fascinating as well as agonizing and at some points aggravating is that the entire movie is shot in the first person as if you were Blaire sitting in front of your computer monitor on Skype and every other social media outlet. At no point does the film pan out or show wide shots or anything else. You are witness drama, death, and mayhem all as if you are skyping with your friends. I thought this was an interesting idea for a horror film or any film really and it sort of works in that it does really look like you are on skype the entire time. So kudos for making a unique film and making it work. This film reminds me of the film The Blair Witch Project in that it is really the first film that was shot in a “found footage,” hand held camera style. To my knowledge this the first major film shot like this.
However, because the film was shot like this the beginning of the film was incredibly boring. I would say that the beginning would be ok since we get to see Blaire and her boyfriend Mitch, played by Moses Storm (more TV guest appearances,) almost have online sex which would be cool except Blaire looks like she is 16 and that’s just creepy for anyone over 18 to be into that, it wasn’t ok. Anyway, the build up to the “scary” stuff is slow with a bunch of kids trying to figure out who is using Laura’s Skype and who is emailing them in Laura’s email etc., etc. The build is slow because we are staring at a computer monitor for 30+ minutes. It doesn’t become mildly interesting until another kid, who was invited after the chat started, ends up dead and the kids get freaked out. Up to that point the movie goes from fascinating to boring really quickly.
I also question the character development for the film in that there is no one to root for out of any of the characters except for Laura’s unseen ghost. All five of these friends of Laura are the main cause or had a hand in posting the video of her at the party which caused her to commit suicide. I can’t remember but one of them may even be responsible for the video of her suicide being online. The most exciting part of the film is when the ghost is making them all play the game “Never have I ever” and here you find out that all of them are basically fucking each other over figuratively and literally. We even discover through this game and other things that our sweet Blaire not only cheated on Mitch with his best friend Adam, played by Will Peltz (Paranoia,) Twice, but she was heavily involved in the YouTube video of Laura. And she is a child hood friend of her. All of these people disserve their comeuppance. So how good can a movie be when you are cheering on the ghost? I mean sure some of us cheer on Freddy, or Jason, or Michael Myers, but there is history and their victims of over the top stupidity. These five kids are just mean, and cruel. I suppose that is the point of the film, don’t bully or the ghost of the bullied person may come back to not only haunt you but possess you and kill you in a way will make it look like suicide, but the delivery was not there for me.
As I sum up I will say that the film stars a whole bunch of young actors and actresses that are either in small films, have guest appearances on regular TV shows, or daytime Soap Opera, and its cool that they all got to star in a major motion picture. And maybe that is the reason why you should watch the film because we know that Kevin Bacon and Jennifer Aniston got their starts in horror films so why not one or two of these kids get their large career started with this film. It’s not horrible and the view point is original but it is weak on the delivery.
The official BBMC Blog for Brian "The Naked Gun" Felts 