Unfriended

I can see why Unfriended didn’t get the reviews it wanted or the money that it had hoped for at the box office last weekend; it’s because it has far too much technology in it. Everyone who reviewed it and everyone who actually has the money to go see movies on a regular basis are just now learning how to use Siri or their IPads from 2011. So how can we expect them to be responsive to a movie that has kids using Skype, Facebook, ITunes, Instant Messenger, and Google Mail all at the same time? Their heads probably exploded within the first 20 minutes of it as their idea of multitasking when they were kids consisted of masturbating while drinking Smirnoff Ice at the same time! Believe it or not, that’s actually a lot harder than it sounds, or so I’ve heard anyway.

I give Unfriended credit for actually trying something different in what has become a fairly stale horror genre. Everything you see and experience is through the eyes of an online video chat between six teenagers, and their conversation just so happens to take place on the anniversary of the suicide of a fellow classmate of theirs in Laura. At first their conversations start off simple enough as you see Blair and Mitch flirting with one another and talking about finally having sex on prom night but then as their friends join the online group, they all notice that there is someone who has joined that they didn’t invite. And despite numerous attempts to remove this person, they can’t.

This mysterious person eventually starts talking and lets them know that they all deserve to pay for what happened to Laura. Laura committed suicide because someone posted a video online of her doing something unbelievably embarrassing, and kids being kids, they all suggested that she should kill herself after they saw what happened on the video. The problem this mysterious person has is that no one ever owned up to posting the video and they feel as though they should suffer the consequences of doing so.

So you are taken through a number of weird games that this person, who is operating under the identity of the deceased Laura, takes them through; and each game could end up in someone’s death. Now I know what you’re thinking and that’s that it’s hard to scare the viewer by showing death scenes from the eye of a webcam but believe it or not, it actually works.

I never jumped out of my seat or anything but with clever use of these cameras the director was able to create suspense with each non responsive character or the freezing of a frame followed by a severed hand or a gun shot.  By the film’s end, you notice that almost every character involved has some amount of dirt on them and it took this random act of horror to reveal it.

The true horror however lies in looking at each actor’s IMDB page and realizing just how old they actually are. I swear the guy that plays the beautiful Blaire’s boyfriend is pushing 40 in real life when he’s supposed to be a 17 year old in the film. Thankfully the makeup artist does an awesome job of making them all look like they are dangerously young (dangerous for old people to be commenting on how hot they are), so you don’t really notice the fact that you’re looking at future Ian Zierings (90210).

I rate this movie as KIND OF FRESH?!?! Barely! At the very least it’s worth a watch at home when it’s available on pay-per-view.