"Unfriended" Review

Unfriended is the best remake of Paranormal Activity 4 we could have reasonably expected. 

The movie is a classic case of a decent idea gone wrong, an experiment whose execution leaves it a repackaged iteration of Feardotcom blended with the aforementioned Paranormal sequel (and not even #2). Crammed with stereotypes and desperately marketed (the trailer's preceded almost every video I've watched in the past two months), this is a lousy attempt by Universal to scrounge up whatever amount of money is available in the two weeks preceding Avengers: Age of Ultron.

After an embarrassing video is posted online, Laura Burns (Heather Sossaman) commits suicide, driven by the flood of comments telling her, "kill urself." On the anniversary of her death, a group of friends: Blaire, Mitch, Adam, Jess, Val, and Ken are chatting it up on Skype when someone going by Laura's username, "billie227", enters their conversation. Initially skeptical, the group tries to ignore it, but its supernatural presence plagues the teens, demanding they stay online or suffer death. 

The fear of being watched and obsession with watching others have been presented in films for decades, from Rear Window and Blue Velvet to Disturbia and last year's Nightcrawler.  In an age where we spend increasingly more time online every year, our identities aren't only exposed to our local communities, but the world; so for the "selfie" generation, a concept like Unfriended's makes sense. The movie all takes place on Blaire's (Shelley Hennig, Teen Wolf) laptop; we see her Skype interactions with the group, private messages on Facebook, search for info on Google. The digital setting offers opportunities for tension: a banner ad on a forum says "see who's following you;" "billie227" will answer Blaire's question before she sends it; menu options (often "delete") will suddenly disappear. Subtle moments like these help ramp up the weird.

However, for whatever tension and subtlety is there, Unfriended is 82 minutes of watching someone else on a computer screen. Throw in seemingly ceaseless scenes of teens screaming over each other about cheating, weed, and exes (when death is on the line), and the film grows near-insufferable. None of these characters leave an impact (except, ironically, Jess, for whom the number of pouts exceeds lines of dialogue; this makes me giggle), all stereotypical fodder for poorly-edited deaths. The latter half offers some chuckles; but by that point, I've already checked out.

What angers me, really, is the film's attempt to be some cautionary tale against cyber-bullying. Its characters are ripped straight from after-school specials, written so shallowly one can't relate to any of them. There's no emotional connection able to be made, so why would we care what happens to these people? When the film has an opportunity to hammer in the weight and damage such behavior can have, not only on the victim, but on the person responsible, it doesn't have the backbone to stand by its decision. Instead, it options for a cheap startle. Don't address this problem, one that has taken real lives, and dare treat it trivially. Show some respect for the dead.   

Unfriended is a cash grab. It fails at being a horror film. It fails in its morals. If you want a pulse-pounding, socially conscious thrill ride, go see It Follows; it's a better use of your time and money. Thank you all for reading; I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.