Step into the world of Unfriended. A place of horror, cyber bullying and annoying screaming teenagers. While I’m sure that sounds like familiar criteria within the horror community, Unfriended aims to differ itself from other films by adding a unique spin to the genre. It takes ideas from found footage films and mixes them with social media. A ploy to thin the line between reality and fiction. Shot entirely like a Skype video call this film brings to mainstream media new ways of scaring the living hell out of you. I know what you’re thinking, “That sounds pretty damn great,” and It would have been, if the film used any of that to it’s advantage. Instead it plays it safe by using recycled techniques of crappy modern horror and silly jump scares.

The film follows a group of teenagers who during a skype call are hacked by an unknown person. The figure then begins to terrorize them by posting embarrassing photos and revealing dark secrets within the group. What they believe to be a cruel joke quickly turns into a battle for their life. One by one the students begin to die and the figure becomes far more than they could have ever imagined.

I will admit the film was better than I originally thought it would be. After the first trailer was released I swore that it would be a giant steaming pile of shit. To my surprise it was actually okay. I won’t go as far as to say it was good, but it was an entertaining and fun watch. The film was engaging enough to entrap you into it’s plot, but it never elaborated past that first glance interest. The film played with the idea of being shot through webcam and made it apparent. Throughout the film you are seeing the main characters desktop. We watch as she switches between skype and google, playing music and wondering off – The normal things one would do on their computer. Which is actually really boring. There are too many moments where the film goes quite and we are watching a text chat between two characters or her searching for a song to play that are way too long. The first few times that this happened was interesting. It allowed for the film to be connected to our own reality, but by the end it began to burn out and become more of annoyance rather than something that helped the film.

The acting was okay. It was nothing special. In all honesty, this film felt like an MTV movie made by teenagers for teenagers. Now, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing it has been done well before, but in this case it was another film with annoying, stereotypical and good looking teenagers who never shut up. There was no character development or anything at all that help you care for any of them, other than the occasional spouts of anger among the group that revealed some dark secret about each of them. In fact, throughout the films entirety you begin to hate these characters and root for their deaths. They’re annoying and terrible people.

Going in I thought this film would at least be gory or full of blood — I was wrong. There were several deaths, but all of them happened off screen or were just implied then followed by screaming teenagers. These had no effect all. This is one the many moments where the cameras style hindered the effectiveness of the film. Aside from the kid setting his hand in a blender and turning it on. That was pretty cool.

One thing Unfriended did right was it served as great example of cyber-bullying. It took an extreme route with the subject, but its effect was still just as strong as the accounts we face on a day-to-day basis. It showed just how horrible people can be behind their screens. It shows how much power we truly hold and how much it affects others. While the film itself was something I cared nothing for, its theme shined through and added its little success.

Even with Unfriended bringing something new to the screen and touching on cyber-bullying in a successful way there wasn’t enough to keep you satisfied after leaving the theater. Like the Paranormal Activity franchise, I do believe Unfriended will allow more films of the same style to be created and during that storm we may get some good things out of it. Thank you, Laura Barns and friends. With that said this film is still something that can be skipped. You might have more fun sticking your hand into a blender than paying to see this.

Unfriended - poster