Movie Review: Unfriended

I went to go see Unfriended this past weekend, and I have to say that it was really interesting. I was very intrigued by the concept: the entire movie (except for like three seconds) is on a laptop screen. Just one laptop screen. A MacBook, actually. Set in real time (you can see the clock on the upper right hand corner of the screen), the story unfolds over Facebook, Skype, IM, YouTube, Chrome, Spotify-- all internet and social media-based forms of interaction that people (especially teenagers) use to communicate on a daily basis. 

Unfriended takes several overdone horror tropes: the vengeful ghost, the teen slasher where characters are killed off one by one, the sins of the past come back to haunt the characters, and found footage; and it presents these clichés in a new format. Even though you know people are going to die -- it's a horror movie, duh! -- there's still so much suspense in just seeing "..." on screen, so much suspense in wanting to find out just what will happen next. When a Skype video freezes and you can't see clearly what's going on, you just know something bad is going to happen. 

The movie makes good use of gore discretion shots, too. Even though people die in very bloody and violent ways, the webcam's cutting in and out reduces the amount of gore being seen, which makes it more terrifying than an in-your-face gross-out the way some horror movies *cough* Saw sequels *cough* rely on. 

The primary message of Unfriended is about cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is very real and very painful and dangerous. People hide behind the mask of anonymity the internet offers and say terrible things. I remember more than a year ago there was this post on Tumblr. I can't find it anymore, but it was a gif to promote awareness about how negative comments, online threats, and cyber bullying can lead people to commit suicide. The original post said to reblog to raise awardees on this issue, and added comments emphasized how important reblogging this message was. Then the comments degenerated to things along the lines of "Reblog this you piece of shit!" and "If u don't reblog this I'll fucking kill you!" thereby essentially becoming what the post warned against. Cyber bullying exists, and we need to be taking more of a stand against it. 

Additionally, I'd like to give a big shout out to actress Shelley Hennig. She's the one who plays Malia on Teen Wolf, and in Unfriended she does an excellent subversion of the Final Girl horror convention. As Blair (whose laptop we are viewing), she might pretend to be a pure, innocent, good little virgin, like the typical Final Girl, but the truth comes to light. It hit me a day later what the Facebook message "I GOT HER I GOT HER I GOT HER" that Blair receives was actually referring to, and ugh, that still gives me shivers. 😰

One final little detail that I loved: on Blair's browsing history and tabs we see pages on Teen Wolf. Awesome little Easter egg there. 

Have you seen Unfriended? What did you think of it? Do you think it'll be even better to stream on a laptop than it was in theaters? Let me know your opinion in the comments, or tweet me @ak_gossipghoul!

XOXO

Gossip Ghoul