Sunday, May 10, 2015

Unfriended

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DIRECTOR:  Leo Gabriadze  LEAD CAST: Shelley Hennig, Moses Storm, Heather Sossaman, Renee Olstead, Will     Peltz, Jacob Wysocki and Courtney Halverson  STORY: Nelson Greaves  PRODUCERS: Mr. Greaves and Timur Bekmambetov  PRODUCTION DESIGN: Heidi Koleto  FILM EDITORS: Parker Laramie and Andrew Wesman COSTUMES: Veronika Belenikina  GENRE: Horror, Fantasy  CINEMATOGRAPHY: Adam Sidman  PRODUCTION COMPANIES: Bazelevs Company, Blumhouse Productions  DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures  LANGUAGE: English  LOCATION:   United States RUNNING TIME:  85 mins.

Technical Assessment: 3.5
Moral Assessment: 2.5
CINEMA Rating: R18
            Blaire (Shelley Hennig) and her friends are chatting on Skype when they all start to receive messages from an inactive account of a common friend, Laura Barns, who had committed suicide a year ago after her humiliating video was posted on the Internet. They think at first that they are being hacked. But things start to get violent and they are all forced to admit their dirty little secrets leading towards the truth as to why Laura killed herself. Now they know and are convinced that they are all in trouble. Will they be able to escape the ghost of their past?
            The film makes full use of the latest communication technology to give a new look and perspective to a rather worn-out horror premise. The film succeeds in this aspect as it was able to keep the audiences glued on their seats. The film’s highlights that mostly happen on the computer screen are able to capture audience’s interest. Unfriended uses realism as a technique and is very effective at delivering such, which is a challenge given the film’s rather unrealistic premise. The characters are all effective at being both unlikeable and pathetic—making them appear as real human beings, flawed, weak, committing mistakes without being intentionally evil. Plot wise, the film has little to offer but presentation wise, it is able to deliver.
            Unfriended is a statement on the irresponsible use of social media. The film clearly states that although the media is powerful in shaping perception and influencing beliefs, the humans who use it still remain supreme. It is the users who create content who should be held liable for whatever outcome media content may bring. In the case of Unfriended—that centers on the suicide of Laura Barns—it is not the media that killed her, but the irresponsible people behind the video uploading. Hers is another case of cyberbullying and the horrors that go with it.  Although the film goes overboard in making the victim so vindictive, it may have been done intentionally to create a greater impact on its message—and there goes the irony as a communication media: the film makes a critique of another  medium, the internet, thereby contradicting itself by being as dangerous for audiences to watch.  Clearly computers are used here by evil forces making revenge possible, and how!  This is the reason why CINEMA deems the film as appropriate only to audiences age 18 and above. There is so much cursing, sex, drugs, and violence in the film, although done in context, that may not be suitable to young audience’s impressionable minds.