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.
