UNFRIENDED. (2014) DIRECTED BY LEO GABRIADZE. STARRING SHELLEY HENNIG, MOSES JACOB STORM, RENEE OLSTEAD, WILL PELTZ, JACOB WYSOCKI, COURTNEY HALVERSON AND HEATHER SOSSAMAN.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
'Online, your memories last forever. But so do your mistakes...'
Well, this found-footage supernatural horror film is certainly a film for the modern age. It takes place entirely on an American high school student's computer screen and the whole film is just, like, a bunch of teenagers interacting on their computers with each other.
So, in other words, if you're waiting for them to log the f**k off and start doing stuff in the real world, you can, like, totally fuhgeddaboudit. It never happens, as I discovered when I watched the film recently with a friend. I drove her mad wailing 'When is the movie gonna start?' all the way through the film, haha, even long after the point when it was obvious that it already had. I'm such a kidder, me...!
Anyway, the story is roughly as follows. Laura Barns is a high school bully who commits suicide after one of those horrible 'shaming' videos is posted about her online. On the anniversary of her death, a bunch of seriously weird stuff starts happening on the computers of the guilty parties.
Could the ghost of Laura possibly have returned to wreak a terrible cyber-revenge on the skanks, sneaks, jocks and jackasses who caused her to kill herself? Ah, come on, you guys, you know it's Laura, haha. There was just no way to get around that without spoilers. The real point of the thing is how she does it.
The mysterious 'Billie 227' turns up in a group chat amongst the teens on Skype and begins to terrorise them with threats and taunts and the little-by-little public revelation of all their nasty horrible little secrets. And, boy, do this grimy group ever have some nasty secrets...
The group of three guys and three gals have all apparently slept with each other while cheating on the others, and the worst of 'em all has apparently even date-raped a girl he roofied and then forced her to get an abortion when it turned out that the rape left her pregnant. What a nice guy, eh? He deserves the prize for the biggest douchebag in the film, anyway.
In fact, they're all so morally suspect that I wasn't exactly weeping buckets when the ghost in the machine starts bumping 'em off one by one in surprisingly innovative and imaginative ways. What's more interesting is the question of what teens in this kind of cyber-bullying situation should do.
Shouldn't they log off immediately and tell their parents or some other authority figure that they're being threatened? Then maybe they should give the old online stuff a break for a bit. I would say yes, but of course all that stuff's easier said than done. Online can be exceedingly addictive. I myself would not be able to give up my Facebook friends. I just couldn't, I love 'em too much.
And the kids in this film do all the wrong things in a cyber-bullying situation. Crying 'Who are you, and why are you doing this to us? What did we ever do to you?' isn't going to fix that bully. The kids give in to their spectral cyber-bully every step of the way, which is why bullies so often gain the upper hand. Because they're allowed to, see?
It's shockingly easy, in fact, for this bully to get the teens to jump through hoops and play her stupid 'Never Have I Ever' game in which all their murky little secrets are laid bare for the others to shriek and bitch about. I don't have any answers to the cyber-bullying question myself, but if the film opened up a debate about it back when it was released, then that could only be a good thing.
The film is one million percent accurate as to the workings of 'online' and what teens do when they're there. My mate and I laughed our heads off at the wholly accurate presence in it of the stupid Facebook ads and other annoying extras that drive us nuts when we're Facebooking.
The next time she went on her own Facebook, I freaked her out big-time by pointing at one of the green dots in her 'CHAT' area and shrieking 'Who the fuck is Billie 227?' I believe she actually set a new record for the high-jump. Heh-heh-heh.
Anyway, it's a good film and worth at least one watch but be warned. You'll almost certainly be annoyed at some point in the proceedings, whether it's by the monumental stupidity of the teens themselves or the constant presence on your screen of 'online.' Just take the whole thing at face-value and you'll be fine. I swear...
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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