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Seemingly filmed for the price of a used Dell desktop, Unfriended ingeniously reboots the tired, teen horror genre, employing a daunting menu of low-fi horror strategies to mimic common computer effects and make fear incarnate in an unclose-able browser window.
The film takes place almost entirely on the laptop screen of high-schooler Blaire as she coyly sexts her boyfriend Mitch and virtually hangs out with four frenemies. Their video chat soon gets an uninvited guest using the screen name of former, deceased classmate Laura. It's been precisely one year since Laura committed suicide after an anonymously-posted video leaked her drunken misadventures, and the new visitor claims to be back for revenge.
Explaining how the narrative unfolds would spoil the novelty of the movie's endless spins on the darkest aspects of our wired age. Let's just say Spotify playlists have never felt so delightfully macabre.
The first half is largely about just how worried anyone should be. Our culture is predisposed to discount anything shown online as a hoax, so the film does it's work building a creeping certainty genuine danger's afoot. Is this an elaborate prank? Some precisely-manufactured revenge dreamt up by Laura's loved ones? Or is there a ghost in the machine?
The plot line is nothing new, an evergreen chestnut dating back to the very beginnings of scary movies, but that's beside the point. The stock story and charactersâthe usual Bitch, Jock, Slut, Gamerâare kept purposefully familiar so director Leo Gabriadze and screenwriter Nelson Greaves have more room to pile on the horrifying trickery and play on our digital anxieties. They perfectly peg the compounded alienation of a frozen Skype image, the deadened universality of Chatroulette.
Directors have already experimented with evolving modes of communicationâlike the Pander Brothers in last summer's all-cell-message short SUBTEXTâbut none have so faithfully invoked the suspense inherent in words unsent.
The focus is on Blaire's cursor as she types and deletes and hovers nervously about what she truly means, giving us a glimpse into her hidden thoughts. This interiority is common in literature and famously lacking in films, but who knows whether the technique can survive beyond the unapologetic puzzle box of Unfriended. The film did find a damn effective way of hacking depth, so maybe you can teach an old media new tricks. JAY HORTON.
Critic's Grade: B
WWeek 2015