MOVIE OF THE WEEK (4/17/15): UNFRIENDED
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| "Dude, I can't even imagine going back to Friendster!" Val (Courtney Halverson), Ken (Jacob Wysocki), Jess (Renee Olstead), Blaire (Shelley Hennig), Mitch (Moses Storm) and Adam (Will Peltz) share a Skype session with an unknown "friend" in a scene from Levan Gabriadze's modern technology thriller UNFRIENDED. Credit: © Universal Pictures. All Rights Reserved. |
WATCH THE TRAILER(S) HERE:
KEY CAST MEMBERS: Shelley Hennig, Moses Jacob Storm, Renee Olstead, Will Peltz, Jacob Wysocki, Courtney Halverson and Heather Sossaman
WRITER(S): Nelson Greaves
DIRECTOR(S): Levan Gabriadze
WEB SITE: http://www.unfriendedmovie.com/
60 SECOND PLOT SUMMARY (OR AS CLOSE TO THAT TIME AS ONE CAN MAKE IT): A year ago, Laura Barns (Heather Sossaman) killed herself after an embarrassing video of her posted to YouTube made her the target of cyberbullying. Now, her memory lives on in cyberspace ...
Fast forward to the present and Blair (Shelley Henning), Laura's former best friend is online chatting via Skype with her boyfriend Mitch (Moses Storm) planning their prom (and subsequent afterparty). All is going well until a group of their friends – Ken (Jacob Wysocki), Jess (Renee Olstead) and Adam (Will Peltz) – interrupt their fun. But there's something wrong – really wrong – with the connection, or at least they all think so ... Because there's an unknown person with no profile picture on the call with them. And no matter what they try, they can't get them off the call.
That's when something really strange happens: Mitch and Blair get emails and Facebook messages from the last person they ever thought they'd hear from ever again.
That person would be Laura Barns – and as they learn, sometimes logging off is a lot harder than you think.
WHO WILL LIKE THIS FILM THE MOST? Teenagers; old school horror movie fans (think tension, not blood and cuts); people who like movies that are fun despite being pretty predictable
WHO WON’T (OR SHOULDN'T) LIKE THIS MOVIE? Teenagers (they're a fickle bunch); people who can't stand movies where the teenage characters are well, too young acting for their own good; anyone who wants a gorier moviegoing experience
SO, IS IT GOOD, BAD OR ABSOLUTELY AWFUL? Unfriended is one of those movies you'll find yourself enjoying because of all the things it does well that make up for all of the things that it doesn't.
Unfriended is perfect in encapsulating the way many of today's teens talk/live, the technology that is enabled an entirely new set of problems that really didn't exist as recently as 20 years ago and how a slow build of tension can always make for an entertaining movie. Unfriended doesn't attempt to reinvent the wheel by showing just how invasive and damaging modern technology can be as much as show just how awful people can be when it comes to using it for nefarious purposes.
While that – how is this dead girl talking to people from beyond the grave and why? – may be the thing to originally hook you into seeing Unfriended, the thing that helps keep you interested is watching the cast (who does a sneaky good job for what their roles are) crack under the pressure as all the twists and turns take place. You can feel the animosity, the fear and the characters' breaking points as the story unfolds, which makes for fun even when you know what's going to happen before they do. To say much more than that will kind of ruin the slow build to the film's climax.
If nothing else, it'll make you think twice before you go post a mean comment on someone already embarrassing his or her self on the Internet posting/discussing an online movie clip ... Hint, HINT!
Unfriended is perfect in encapsulating the way many of today's teens talk/live, the technology that is enabled an entirely new set of problems that really didn't exist as recently as 20 years ago and how a slow build of tension can always make for an entertaining movie. Unfriended doesn't attempt to reinvent the wheel by showing just how invasive and damaging modern technology can be as much as show just how awful people can be when it comes to using it for nefarious purposes.
While that – how is this dead girl talking to people from beyond the grave and why? – may be the thing to originally hook you into seeing Unfriended, the thing that helps keep you interested is watching the cast (who does a sneaky good job for what their roles are) crack under the pressure as all the twists and turns take place. You can feel the animosity, the fear and the characters' breaking points as the story unfolds, which makes for fun even when you know what's going to happen before they do. To say much more than that will kind of ruin the slow build to the film's climax.
If nothing else, it'll make you think twice before you go post a mean comment on someone already embarrassing his or her self on the Internet posting/discussing an online movie clip ... Hint, HINT!
OVERALL RATING (OUT OF FOUR POSSIBLE BUCKETS OF POPCORN):
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