If you’ve not heard of Blumhouse Productions the chances are you’ve seen one of their horror films in the past few years. Paranormal Activity, Insidious and the anarchic The Purge to name but a few. Their latest offering is one particularly fitting for its US premiere, at the SXSW 2015 festival, a place where film and the interactive side of technology converge.
The entire story of Unfriended unfolds on the single computer screen of Blaire (Shelly Hennig) who hosts a group chat over Skype with a number of friends on the one year anniversary of the suicide of their friend Laura Barnes, who killed herself after someone uploaded an embarrassing video of her onto the internet. The group soon becomes aware of an unknown profile being part of the chat and each of them start receiving messages on Facebook from Laura’s inactive account. Secrets are revealed, friends turn on each other, and the supernatural presence starts to exert an even more powerful level of control over the group.
While many of these teen-horror films of late feel homogenous and unoriginal, Unfriended actually has a clever concept that is well executed and benefits the story. Akin to a tech-embracing version of I Know What You Did Last Summer, the film highlights the perils of the digital age and the disconnect we have in the online world. As things unravel the real consequences a comment can have on a persons life are made clear, even if it does bring in the supernatural element. The ease of sharing information and truths over digital media hit home for each of the group, eventually pitting them against each other. It descends into something reminiscent of Lord of the Flies, just in a haunted Skype chatroom.
The approach is a little jarring at first but as the film progresses you can’t help but admire how skillfully it is handled by director Levan Gabriadze, not to mention that an approach this novel sustains the length of the film.
If the idea of a film entirely within a computer screen sounds familiar it is possible you saw last year’s Open Windows from Nacho Vigalondo, a somewhat convoluted affair. The reason Open Windows failed was down to its attempts to be expansive within such a restrictive concept. Unfriended not only keeps these teens within the confines of their rooms but uses the setup to effectively ramp up the sense of tension and claustrophobia.
While Open Windows felt disjointed, albeit intentionally in parts, Unfriended is anything but and this may stem from the impressive fact that the film was shot in one take, the cast using scripts on their screens and earpieces for assistance. Also, this is not some slick high tech affair, it shows a realistic depiction of how people, teens notably, use the internet to interact, “lols”, message deletions, hesitations to send and all. Glitches in the feed, video chats freezing are all effectively used to help add scares and tension. There is also a vein of dark humor running through the film that primarily manifests through musical selections. Really nicely done.
The film is also very deft at building up tension, aided by a cast of young actors who seem to have a genuine camaraderie, notably Shelly Hennig who is startlingly convincing as a young teen despite being 28. The little bit of humor and natural banter/bickering between them draws you into this circle of friends before the mysterious figure starts to turn them against each other.
In spite of this, most of the scares come from bangs or sudden movements of the camera, which is a shame as the film builds enough tension to be able to do something a little more. The multiple screen setup splits viewers’ attention and thus offers the perfect device to drop in something in the corner of your eye. Unfriended is also somewhat clunky in the way it introduces the idea of “messages from dead people”, the consequences and the fallout and the “rules” of such matters.
TV is replete with adverts about the dangers of being online these days. Unfriended will do nothing to help matters, doing for digital media what Ringu once did for the humble VHS tape. It is a film that will certainly resonate with much of the teen market at which it is aimed and while it resorts to tried and true tactics for much of its scares it is a clever and well executed concept married to a number of genuine performances and stands well above most films released in the teen horror market these days.