Movie Review - Unfriended

Unfriended (2015)

Starring Shelley Hennig, Moses Storm, Will Peltz, Renee Olstead, Jacob Wysocki, and Courtney Halverson

Directed by Leo Gabriadze

I'm not sure there's ever been an English language horror movie where so much reading has been required.  Unfriended gives us the admittedly unique atmosphere of watching the film unfold all from the desktop of teenage Blaire's computer.  All we see are the websites she's clicking on, the instant messages she's sending, the Facebook posts she's responding to, and the Skype conversations she's having.  It's a bit clever and, thanks to a short running time, doesn't really get old.  Unfriended wins on concept, but it loses a bit on story.

Blaire (Shelley Hennig) and her five friends happen to be chatting and Skype-ing one evening around 9:15pm when a mysterious unknown person joins their conversation pretending to be Laura Barns, a fellow high school student who committed suicide a year ago after a nasty, embarrassing YouTube video was posted of her at a party.  Attempts to try and get rid of this intruder fail and, as the group of friends continue to harass the stranger, the kids begin dying one by one.

There are several plot holes in this found footage film and there's my even bigger unanswered and never-even-broached question of "Seeing how this film takes place in real time and it starts at 9:15pm and ends around 10:30pm, why weren't any of the parents of these six kids Skype-ing at home hearing their teenage offspring screaming?"  Seriously, as these kids roam around their houses with their computers in their hands, where in the hell were the parents?  Still, Unfriended does manage to create a few moments of dread -- unfortunately, a consistently frightful atmosphere never really surfaces.  With a cast of relative unknowns shooting in essentially a one-take environment, Unfriended is unique in concept, but a bit too typical in its payoff.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-