"Unfriended" is a low-budget horror movie uniquely tailored to the early 21st Century (it certainly couldn't have been made, say, twenty years ago).
The film takes place entirely on a teenage girl 's computer screen, as she (Heather Sossaman) and four of her cyber-linked friends (Moses Jacob Storm, Renee Olstead, Jacob Wysocki, Will Peltz) are terrorized by a mysterious sixth presence that has mysteriously joined them in their cyber chat and who may well be the avenging spirit of a classmate who recently committed suicide as a result of cyber bullying.
Since the camera never once wavers from the computer screen, the possibilities for storytelling become a bit limited, and there are probably audience members who will become restless and claustrophobic over the course of the movie's ninety-minute running time. But I found the style not only novel and intriguing, but pretty darn mesmerizing at times. And let's face it: the teen-horror genre has become so repetitive and predictable of late that any attempt at doing something different comes as a welcome relief (and at least it's not another one of those damn "found-footage" films).
Partly due to the self-imposed restrictions of the format itself, "Unfriended" isn't quite as scary as it might have been were it given a freer, more conventional treatment. But the gimmick is more than just a gimmick, and the movie earns points not only for boldness and originality but for fashioning a clever nightmare scenario around a technology that has become all but ubiquitous in modern life.
All in all, "Unfriended" is a high wire act that mostly succeeds in avoiding a fall.
The film takes place entirely on a teenage girl 's computer screen, as she (Heather Sossaman) and four of her cyber-linked friends (Moses Jacob Storm, Renee Olstead, Jacob Wysocki, Will Peltz) are terrorized by a mysterious sixth presence that has mysteriously joined them in their cyber chat and who may well be the avenging spirit of a classmate who recently committed suicide as a result of cyber bullying.
Since the camera never once wavers from the computer screen, the possibilities for storytelling become a bit limited, and there are probably audience members who will become restless and claustrophobic over the course of the movie's ninety-minute running time. But I found the style not only novel and intriguing, but pretty darn mesmerizing at times. And let's face it: the teen-horror genre has become so repetitive and predictable of late that any attempt at doing something different comes as a welcome relief (and at least it's not another one of those damn "found-footage" films).
Partly due to the self-imposed restrictions of the format itself, "Unfriended" isn't quite as scary as it might have been were it given a freer, more conventional treatment. But the gimmick is more than just a gimmick, and the movie earns points not only for boldness and originality but for fashioning a clever nightmare scenario around a technology that has become all but ubiquitous in modern life.
All in all, "Unfriended" is a high wire act that mostly succeeds in avoiding a fall.