Proof that movies need not be cinematic to be potent, Unfriended contains basically one set: the desktop of teenager Blaire (Shelley Hennig). We find her online revisiting the suicide of her friend Laura Barns on the anniversary of her death. A flirtatious Skype session with Blaire’s boyfriend Mitch (Moses Storm) ensues until it is interrupted by three of their mutual friends barging in on their conversation.
Then they notice there’s someone else present on the chat. Who’s the nameless, faceless intruder who communicates exclusively in typed messages, they wonder? They first assume it’s a glitch and then a hacker until Blaire starts receiving messages from Laura’s Facebook page. When Ken (Jacob Wysockyi) summons security software to put an end to the shenanigans, things get a lot spookier. Throughout, things like the absence of an “Unfriend” option on a pull-down menu or a Gmail with no “forward” command provide beaucoup thrills.
Once the groups’ secrets emerge during a clever and suspenseful game devised by the increasingly ominous “Laura,” Unfriended
holds up an effective facade of the evils of cyberbullying. Posting an embarrassing video of a friend on YouTube can come back to bite you in the ass.
But beneath this fairly obvious message lies a rather sly critique of a more unique dilemma.
Digital technology has become a catalyst for peer pressure of heretofore unimagined levels of shame and confusion. Director Levan Gabriadze and screenwriter Nelson Greaves are highlighting modern technology’s ability to fester mistrust among friends while simultaneously enabling the very worst aspects of the kids’ personalities. Watching the group reveal and then violently react to secrets about each other above and beyond those pertaining to Laura at first seems like a mere over-the-top shriek-fest. Then it chillingly and fascinatingly becomes evident this horrific havoc wrought by a simple ghost trying to get her revenge jollies takes on a terror exclusive to a new age….Click.