Unfriended (2015)

"Online, your memories live forever... 

but so do your mistakes."

That's it... my faith in modern horror has officially been destroyed.

After their Skype session is hacked into, a group of friends are haunted by their dead friend's online account.

Do I even have to do a review after reading the premise of the film?

Okay, let's make this quick.

'Unfriended' was a horror that I had no interest in seeing, however, after some surprisingly good reviews, I thought I'd give it the benefit of the doubt.

This film is a mistake. Pure and simple. 

'Unfriended' is based around the suicide of Laura Barns, a high school girl who was cyber bullied in school and took her own life as a result. On the anniversary of her death, this clichéd group of misfit friends are Skyping when a mysterious account, claiming to be the dead Laura Barns, begins to hassle and threaten them.

The film explores a new way of telling a story as the entire film is set on the desktop of Blaire Lily, a young virgin (who promises that she'll go all the way on prom)... 

Not only do we have the virgin but we have the jock, the slut, the stoner and the boyfriend...

That's literally the list of characters. 

Not even in an ironic kind of way.

What really bothered me about the style of the narrative was it's inconsistency and it's use of convenient plot devices when telling the story. 

If we are meant to be watching the events play out from a desktop then why is there obvious and creepy ambient music with loud crashes when there's a cheap jump scare? It's like playing out 'Paranormal Activity' with a full orchestral score going on in the living room downstairs, conceptually it doesn't fit with what it's trying to accomplish.

The internet connection, that is conveniently lost when the plot needs it, is a pain to watch as the screen flickers and starts and stops. It'll give you a headache as it tries to create tension by cutting the signal and then quickly cutting in with a loud crash and a scream.

Blaire constantly types things then deletes it (so we know what she's thinking) and doesn't act like a real girl would. The things she says and does just aren't natural to the situation, even before the horror starts. She's a contrived character from the beginning and when you combine that with her "friends" (who all would never be friends in the first place), you get an annoying group of stereotypes that you'll be happy to see die.

If you are to strip the unusual narrative style out of the equation and look at the plot itself, then it's an abysmal attempt at a horror film. Not only do we have some extremely clichéd characters but they are not likeable at all. By the end of the film you are hoping that they are all going to get knocked off by this anonymous hacker. It's a sorry state of affairs when you are actually cheering the killer on and hoping that they'll all die. Not in a fun way, like you would with some cheap slasher flicks, but more so you can leave the cinema and get back to your life. 

The tension and "scares" in the film soon get old and predictable. Cheap attempts at jump scares begin to get on your nerves and the death scenes are laughable... Literally. 

The entire audience was in fits of laughter as the film went on and I don't think anyone was taking it seriously. 

It tries to be modern and up to date but ends up looking severely out of touch.

When huge story issues arise, the film consciously and obviously tries to cover the gaping plot holes with silly excuses that just end up making you question the entire integrity of the film.

The film was so focused on whether or not it could tell the story in this way rather than if it should. I don't consider it to be a "game changer" in horror like 'The Blair Witch Project' was and I don't think it'll ever be done again in the future. I commend them for trying but this was an absolute misfire. It was an interesting concept for a narrative tool but was obviously rushed so that it was the first to make it before someone else had the idea.

It had shallow and irritating characters, a boring and clichéd plot, terrible tension, zero horror and is predictable right up to the end, despite it's pathetic attempt at having some "plot twists". You can call it straight from the get go. 

It's definitely not scary and is, quite frankly, one of the worst horror films I've seen in a while.

Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.