Unfriended

UNFRIENDED

Director : Levan Gabriadze
Year : 2015
Genre : Horror
Rating : ****

When I first saw the trailer for 'Unfriended' a few months back, I thought it looked like any bottom of the barrel, straight to Netflix horror movie - complete with all the tired cliches and boring conventions that occupy any low-budget, zero-cast slasher. Having watched 'The Bay', 'Oculus' 'The Babadook' and 'It Follows' over the past few years, my expectations for modern horror have been raised significantly and I was concerned that 'Unfriended' may set the genre back to it's dormant stage of the late 2000's. However, having now watched 'Unfriended', I can say without any doubt that it is not only one of the best horror movies of the past 10 years but it is also one of the absolute best movies released this year so far. It is thrilling, intense, funny and as socially critical as any Cronenberg exploitation shocker or nightmarish Lychian fantasy.

'Unfriended' tells the story of a group of five friends who are plagued by an unknown glitch during one of their usual Skype conversations. At first, the anomaly appears to be any creepy wierdo who gets kicks out of freaking people out on the web but as the film goes on and the glitches actions become increasingly sinister, the group begins to tear itself apart as various revelations and truths begin to seep out of each and every one of them. Could these strange events be linked to the recent suicide of one of their friends which just happens to have been filmed and uploaded to Youtube? I'd say the chances are high!

For the entirety of the film, we are stuck to the desktop of our lead character. The camera doesn't deviate from the screen at any time and the only change in visuals come from the frenzied on and off clicking of various Facebook, Spotify and Instant Messenger windows which pop up throughout the movie. Of course, this isn't the first film to use this gimmick (Nacho Vigalondo’s 2014 techno-thriller 'Open Windows' used the same technique to varying degrees of success) but unlike any other movie that has come before it, 'Unfriended' perfectly manages to encapsulate the increasingly addictive nature that social media has had on our collective culture over the past few years and, if there is anything really scary about the picture, it is in its unflinchingly frank and all-too familiar depiction of young people being unable to tear themselves away from their screens.

Unlike many of their slasher movie counterparts, the cast in 'Unfriended' all do a unanimously brilliant job of portraying layered and believable characters to the screen - characters who have their own faults, values and underlying weaknesses making for some of the films most uncomfortable scenes. Each actor delivers dialogue which seems to have been lifted from any number of online conversations and their performances seem completely genuine given that it is only their vocal and facial reactions which convey their many emotions. It is rare for a horror movie to have such identifiable protagonists as the focal point and it is for this reason why the scares and eventual deaths in 'Unfriended' hit home so hard. They are normal and (for the most part) good people who are thrown into the most abnormal of circumstances.

On the surface, 'Unfriended' is an intense and sometimes gruesome slasher movie that vehemently adheres to the conventions of every horror movie ever made. But just below its bloody surface lies an ideology that is as potent and as socially vindictive as any Daily Mail article. It may take it's time to reveal itself as the satirical tome it is but once it does, the result is a powerful and quite terrifying analysis of the various media sites that may in fact be destroying our ability to be true not only to other people, but to ourselves.