In 2009, a small-budget horror film by the name of “Paranormal Activity” brought a new perspective of horror into the mainstream. It wasn’t the first of its kind, but it gave found-footage horror the push it needed (or didn’t need) depending on your opinion of the subgenre.
It was different. It was fresh. And it wasn’t terrible.
Now, another indie horror film under the username “Unfriended” — after nixing “Cybernatural” — follows in its ancestor’s footsteps and brings yet another POV into the mainstream.
It’s different. It’s fresh. And it isn’t terrible.
In fact, “Unfriended” isn’t terrible at all. It may have adopted typical, sometimes predictable, character archetypes and plot points, but its unique composition gives the genre an update that truly captures and defines the lifestyles of millennials and the technologically expanding era we live in.
We’re introduced to high school student Blaire Lily (Shelley Hennig) and watch 99.9 percent of “Unfriended” through her MacBook. Paying attention to the computer’s clock onscreen, “Unfriended” also streams in real time as if the whole film was shot using CamStudio or Fraps — screen capture softwares that record your computer screen.
“Unfriended” boots up with Blaire watching a video, via LiveLeak, that shows a teenage girl and former friend of Blaire’s, Laura Barns (Heather Sossaman), shooting herself after being constantly ridiculed and threatened for a leaked video that fatally damaged her reputation.
She is then called by her boyfriend, Matt (Matthew Bohrer), through Skype and sensually, and awkwardly, flirts with him until they’re interrupted and joined by a few of their friends.
Midway through the video call they all notice an uninvited user, billie227, who, despite all their efforts, won’t seem to go away. Soon it’s not-so-surprisingly revealed that billie227 is someone who claims to be Laura Barns.
The ghost of Laura hacks everyone’s laptop, allowing her to send threats, download malware and expose secrets that make viruses remarkably appealing in comparison.
What follows is a frantic sequence of teenage banter and threatening instant messages via Facebook and Skype, contemporary pop music streamed through Spotify, a productive way to use Chatroulette and the deadliest game of “Never Have I Ever.”
This Skype-chat-gone-bad premise is fairly, if not extremely, straightforward, but by utilizing found footage 2.0 to its fullest, “Unfriended” aims for goals that go beyond jump scares.
It might be the sound design that’s nearly pitch perfect with every desktop app and social media website or the 480p resolution of the group’s video chat, but “Unfriended” has a terrifying precision with its medium that it flawlessly records the behaviors of teens today.
It also makes sure to pay attention to the little details like Blaire playing a video and putting it in fullscreen at the exact moment you would or typing a message and reviewing and editing it before clicking send — or before deciding to not reply at all.
She’s even, illegally, downloading files from the Internet through BitTorrent.
With all these meticulous details displayed onscreen for all of us to see, we actually learn a lot about Blaire without having to depend on exposition — a very ideal solution to “show don’t tell.”
Hennig, as Blaire, leads the cast with a strong performance in a film that can’t afford to have anything less. Without her, “Unfriended” wouldn’t have accumulated many favorites, as it calls for such an intense feat given its confined real estate.
Since we experience the group’s unfortunate turn of events through Blaire’s digital perspective, the fact that her character is as thin as this year’s new line of MacBooks almost falls between the cracks.
The same can’t be said for her friends, however, since they’re all a bland mix of vanilla with no inside perspective to add any flavor. With them, “Unfriended” tries to cram as many horror archetypes it can into one computer screen.
With that single screen, “Unfriended” allows the story to unfold in a way that makes us feel like we’re watching, as an online audience, a real-life livestream purely for our entertainment. Through that, it makes for a very gut-wrenching perception in theory despite its shortcomings.
“Unfriended” serves as a small tentpole that’ll inspire many horror film production studios to follow suit, but it will also undoubtedly split the consensus in half, clearly separating each generation from the other.
We’ll see the millennials and boomlets, who are up-to-date on what’s new, nodding and smiling at each social media innuendo.
Then we’ll see the baby boomers and Gen Xers who’ll instead scorn their kids upon reminder or may not even know what’s going on.
With a premise that drags and drops every social media reference onto its desktop, “Unfriended” is an extreme cautionary tale on bullying and cyberbullying that effectively tells its story to an audience that spends the majority of its time looking at screens.
Updated: May 1, 1:25 p.m.
