Unfriended Review (2014)

Unfriended Synopsis

Six friends get the shock of their lives when they receive a message from their deceased friend while video chatting. While they think it is a prank, they are soon exposed to some unruly events.

My Thoughts on Unfriended

Unfriended is a film that is more clever than it gets credit for I think. The brilliance isn’t in the plot (which, like many horror setups, could fit on a Post-it), but in the film’s commitment to it all.

Everything we see happens through the character’s desktop—tabs and browsers. The result is part thriller, part interface cinema, part existential dread. This isn’t a film about the internet, it’s a film as the internet.

A lot of the tension is simply in a message that says “typing…” for just a beat too long. Or in that moment when a friend goes offline without warning, playing out like a digital micro-drama.

It’s also almost quite absurd how much mileage the film gets out of mouse movements, popup windows, and just some keyboard clatter. The screen becomes a stage, and the desktop its scene. A minimized window can be a reveal, and a file name can be foreshadowing. It’s basically the most stressful desktop tutorial you’ll ever sit through.

It also captures the strange emotional disconnect of online life. It’s about how we perform ourselves digitally, how we curate conversations in real-time, how much of what we mean gets buried under what we send. It’s basically a film about control. And that slow, panicked realization that once things start to unravel, there’s no “undo” button for real life.

It’s deeper than it looks, or maybe I am just looking too hard?

A few moments do get a little too over-the-top though, and some death scenes tiptoe into unintentional comedy, and the final scene probably should’ve ended 30 seconds earlier. But even when the film stumbles a bit, it still stumbles in interesting directions, which I appreciated and liked.

Unfriended isn’t just a movie with a cool format, it’s a movie that gets the format. It understands how we really use technology, how we think and react in that space between the real and the digital. It also knows that horror doesn’t always come from the outside, as sometimes it shows up as a notification from someone you thought you’d never hear from again.

I really like Unfriended, it’s simple, yet clever, and it opens up a surprising number of ideas about guilt, about truth, about digital identity, and about how terrifyingly easy it is to hide behind a blinking cursor.

Unfriended Trailer
Unfriended on IMDB

Unfriended Good Points

Authentic Behavior – I enjoyed how the characters type, hesitate, delete, retype etc. It felt quite authentic and every small detail helps!

Minimalism – The film relies on subtle cues in the pop-up messages, sound notifications, and tabs to build a lot of the suspense. Feels like you’re part of what is going on.

The Themes – Beyond the horror elements, the film explores different themes such as cyberbullying, guilt, and digital actions. The internet isn’t just the setting, it’s the subject.

Unfriended Bad Points

Predictable Ending – The final few seconds go exactly where you’d expect it to go, which was a shame. But it also depends on the person watching it, too, but for me, it didn’t land too well.

One Dimensional Characters – Most of the characters are thinly sketched, and they are quite limited, and makes it harder to care about them as people.

Forced Dialogue – Some of the diloague feels quite forced at times and took me out of the immersion at times.

Is Unfriended Worth Watching?

Yep.

Unfriended is far from perfect, but it is more clever than it gets credit for I think, and while it has some flaws, I really do enjoy this film and think it is well done, and it uses its simplicity to its advantage.

Where To Stream Unfriended?

Apple TV
Amazon Video

Unfriended Director and Cast

Directors – Levan Gabriadze

Main Cast – Heather Sossaman, Matthew Bohrer, Cal Barnes, Mickey River, Shelley Hennig, Moses Storm, Renee Olstead, Will Peltz, Jacob Wysocki, Courtney Halverson