If you have seen the commercials for “Unfriended,” you likely won’t want to see it. The trailer for the movie is poorly edited and goes for cheap, loud jump scares while being sure to highlight its several obnoxious unknowns as well as its awful, awful title.
However, seeing the commercials for “Unfriended” prior to seeing the film is better. You enjoy it more when you see the movie transcend the ugly shell it could have inhabited.
A true popcorn film, “Unfriended” is never boring; occasionally absurd, but never boring. It takes place in real time as six teenagers are mercilessly stalked by the cyber-ghost of their once-friend. The film is confined by our main character’s computer screen, the action playing out in a clever cut of Skype calls, Facebook messages and YouTube videos.
Though this might sound gimmicky, it never feels like it. “Unfriended” painlessly integrates and exploits the conveniences (and accompanying hindrances) of our modern systems of communication without interrupting the experience of the movie itself.
What keeps “Unfriended” from veering into mindlessness is its self-awareness. It never tries to ground the overly active computer virus with scientific explanation. You realize soon into the movie that you aren’t supposed to actively root for these characters. They kind of deserve to die.
That the cast is relatively unknown (the most well-known projects related to its members are “Teen Wolf” and “The Secret Life of the American Teenager”) helps. The actors are unrecognizable, which serves the movie well. Being currently nameless gives them the advantage of not having already-established characters.
In a movie about teenagers who all methodically lie about who they are, this is fitting. Though their dialogue can be grating at times, this is the point. They are especially detestable teenagers, enamored with their own popularity and toxic to the people around them.
The disposability of the characters is rather ingenious; it allows us to relish the tension of the film without being overwhelmed by the unfairness of it all, and that the characters are genuinely dislikable rather than poorly written elevates “Unfriended” from kitschy genre film to fun, exciting slasher.
Shelley Hennig as Blaire Lily, our protagonist, plays well the role of a girl who wants everyone to think she’s perfect. As the night goes on, the ghost of Laura Barns, the girl they all convinced to commit suicide, forces the group of “friends” to expose their own secrets one by one and face the consequences. As they are slowly picked off, their secrets become more and more disgusting, propelling the movie forward as it creeps inevitably toward its climax.
“Unfriended” has its cake and eats it too. It demonizes the act of cyberbullying, harvesting its irrationality for violence and humor. Cyberbullying is terrible, but isn’t it fun to watch. It’s best not to think about these things. The film is more concerned with the psyches of its main characters than with the psychology behind doing such terrible things.
What is darker than the movie’s subject matter is its sense of humor. The ghost is playful and cruel, often injecting thematically appropriate songs when it feels necessary. The blender scene from the commercial remains intact, but in the context of the movie, it reads as mischievously bizarre, a reminder of the movie’s campy propensities, rather than random gore.
To some extent, it’s a criticism of the emptiness of our distant, technology-steeped culture, but it’s frequently having too much fun to circle back to this notion. One could attempt to find a moral in the movie somewhere, but “Unfriended” doesn’t seem to want to do anything other than let its harrowing story play out.
It is content to let its characters carry the plot, even when it regularly amounts to the group shouting scathing insults at one another. They lie and smirk and make snide comments despite being in a life or death situation. It’s what real teenagers would do, right?
