Unfriended

This is good work, surprisingly. For the first fifteen minutes, I thought that this theme would only hold up in the short film format. But then the casual conversation film is disrupted, the relationships start to intensify, and evil starts to work through the tiny windows of the blurry Skype image. After that you're just waiting for it to devolve into standard genre explainer and it... great ending. (07/08/2015)

A stylish one-off that works in a relatively creative way with the concept of the "revenge movie", as it manages to portray a truly suspenseful and frightening atmosphere on the very limited space of home computers. Still, it is a bit of very simple "fun", which is fine to watch, but doesn’t require you to do a lot of thinking during (let alone about) the film. It's just a bit cheesy, but it's undeniably got its qualities. A better 3 stars. (15/02/2019)

Ironically, the uniqueness of the form doesn't stand out as much in the theater as it does on my monitor at home, where it handles one of horror's most terrifying premises: that I have an Apple interface on my screen. Otherwise, it's a genuinely interesting bit of exotica that, while it can't sustain multiple films, now manages perfectly to bring that shit to your room, not to mention that the main cast are a bunch of complete jackasses and the avenging ghost isn't so much scary as a cool troll proving the age-old truth that Hell is 4chan. (06/10/2015)

I’m giving it a weak four stars with a clear conscience. It’s not a horror film that would make you pull at your hair in fear, cover your eyes or turn the lights on after watching it, but I appreciate the playful and fun way the vengeful spirit fucks with the Skypers, and, in particular, the original concept, how it’s maintained throughout the film and how convincingly it’s delivered. It’s not something entirely novel, films like The Den and Open Windows used a similar format, but the former switched to other cameras somewhere around the middle, and in the latter the laptop camera begins to disappear and in the end it goes God knows where, because the film completely breaks down conceptually. Unfriended is the first (as far as I know) film that strictly sticks to the concept. It feels realistic (not only technologically, but, surprisingly, also in the behaviour of the characters, including the performances of the actors) and also takes place in real time. For me, reason enough for an above average rating. (20/06/2015)

Spending 12 hours in front of a computer screen every day and not being able to avoid it even in the evening when I want to chill with a movie is not exactly my idea of fun. And watching (on a big screen!) the dialogue of bored, constantly arguing and eventually frightened teens, interrupted by the constant ringing and hang-ups of Skype is even less so. But the aura of a hidden, supernatural evil gradually starts to work and brings a few chilling moments. A surprisingly promising concept, which, were it more thought through, might have discouraged some from logging into their social network accounts for an evening, which no movie has ever achieved before. A weaker three stars. (24/06/2015)