Cinemavenger

   The funniest, nastiest movie reviews anywhere.

Unfriended

When was the last time you listened to an 8-track tape?  Or popped a cassingle into your Walkman?  Or went to a drive-in movie?  Or updated your Myspace page?  Or Asked Jeeves something?

Technology moves faster than your sister with the varsity basketball team, so tying your movie to it guarantees it'll be hopelessly outdated before you can say "You've got mail."  Unfriended wants to be a ghost story for the digital age, so it's filled with references to Pinterest, Tumblr, Spotify, JPEGs and MP4s . . . ensuring that it will be as timely as a VHS tape by next year. 

The one thing Unfriended will be remembered for is being the first movie to take place completely on a laptop screen.  Not some of the movie.  Not most of the movie.  Every single minute of its fuckrendous running time. 

For all you film purist twats who complain that CG-heavy action flicks are like watching someone else play a video game, try spending 80-odd minutes with your eyes glued Clockwork Orange-style to some teenager's computer while she Skypes, iMessages and Googles.  You'll be begging for a side-scrolling superhero blockbuster!

A high school chick named Laura got sloppy at a party, someone posted an embarrassing video of her on the Interwebs, and she was so distraught that she killed herself.  On the one-year anniversary of her death (of course), a handful of her friends and frenemies are group-video-chatting (really?) when a mysterious stranger crashes their cyber-party and begins to virtually-harass them (ooh, spooky).  

Your ol' pal Cinemavenger generally avoids spoilers, but in this case I'm making an exception, so if you want to go into Unfriended untainted (giggle) you probably want to (snort) stop reading (HA!).  Sorry, I just can't keep a straight face because no one, anywhere could possibly give even the smallest fraction of a fuck about one of the stupidest, most aggressively annoying horror flicks ever made.

Did I mention it forces you to watch a teenager's laptop screen for the entire fucking movie?!

The only real unknowns in Unfriended are 1) what did Laura do that was so embarrassing she felt she had to kill herself and 2) who or what is offing the Skypers one by one?

Maybe I should have called it a *Soiler Alert* because little Laura isn't videod getting gang raped.  She isn't caught boning her brother or blowing a Great Dane (Alas, poor Laura).  All she does is pass out and poop her pants.  Sure, none of us want that kind of, well, shit posted online for the world to see, but if it causes you to shoot yourself in the face (yes, the face - Unfriended fucks up even the smallest details) maybe your genes weren't in desperate need of conservation in the first place?

And rather than being someone interesting - like a secret boyfriend (or girlfriend), a classmate who happens to be Rasputin's great-grandson or Hugh Jackman's character from Swordfish - the killer turns out to be Laura's ghost.  Booooorrrrriiiiinnnnggg!

OMFG!  Unfriended is such a POS!  SMH.

April 19, 2015