4/5 Stars

This found-footage film stars six friends in an online Skype call. Everything seems to be going just fine after Mitch and Blaire’s personal call is interrupted by the additions of Adam, Ken, Jess and later, Val.

The whole movie is seen through Blaire’s point of view, with her Google, Facebook and iMessage accounts as our primary source of information. The five friends were enjoying their group chat when Blaire is distracted by Facebook messages from Laura Barns.

Unfortunately, Laura was a young girl who committed suicide because of a video of her from a party that was put on YouTube, followed by being overwhelmed by mean and threatening comments. Blaire and Laura’s history as friends was slowly deteriorating leading up to what we see in the film. After Laura’s death, when the friends in the group chat mentioned something, Blaire would stiffen and ignore their comment almost.

Throughout the Skype call, Blaire is also messaging her boyfriend, Mitch, thinking that the messages sent from Laura’s account are actually Mitch’s doing. What none of them realize, is that Laura’s account is being controlled by a supernatural force.

As the plot develops, Laura’s spirit or whoever is controlling her social media accounts, joins the Skype call and asks to play a game. Well, there are millions of games to play… what kind of game could a ghost want to play?

The group can’t block the caller, whom we assume is Laura, and all their attempts to get rid of the stranger failed. The group agrees to play the game and as the movie goes on, hurtful secrets between friends are revealed and punishments are dealt out by the spirit behind Laura’s account.

The plot followed a consistent pattern in a horror film: friends are hanging out and having fun, a scary, otherworldly being, the being asks for something (usually a soul or a sacrifice) and the people will eventually do anything the spirit is asking, for their own safety.

Unfriended does an average job of being a horror film, because it does build suspense and the music does add to the eery feel or the movie, but I would give this film credit for using found- footage shooting. That isn’t the easiest way to film, and in the case of Unfriended, there is no separate camera work, other than what we can see through Blaire’s home screen, building more suspense as the film carries on, but also restricting our access to information.