So here we are Gothika for the social media set. Or maybe its supposed to be The Ring. Or FearDotCom or Dark Water or What Lies Beneath or any other movie that involves a ghost seeking vengeance on the living. Anyway, Unfriendeds ghost is a bullied teen that uses Skype and YouTube to taunt her victims, and the movie plays out in real time on a laptop, moving between different sites that fill in the necessary exposition. Which is a cute idea for a short, but a whole movie? Not so much. The targeted teens who we only see via Skype are the usual bunch (the blonde, the fat guy, the jock etc), and since there are no adult characters in the film, it was clearly never meant for anyone out of their early 20s. This is a shrewd move because for all its gimmickry, Unfriended doesnt really do anything that It Follows didnt pull off more engagingly.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
