There isn’t a whole lot left to do with the found footage
horror genre. The shaky cams have become
a clichéd pastiche, and they have never quite again found the footing to keep
themselves relevant after The Blair Witch
Project’s shocking and popularizing use of it. Paranormal
Activity breathed a little bit of nuance into the genre, but even that has
overstayed its welcome. Hopefully Unfriended doesn’t end up getting the
same sort of emulation, because its take on the genre is not only the last leg
that found footage has left to stand on, but its novelty is unlikely to remain
fresh beyond just one film. It barely
manages to stay fresh for this one
film.
The set-up is simple, shot as a cybercast of the laptop
screen of teenage girl, Blaire. We see
her browse Facebook, view YouTube, use Instant Messenger, and Skype with her
friends. Through her browsing and
chatting, we as the audience begin to piece together the story of Laura, a
teenager who was the victim of cyberbullying when a video of her drunk, passed
out, and covered in her own shit got posted to YouTube. This terrorism pushed her to kill
herself. In the present, Blaire and her
friends find a mysterious blank caller among their company, and are unable to
hang up on them. Messages start popping
up on all their social media outlets, and it quickly becomes clear that this is
Laura, bent on forcing them to expose their own innermost secrets and making
them pay for their role in driving her to suicide.
As far as the topical nature of its cyberbullying message is
concerned, Unfriended does quite an effective job of making its statement, particularly considering the teenage
demographic that the film is shooting for.
As a slasher film, the point is to watch a group of unlikeable people
suffer for a period of time before they are served their comeuppance, and
again, the film is quite effective. The
use of buffering times, frozen screens, and pixelated glitches add a unique
spin to the suspense the film has to offer, and supernatural elements aside it
is a pretty accurate representation of the horror that someone can wreak on the
Internet with just a bit of private information.
Alas, if you couldn’t tell already though, I’m not generally
a fan of found footage films, particularly because I think there isn’t a whole
lot left that can be creatively done with the medium. Yes, the Skype angle is a clever twist,
particularly given the subject matter, but the camera tricks of obviously and
selectively limiting what remains in frame are largely still the same. This is still a film with shallow characters
who are generally unlikeable so we don’t feel bad when they die, but it’s
simultaneously hard to care about the unseen protagonist of Laura’s
spirit. Furthermore, much of the film’s
communication takes the form of text messaging, which just isn’t engaging to
watch. For every decently executed
moment, there’s another that just drags, pretending to build suspense, but
really just filling out the runtime until it crosses the feature length mark.
Unfriended has
some good ideas, and I’m on board for it bringing awareness to the life-ruining
effects of cyberterrorism. However,
found footage films are fraught with the same issues that perpetually keep them
from achieving greatness, and for every nuance that Unfriended adds, it falls into another trap to keep me from
becoming entirely invested. I give this
film a very tentative recommendation, given my prejudice against the subgenre,
but I think this horse has been beaten a few dozen too many times.
Someone want to argue against me that found footage films
are remaining fresh? Leave your rebuttal
in the comments below.
No comments:
Post a Comment