When I posted my initial review of Unfriended, it was just a couple of hours after seeing the movie. Being late at night and not giving time for the movie to really sink in, I mainly shared my initial thoughts of the movie. This was from seeing the movie the night before opening night. Now that the weekend is wrapping up, I can conclude that almost everyone who wanted to see this movie and then some has seen it. The feedback I'm seeing has been mostly negative, many admitting they went as far as walking out right in the middle of the movie. Now that the movie has sunk in, I still stand in actually enjoying the movie. It's innovative with the use of the computer screen, the dead background silence makes it much more eerie, and Laura is a badass. Plus I think Blaire is pretty hot but that's beside the point.
With all that said, I don't deny that this movie has its flaws, and they are major flaws at that. First of all, the characters - They suck. Blaire is OK. She gets props for being cute and only mildly annoying. She did turn out to be the one who brought all this upon everyone, but we don't find that out until the end. At least there was some substance to her. The other characters were extremely disposable and weren't killed off fast enough. When you're rooting for the villain to win, mainly because the characters suck so bad, that's a huge problem. In fact, the real crazy thing is I feel way way WAY worse for Laura dying than the other characters in the movie. It's like with her I was really hoping she wasn't dead, but with the others it was like "Yeah!".
Which brings me to my next point - I speculated whether Laura was really dead or not in the movie and it looks like that pretty much is the consensus - she really is dead but has come back as an evil ghost. Wha?? That is so STUPID. I guess that was the best way to do things in order to avoid explaining too much of what was happening. It's such a stereotypical move. I mean, I guess it makes more sense how the people die in the movie; she goes to all their houses and kills them. That's just SO CHEAP though. I thought my theory of what happened would have been much more original, much more creative, and while still far-fetched much more realistic. Plus, the use of computers to terrorize people would have been MUCH more plausible! I mean, being an evil ghost, she didn't even need to use the computer. Plus, how do ghosts use computers anyway?
To sum up my theory of what happened and what should have happened:
Laura didn't really die. The only evidence of her dying was the video, which she conned some people into filming and staging the whole thing with a blank. She disappears from home (which was abusive as evidenced by the movie) and the guys who helped film the video sneak her on a boat to India where she learns her 1337 hacking skills after already being a super genius to begin with. On top of being an elite hacker, she also discovers a way to hack into parts of a person's brain via satellite and other signals floating around in the air, which leads to the killings.
But of course I guess it would have been more like a comic book action flick rather than a horror flick, and the filmmakers were going for horror so they had to go the paranormal route instead. Hence the original name of the film: Cybernatural.
But here begs the question: will I see this movie again let alone buy it on DVD? You bet. Despite its flaws, Unfriended was a clever movie that is still enjoyable to watch. Sometimes it's so bad it's good and I think the villain ironically is the one that saves the movie from being a total bomb. So if you haven't seen it already, go check it out!
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