Unfriended Movie

Take a moment and think about this question – When I say the term “horror movie” what are the first things that come to mind? For some, the first thing they think of may take them back a few decades. Back in the black-and-white days, horror movies were based off of folklore or stories passed down through the generations. Dracula and Frankenstein are a couple I can name off the top of my head.  I, however, believe for the majority  a more modern formula for a horror flick comes to mind. There may be a family or friends involved, but something abnormal starts to happen to them. It could be a ghost, demon, or just some crazy person slashing everyone up to pieces. They’re picked off one by one until the last one or two are left and through some miracle they survive (or not, depending on how sadistic the director is). Throw in a couple jump-scares and there you have it, a modern day horror movie. Though the environment and premise of horror movies have changed, due to the advancement of technology, they all still were similar in the fact that they focused on the people. Sure, there may now be cell phones or computers, but there has never been a horror movie that centered their plot around that technology (at least not that I know of), until recently.

This new horror movie is called Unfriended (also known as Cybernatural or Offline). This movie has been premiered at a couple of film festivals in 2014, but its theatrical release date is April 17, 2015. In the movie, high school student Laura Barns committed suicide a year before due to bullying and ridicule from her other class mates over a video of her at a party. Six classmates were particularly horrible in their treatment of her. Those six classmates decided to have a group chat through Skype, which is when it all goes downhill from there. As stated by a plot summary from IMDb,

While video chatting one night, six high school friends receive a Skype message from a classmate who killed herself exactly one year ago. At first they think it's a prank, but when the girl starts revealing the friends' darkest secrets, they realize they are dealing with something out of this world, something that wants them dead. Told entirely from a young girl's computer desktop, CYBERNATURAL redefines 'found footage' for a new generation of teens. . .

This movie does redefine the horror genre for teens. What I find so intriguing is the fact that it’s based entirely on online interactions. Laura Barns torments these six classmates entirely through Skype. It’s just interesting to me how technology is now being incorporated into the whole premise of movies nowadays. I’m no horror movie expert, but the only thing that I can think of that comes close to this is the Paranormal Activity horror movie series, which was based on camera footage of the family. Even that doesn't really break any barriers, since the found footage genre already existed. This is just my two cents on the movie. I for one hate getting scared, so horror movies are a no-go for me, but this one did have me interested in seeing it for a minute.