UNFRIENDED

3 stars (out of 5)

Russia-born director Leo Gabriadze and writer/producer Nelson Greaves’ horror movie takes place nearly entirely on a computer, as Blaire (Shelley Hennig, a fine screamer and weeper) painfully realises that you shouldn’t answer messages from the dead. Unfortunately, though, the supposedly teenage characters here are all so mean, childish and whiny that you do somewhat begin to hope that they’re going to cop it in the nastiest way possible.

Blaire and boyfriend Mitch (Moses Jacob Storm) are introduced having some sexy fun on Skype, complete with knife fantasies, and after getting hot and heavy, they’re interrupted by a sudden group chat. Who dialled the gang up? Was it intense Adam (Will Peltz), stuck-up Jess (Renee Olstead), chunky computer geek Ken (Jacob Wysocki), late addition Val (Courtney Halverson) – or a mystery, icon-free participant? After much improvised goofing around, the group become uncomfortably aware of three things: 1) it’s the first anniversary of the suicide of their mutual friend Laura (Heather Sossamon), 2) one or more of them was secretly implicated in her death (glimpsed at the start on a NSFW video), and 3) it seems that someone’s out to get them all by using Skype, Facebook and more practical tools.

Filmed in long takes with the cast in separate rooms in the same house, and with good enough performances from the youthful ensemble (no matter how much you might loathe the characters), this is pretty tense, scary stuff, especially for those who go online an awful lot (and if you’re reading this then chances are you do). But what’s the moral? Cyber-bullying is bad? We knew that. Computers can be used to malicious ends? Yep, ditto. Ghosts know how to use Macs? Why not? Or Facebook is a great place to get inspired to kill yourself? Well, um, nearly.