Just when you thought it was safe to turn your laptop back on…
Costing just $1 million to produce, Unfriended was a bit of a surprise when it was released back in 2015. Not just because it was very profitable, making a healthy $64 million at the box office, but also because it was actually pretty good.
Cheap horrors tend not to get reviewed very well, but audiences and critics all got on board with this story of a group-Skype conversation that gets hijacked by a ghost who starts picking them off one-by-one.
If anything, the movie’s biggest problem was that instead of watching it in a movie, it might actually have felt scarier to watch at home on your laptop, as the viewer would automatically feel more naturally immersed in the story.
Three years later, and the sequel Unfriended: Dark Web is finally on the way, with little-to-no fanfare, and what looks like a complete overhaul of the killer format.
This time around, someone brings home a laptop they find at a hardware store, kicks up a group chat, and then they all see some of the videos stored on the computer’s hard-drive. Having all watched some truly traumatizing and highly incriminating footage, someone joins in their chat, desperately wanting their laptop back, and doing whatever is needed to get it back.
Clip via BH Tilt
Some critics have already caught an early screening of the movie, and word so far is pretty promising.
Consequence Of Sound described it as “impressive, though, the way the movie works to incorporate new online phenomenons, from Bitcoin to swatting. The latter bit, especially, resonates as one of the film’s most unsettling elements, if only because it feels so depressingly possible. Truly, it’s surprising just how soul-crushing Dark Web becomes after luring us in with so many intriguing mysteries, but, hey, this is the internet we’re talking about.”
Meanwhile the critic at IndieWire said “[The director]Â follows the well-worn path of using the horror/thriller genre to explore the eerie ambiguities of modern times.”
We’ll know for sure if it can live up the surprising quality of the original when it is released in Irish cinemas on Friday 10 August, going into direct competition with the Greatest Movie Ever Made.
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