BH Tilt
Back in 2015 when Universal Pictures and Blumhouse released the creatively original thriller Unfriended, I was completely surprised by how entertaining it was considering it was basically one long video chat session with a mysterious killer picking off the participants one by one. It also had a good message about the effects of bullying that was subtle but important. And at the end I really didn’t think they would be able to stretch the premise out for a second movie.
But they did and now we have Unfriended: Dark Web, this time from the Blumhouse sub-label BH Tilt. That probably should have been a clue that the new movie was going to go places Universal Pictures probably wasn’t comfortable with. Instead of a social media profile popping up that may or may not be the dead friend of the first movie, Unfriended: Dark Web forgoes that premise and sets up the story with Matias (Colin Woodell) telling his friends, and deaf girlfriend, that he bought a new laptop on Craigslist so he could build a new program that would help him converse with Amaya (Stephanie Nogueras). But she gets upset that instead of attempting to learn sign language, he’s taking the easy way out with a speech-to-text program that will also string together a series of video clips of Matias signing the words.
Matias discovers the hard drive of the laptop is nearly full but can’t find the files. His friend Damon knows a thing or two about computers and helps him navigate to the hidden files which turn out to be video clips taken from various surveillance and home web cams around the area. While Matias and his friends are trying to have a game night, chat messages keep popping up for the original owner of the laptop. When Matias finally responds, he’s confronted with a message from the original owner who reveals Matias actually ‘stole’ the laptop and the owner wants it back (technically, the thing was in a lost and found bin at a coffee shop for a while, so Matias assumed the owner was not coming back for it). One thing leads to another and things turn really uncomfortable when Matias realizes the videos are part of some sick group of individuals who use the handle Charon (followed by a number) and pay other members of the group to kidnap young women and do unspeakable things to them for money. The laptop owner, Charon IV, has amassed over $10 million in bitcoins, and threatens to kill Amaya if he doesn’t get the laptop back, and everyone else will die if Matias tells them what’s going on. Of course Matias does tell them at the first moment he gets when Charon IV can’t be listening in, but they all still meet their fates and the movie gives us a sick twist at the end.
Unfriended: Dark Web is nothing like the original, which was clever and fun in its own way. This is just unpleasant. There’s no hint of the supernatural as there was with the first movie, it’s just all about sick people who’ve probably seen the Saw franchise one-too-many times. In the original, the cast felt like they were friends having a Skype session and getting freaked out. Here everyone has it cranked up to 11 with nothing really natural to their conversations. It all feels forced, especially the surprise engagement announcement and the drama that comes with it. The killings too are either done off camera or obscured by digital interference, and we won’t even talk about the egregious use of overly loud music cues and sound effects to make the audience jump. There is also a lot more happening on screen as well with Skype, separate video chats, text messages and video files popping up all over the screen. It gets a bit overwhelming and hard to keep track of. And worst of all, it really has nothing to do with ‘unfriending’ anyone in any sense of the word.
Unfriended: Dark Web is really just an unpleasant exercise in trying to duplicate what worked the first time but adding too many layers on top of it and ignoring the entire concept of ‘unfriending’. This is just one of those horror movies you’ll feel you need to hit the shower after to get the ick off. At least it’s short, and you don’t need to see the first one to see this one.
Unfriended: Dark Web has a run time of 1 hour 28 minutes and is rated R for some disturbing violence, language and sexual references.
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