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#79 - Unfriended
2014, Rated R
Gather round and I’ll tell you the tale of six teens whose depraved secrets are brought to light by a grudge-bearing internet user.
(7/4/25)
The following recording is edited from its original 15-minute version due to copyright restrictions. To hear the full version, tune in or stream at the scheduled times on ktwh.org, or download on AudioPort.
2014, Rated R
Gather round and I’ll tell you the tale of six teens whose depraved secrets are brought to light by a grudge-bearing internet user.
(7/4/25)
The following recording is edited from its original 15-minute version due to copyright restrictions. To hear the full version, tune in or stream at the scheduled times on ktwh.org, or download on AudioPort.
WARNING: THIS STORY DEALS WITH MATURE TOPICS LIKE CYBERBULLYING AND TEEN SUICIDE. LISTENER/RESEARCHER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Looking back, I consider myself lucky when it comes to my high school years. My parents, though busy, were as supportive as possible; I had good friends who never took advantage of me; and I was so focused on my grades that I simply couldn’t be bothered to look for trouble. Now, this could be my age talking—I graduated in 2005—but whenever I hear true stories of teen bullying and/or suicide, I find myself thinking, “Are actual teenagers really this stupidly cruel to each other?” I mean, cheesy Nickelodeon sitcoms, melodramatic soap operas, and raunchy slasher flicks are one thing, but serious real-life news reports? I think another factor in my relatively smooth high school career was that I didn’t grow up with social media. Which begs the question: had I started school just ten years later than I did, would I have been exposed to cyberbullying and the plethora of other dangers posed by Facebook, Instagram, and the like? Not gonna lie, the thought makes me shudder—much more than this movie does, as chilling as it already is.
In 2013, high-schooler Laura Barns was recorded passing out drunk in her own waste at a wild, unsupervised party. The video was then uploaded. Unable to bare the shame which followed online and off, Laura took her own life. One evening a year later, her former best friend Blaire Lily is Skype-chatting with her boyfriend Mitch, and their friends Adam, Jess, Ken, and Val, along with an uninvited user named “billie227”—whose account apparently belongs to the deceased Laura. But whoever “billie227” really is, she is no mere internet troll. Not only does she harass and threaten the increasingly hysterical teens, countering every computer move they make with uncanny technological skill, she knows all of their deepest, darkest secrets—including who shot and uploaded the video that destroyed Laura. Forced to play a lethal variation of the drinking game, “Never Have I Ever,” Blaire and her friends find themselves helpless to stop the supernatural hacker from destroying their lives in turn . . . both social and mortal.
Originally titled Offline and Cybernatural before its wide release, Unfriended has often been compared to The Blair Witch Project in that it, too, popularized a unique cinematic format--Screenlife—despite being neither the first nor the most commercially successful of its kind. Like the deliberately unrefined look of the Found Footage sub-genre of Blair Witch, Screenlife presents a story entirely via computer screen in real time, gaining popularity with the advent of increasing internet use in the 2010’s.
By the way: Blair Witch, Blaire Lily? Connection?
Director Levan Gabriadze’s interest in this project came partly from his childhood in Soviet Georgia, during which he himself was bullied, as well as his thoughts on how the nature of bullying has changed over time. The idea, he says, that he could have grown up with the internet and been subjected to such torment 24/7, as opposed to just a relative few short times a day, is a frightening one, to say the least.
KEN: (Self-importantly) In Val’s defense, her comment wasn’t completely unwarranted, okay? Nobody wants to talk about it, but I’ll give you the Ken-pinion. Laura f***ing sucked. She was a big bully, okay, and she deserved all the s*** she got from that video.
This being the only Screenlife film I’ve seen as of writing, Unfriended has proven to be an excellent tutorial on the subject. Some of the best horror films ever made are those in which we see less rather than more: Everything is presented entirely through Blaire’s MacBook screen. Unlike a regular video camera, a computer is more cumbersome to carry, has no specialized capture features, and just is plain finicky at the best of times. Glitches abound as pixels and audio can’t always keep up with quick movements, obscuring transmissions while creating an uncanny atmosphere in which you start to question what you’re actually seeing. Plus, it is refreshing to get that nice, creepy amateur look without the headache-inducing, stomach-churning hassle of shaking cameras. As a side note, I absolutely LOVE how the filmmakers similarly distorted the opening Universal Pictures production logo; not as subtle as the Ring franchise’s artistic VHS graininess of the Dreamworks and Paramount logos, of course, but hey, since when have teen slashers been known for subtlety? ;)
That we see almost nothing beyond the teens’ faces increases the feeling of claustrophobic helplessness. This aspect ties in well with their significant, albeit obvious, social media addiction. In their desperation they think that by staying online they are staying connected, when in reality they are just making themselves easier targets. Seriously, turning to Chatroulette for help when someone’s literally dying? Even by hilariously dumb movie teen standards, who does that? And where are the parents anyway? Is there really no one around in any one of the teens’ houses to hear the carnage happening?
(A desperate and terrified Blaire comes across two guys on Chatroulette, Dank Jimmy and Rando Pauls, getting high.)
BLAIRE: (Screams) Hi!
RANDO: (Completely at ease) Hi. You want some?
BLAIRE: Hey, guys! Hello!
DANK: (Equally happy) Hi.
BLAIRE: Can you hear me?
RANDO: Hey.
BLAIRE: (In terror) Something is happening . . .
RANDO: (Languidly repeating) Something is happening.
DANK: Can I tell you . . . It’s happening right now.
BLAIRE: Hey! Just . . . I am being attacked!
DANK: She’s saying . . .
BLAIRE: (Screams) I need you to call the police!
RANDO: (Still smiling) Shut up! She’s being attacked!
BLAIRE: Please. Police, yes, the police.
DANK: (Making no move) We’re gonna call the police.
BLAIRE: I will do anything you want. Dial the Fresno, California . . .
DANK: (Playfully) Police. Please call them. Police!
BLAIRE: (Angrily) Stop being p*****!
(The duo abruptly log off; we next see a large man’s exposed belly on the chat screen.)
BLAIRE: (Beside herself) Oh, God!
Which brings me to some other contextual issues I’ve noticed upon subsequent viewings, several of which revolve around Blaire herself. Before we even know what she looks like, she kicks off the story by watching Laura’s infamous suicide video. Now I know that young spectators who record first and help later are a tragic reality, but who except the most callous and detached watches a suicide video of a best friend, without so much as an emotional peep? Moreover, several times when Blaire is typing private conversations, she never actively mutes her friends. Instead, they have a way of conveniently muffling themselves, apparently so Blaire can concentrate on checking over her messages for several unnecessary seconds before sending, and hovering her cursor over links for several more unnecessary seconds before clicking, all so that the audience has ample time to read over her shoulder, so to speak, which is pretty much as exciting as it sounds. Yet one of the most glaring by far is when Blaire—a tech-savvy millennial of the 2010’s—asks her friends what an internet troll is. Moments like these are on par with “As you know” and other lazy, info-dumping tropes. They may help get the audience up to speed and move the story along, but at the expense of natural story progression and world-immersion.
KEN: Yo, so I talked to Kyle about Friday. And I got the weed, but he’s out of Molly. So . . .
(All conversation fades out as Blaire chats privately with Mitch.)
[. . .]
KEN: It’s probably just, like, a troll or something.
BLAIRE: What is a troll?
KEN: An internet troll?
VAL: How do you not know what a troll is?
MITCH: Like, someone that just harasses people online.
KEN: They just wanna get reactions out of people.
Yet there is some good meat to be found on these technological bones. I’ve mentioned in the past that teen slasher flicks aren’t my cinematic cup of tea, due in large part to most of the potential victims having more hormones and narcissism than brain cells and empathy, and these guys are no exception. But again, the Screenlife format helps. The intimacy of the single location recording lets us really see their personalities, relationships, and quirks, based solely on the dialogue, actions, and possessions shown upfront, like Jess using a flat iron and other makeup items, Val shouting at her yapping dog, Ken blending salsa in his bedroom, Adam acting macho with his loaded handgun, and Blaire being turned on by Mitch’s kinky threats with his butcher knife:
MITCH: (Brandishes his knife right in front of his screen) Take that shirt off before I cut it off.
BLAIRE: (Seriously) That’s really violent.
MITCH: (Just as serious) Take the shirt off, or I’ll cut it off.
(They both lighten up and laugh; Blaire sits up and starts to comply.)
BLAIRE: Hey, that worked.
MITCH: (With satisfaction) That does it for you? All right. [. . .] It’s just getting good.
BLAIRE: Get the knife. (Leans into the screen and repeats seductively) Get the knife, baby.
But hands down, it is Billie who steals the show without a single natural spoken word. A major production highlight is how the filmmakers, in seamless real time, incorporate faults and errors that in fully functioning devices shouldn’t be possible. Billie’s mechanical flexes alone run the group ragged, from making “hang up” or “close” options disappear to imitating a very creepy 911 dispatcher:
“911 DISPATCHER”: Where are you right now, sir?
ADAM: Um, I’m at home. Online, with my friends.
“911 DISPATCHER”: Are you safe?
ADAM: Yeah.
“911 DISPATCHER”: All of you?
ADAM: Yeah, we’re good.
“911 DISPATCHER”: Even Ken?
ADAM: (Caught off guard) What?
“911 DISPATCHER”: (Suddenly ominous) Don’t hang up.
ADAM: (Confused) What?
JESS: What just happened?
ADAM: (Holds up a shushing finger) Shh! Shh!
“911 DISPATCHER”: (Threateningly) I said, “Don’t hang up.”
Her wicked sense of humor truly shines once the drinking-turned-dying game begins. Bit by bit she strips each teen naked, exposing the cruelties the so-called friends have committed against each other behind their backs. Sort of like the best—or worst—reality TV, one can’t help but keep watching the relentless onslaught of cold, harsh truth, just so one can squirm with depraved delight at the participants’ priceless heated reactions:
BILLE227: Never have I ever STARTED THE RUMOR THAT BLAIRE HAS AN EATING DISORDER (Starts a countdown)
BLAIRE: Who did that?
ADAM: (Annoyed) Wasn’t f***ing me.
JESS: Okay, f***, it was me, okay?
(A buzzer sounds)
BILLIE227: Jess – finger down
BLARIE: (Taken aback) You said it was Val.
JESS: (Frustrated) Okay, I lied, all right?
BLAIRE: (Stammers) You . . .
JESS: It’s not like there’s not some kind of truth in there!
BLAIRE: (Hurt) Jess, what are you doing?
JESS: Dude, it’s not my fault!
BLAIRE: Why are you doing that to me?
JESS: You’re the one who’s like, “I’m not hungry, I already ate.”
[. . .]
BILLIE227: Never have I ever SOLD OUT ADAM TO THE COPS FOR SELLING WEED (Starts a countdown)
ADAM: (Shocked) What? No, no, please tell me he’s lying, Jess, you f***ing b****!
JESS: F*** you. It wasn’t me, okay?
MITCH: Shut up. Shut up! It was me, man. Hey, it was me.
(A buzzer sounds)
ADAM: (Thunderstruck) It was you?
MITCH: I’m sorry. Yeah?
ADAM: What? Why?
MITCH: (Irritated) What do you mean, “What? Why?” Does it really f***ing matter?
ADAM: (With outraged fury) Yeah, it does to me, Mitch! They put me in f***ing handcuffs, man!
BLAIRE: Guys, stop it!
ADAM: I almost had a record! My f***ing dad almost disowned me for that!
MITCH: Dude, it was gonna be both of us or one of us, and I would do the same s*** for you.
ADAM: (Irate) So let me take the rap, huh?
BLAIRE: Hey, it doesn’t matter!
MITCH: It doesn’t matter! Exactly, it doesn’t matter!
ADAM: (With venomous sarcasm) Yeah? Oh, my f***ing hero, Mitch.
BLAIRE: Hey! Knock it off!
ADAM: My hero!
Even better, I can almost see Billie savoring her sweet, sweet revenge via the specific ways she targets the teens and rubs their tragedy and heartbreak in their faces. Notable examples include showing a fake Adult Entertainment pop-up ad featuring a prior recording of Blaire teasingly unbuttoning her shirt, over a backdrop of the real Blaire and her remaining friends’ distraught weeping at the sudden death of one of their number:
BLAIRE: I’m sorry, Jess!
JESS: You killed him!
(Both girls cry unconsolably)
BLAIRE: I didn’t know what to do.
(An obnoxious pop-up ad suddenly appears starts playing)
MALE AUTOMATED VOICE: (Cheerfully) Hello. Can I share a secret with you? It’s just three words: FREE. LIVE. CAMS. Free live cams are the absolute best. (Shows shots of women in the process of removing their clothes—one of whom is Blaire) Having beautiful women all over the Internet just waiting to fulfill your every desire. There’s simply nothing better than that.
And playing the Connie Conway song “My, How You Lie, Lie, Lie,” on full blast with Blaire unable to mute it, while the other teens bicker and curse at each other for their exposed betrayals, all in a brilliant display of deceptively cheerful juxtaposition.
And yet, though it all, they each deny responsibility or make excuses to justify their heinous actions. And considering the chameleonic ease with which they lie and cheat and backstab each other for their own pleasure or gain, I think in this case at least, we can place only so much blame on social media.
BLAIRE: (Crying hysterically as a scandalous video of her plays for everyone to see) Why is this happening? Why are you showing this? Mitchie, don’t watch! Just don’t watch, okay? [. . .] It didn’t . . . Baby, it didn’t mean anything. I love you. (She minimizes and moves the video, showing Mitch staring at the screen with numb, teary eyes.) Stop watching. Look at me, Mitch. Mitch, look at me! I didn’t mean it.
In any other movie, these kids would be the heroes, flaws notwithstanding; Blaire, I dare say, is set up to be the quintessential Final Girl. But they’re also just as dumb and conceited as any slasher victim of old, just as likely to go off in search of their next and/or final drunken orgy in the woods. That said, Unfriended’s confined set-up not only necessitates and executes more creativity regarding character interactions as well as kills, it provides obvious but still significant commentary on young people’s abuse of each other via the internet. Instead of the attractive youths being hindered by a lack of technology with which to call for help, here it’s the abundance and over-reliance on it which proves fatal. Seriously, everyone, think twice before you start slandering online, lest the consequences bleed into your reality—literally.
CREDITS:
Special thanks to KTWH 99.5 Two Harbors Community Radio. All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.
MAIN THEME:
“The Call” - Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund
https://www.briandmorrison.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BriandMorrisonGuitar/
https://www.youtube.com/user/briandmorrison
Looking back, I consider myself lucky when it comes to my high school years. My parents, though busy, were as supportive as possible; I had good friends who never took advantage of me; and I was so focused on my grades that I simply couldn’t be bothered to look for trouble. Now, this could be my age talking—I graduated in 2005—but whenever I hear true stories of teen bullying and/or suicide, I find myself thinking, “Are actual teenagers really this stupidly cruel to each other?” I mean, cheesy Nickelodeon sitcoms, melodramatic soap operas, and raunchy slasher flicks are one thing, but serious real-life news reports? I think another factor in my relatively smooth high school career was that I didn’t grow up with social media. Which begs the question: had I started school just ten years later than I did, would I have been exposed to cyberbullying and the plethora of other dangers posed by Facebook, Instagram, and the like? Not gonna lie, the thought makes me shudder—much more than this movie does, as chilling as it already is.
In 2013, high-schooler Laura Barns was recorded passing out drunk in her own waste at a wild, unsupervised party. The video was then uploaded. Unable to bare the shame which followed online and off, Laura took her own life. One evening a year later, her former best friend Blaire Lily is Skype-chatting with her boyfriend Mitch, and their friends Adam, Jess, Ken, and Val, along with an uninvited user named “billie227”—whose account apparently belongs to the deceased Laura. But whoever “billie227” really is, she is no mere internet troll. Not only does she harass and threaten the increasingly hysterical teens, countering every computer move they make with uncanny technological skill, she knows all of their deepest, darkest secrets—including who shot and uploaded the video that destroyed Laura. Forced to play a lethal variation of the drinking game, “Never Have I Ever,” Blaire and her friends find themselves helpless to stop the supernatural hacker from destroying their lives in turn . . . both social and mortal.
Originally titled Offline and Cybernatural before its wide release, Unfriended has often been compared to The Blair Witch Project in that it, too, popularized a unique cinematic format--Screenlife—despite being neither the first nor the most commercially successful of its kind. Like the deliberately unrefined look of the Found Footage sub-genre of Blair Witch, Screenlife presents a story entirely via computer screen in real time, gaining popularity with the advent of increasing internet use in the 2010’s.
By the way: Blair Witch, Blaire Lily? Connection?
Director Levan Gabriadze’s interest in this project came partly from his childhood in Soviet Georgia, during which he himself was bullied, as well as his thoughts on how the nature of bullying has changed over time. The idea, he says, that he could have grown up with the internet and been subjected to such torment 24/7, as opposed to just a relative few short times a day, is a frightening one, to say the least.
KEN: (Self-importantly) In Val’s defense, her comment wasn’t completely unwarranted, okay? Nobody wants to talk about it, but I’ll give you the Ken-pinion. Laura f***ing sucked. She was a big bully, okay, and she deserved all the s*** she got from that video.
This being the only Screenlife film I’ve seen as of writing, Unfriended has proven to be an excellent tutorial on the subject. Some of the best horror films ever made are those in which we see less rather than more: Everything is presented entirely through Blaire’s MacBook screen. Unlike a regular video camera, a computer is more cumbersome to carry, has no specialized capture features, and just is plain finicky at the best of times. Glitches abound as pixels and audio can’t always keep up with quick movements, obscuring transmissions while creating an uncanny atmosphere in which you start to question what you’re actually seeing. Plus, it is refreshing to get that nice, creepy amateur look without the headache-inducing, stomach-churning hassle of shaking cameras. As a side note, I absolutely LOVE how the filmmakers similarly distorted the opening Universal Pictures production logo; not as subtle as the Ring franchise’s artistic VHS graininess of the Dreamworks and Paramount logos, of course, but hey, since when have teen slashers been known for subtlety? ;)
That we see almost nothing beyond the teens’ faces increases the feeling of claustrophobic helplessness. This aspect ties in well with their significant, albeit obvious, social media addiction. In their desperation they think that by staying online they are staying connected, when in reality they are just making themselves easier targets. Seriously, turning to Chatroulette for help when someone’s literally dying? Even by hilariously dumb movie teen standards, who does that? And where are the parents anyway? Is there really no one around in any one of the teens’ houses to hear the carnage happening?
(A desperate and terrified Blaire comes across two guys on Chatroulette, Dank Jimmy and Rando Pauls, getting high.)
BLAIRE: (Screams) Hi!
RANDO: (Completely at ease) Hi. You want some?
BLAIRE: Hey, guys! Hello!
DANK: (Equally happy) Hi.
BLAIRE: Can you hear me?
RANDO: Hey.
BLAIRE: (In terror) Something is happening . . .
RANDO: (Languidly repeating) Something is happening.
DANK: Can I tell you . . . It’s happening right now.
BLAIRE: Hey! Just . . . I am being attacked!
DANK: She’s saying . . .
BLAIRE: (Screams) I need you to call the police!
RANDO: (Still smiling) Shut up! She’s being attacked!
BLAIRE: Please. Police, yes, the police.
DANK: (Making no move) We’re gonna call the police.
BLAIRE: I will do anything you want. Dial the Fresno, California . . .
DANK: (Playfully) Police. Please call them. Police!
BLAIRE: (Angrily) Stop being p*****!
(The duo abruptly log off; we next see a large man’s exposed belly on the chat screen.)
BLAIRE: (Beside herself) Oh, God!
Which brings me to some other contextual issues I’ve noticed upon subsequent viewings, several of which revolve around Blaire herself. Before we even know what she looks like, she kicks off the story by watching Laura’s infamous suicide video. Now I know that young spectators who record first and help later are a tragic reality, but who except the most callous and detached watches a suicide video of a best friend, without so much as an emotional peep? Moreover, several times when Blaire is typing private conversations, she never actively mutes her friends. Instead, they have a way of conveniently muffling themselves, apparently so Blaire can concentrate on checking over her messages for several unnecessary seconds before sending, and hovering her cursor over links for several more unnecessary seconds before clicking, all so that the audience has ample time to read over her shoulder, so to speak, which is pretty much as exciting as it sounds. Yet one of the most glaring by far is when Blaire—a tech-savvy millennial of the 2010’s—asks her friends what an internet troll is. Moments like these are on par with “As you know” and other lazy, info-dumping tropes. They may help get the audience up to speed and move the story along, but at the expense of natural story progression and world-immersion.
KEN: Yo, so I talked to Kyle about Friday. And I got the weed, but he’s out of Molly. So . . .
(All conversation fades out as Blaire chats privately with Mitch.)
[. . .]
KEN: It’s probably just, like, a troll or something.
BLAIRE: What is a troll?
KEN: An internet troll?
VAL: How do you not know what a troll is?
MITCH: Like, someone that just harasses people online.
KEN: They just wanna get reactions out of people.
Yet there is some good meat to be found on these technological bones. I’ve mentioned in the past that teen slasher flicks aren’t my cinematic cup of tea, due in large part to most of the potential victims having more hormones and narcissism than brain cells and empathy, and these guys are no exception. But again, the Screenlife format helps. The intimacy of the single location recording lets us really see their personalities, relationships, and quirks, based solely on the dialogue, actions, and possessions shown upfront, like Jess using a flat iron and other makeup items, Val shouting at her yapping dog, Ken blending salsa in his bedroom, Adam acting macho with his loaded handgun, and Blaire being turned on by Mitch’s kinky threats with his butcher knife:
MITCH: (Brandishes his knife right in front of his screen) Take that shirt off before I cut it off.
BLAIRE: (Seriously) That’s really violent.
MITCH: (Just as serious) Take the shirt off, or I’ll cut it off.
(They both lighten up and laugh; Blaire sits up and starts to comply.)
BLAIRE: Hey, that worked.
MITCH: (With satisfaction) That does it for you? All right. [. . .] It’s just getting good.
BLAIRE: Get the knife. (Leans into the screen and repeats seductively) Get the knife, baby.
But hands down, it is Billie who steals the show without a single natural spoken word. A major production highlight is how the filmmakers, in seamless real time, incorporate faults and errors that in fully functioning devices shouldn’t be possible. Billie’s mechanical flexes alone run the group ragged, from making “hang up” or “close” options disappear to imitating a very creepy 911 dispatcher:
“911 DISPATCHER”: Where are you right now, sir?
ADAM: Um, I’m at home. Online, with my friends.
“911 DISPATCHER”: Are you safe?
ADAM: Yeah.
“911 DISPATCHER”: All of you?
ADAM: Yeah, we’re good.
“911 DISPATCHER”: Even Ken?
ADAM: (Caught off guard) What?
“911 DISPATCHER”: (Suddenly ominous) Don’t hang up.
ADAM: (Confused) What?
JESS: What just happened?
ADAM: (Holds up a shushing finger) Shh! Shh!
“911 DISPATCHER”: (Threateningly) I said, “Don’t hang up.”
Her wicked sense of humor truly shines once the drinking-turned-dying game begins. Bit by bit she strips each teen naked, exposing the cruelties the so-called friends have committed against each other behind their backs. Sort of like the best—or worst—reality TV, one can’t help but keep watching the relentless onslaught of cold, harsh truth, just so one can squirm with depraved delight at the participants’ priceless heated reactions:
BILLE227: Never have I ever STARTED THE RUMOR THAT BLAIRE HAS AN EATING DISORDER (Starts a countdown)
BLAIRE: Who did that?
ADAM: (Annoyed) Wasn’t f***ing me.
JESS: Okay, f***, it was me, okay?
(A buzzer sounds)
BILLIE227: Jess – finger down
BLARIE: (Taken aback) You said it was Val.
JESS: (Frustrated) Okay, I lied, all right?
BLAIRE: (Stammers) You . . .
JESS: It’s not like there’s not some kind of truth in there!
BLAIRE: (Hurt) Jess, what are you doing?
JESS: Dude, it’s not my fault!
BLAIRE: Why are you doing that to me?
JESS: You’re the one who’s like, “I’m not hungry, I already ate.”
[. . .]
BILLIE227: Never have I ever SOLD OUT ADAM TO THE COPS FOR SELLING WEED (Starts a countdown)
ADAM: (Shocked) What? No, no, please tell me he’s lying, Jess, you f***ing b****!
JESS: F*** you. It wasn’t me, okay?
MITCH: Shut up. Shut up! It was me, man. Hey, it was me.
(A buzzer sounds)
ADAM: (Thunderstruck) It was you?
MITCH: I’m sorry. Yeah?
ADAM: What? Why?
MITCH: (Irritated) What do you mean, “What? Why?” Does it really f***ing matter?
ADAM: (With outraged fury) Yeah, it does to me, Mitch! They put me in f***ing handcuffs, man!
BLAIRE: Guys, stop it!
ADAM: I almost had a record! My f***ing dad almost disowned me for that!
MITCH: Dude, it was gonna be both of us or one of us, and I would do the same s*** for you.
ADAM: (Irate) So let me take the rap, huh?
BLAIRE: Hey, it doesn’t matter!
MITCH: It doesn’t matter! Exactly, it doesn’t matter!
ADAM: (With venomous sarcasm) Yeah? Oh, my f***ing hero, Mitch.
BLAIRE: Hey! Knock it off!
ADAM: My hero!
Even better, I can almost see Billie savoring her sweet, sweet revenge via the specific ways she targets the teens and rubs their tragedy and heartbreak in their faces. Notable examples include showing a fake Adult Entertainment pop-up ad featuring a prior recording of Blaire teasingly unbuttoning her shirt, over a backdrop of the real Blaire and her remaining friends’ distraught weeping at the sudden death of one of their number:
BLAIRE: I’m sorry, Jess!
JESS: You killed him!
(Both girls cry unconsolably)
BLAIRE: I didn’t know what to do.
(An obnoxious pop-up ad suddenly appears starts playing)
MALE AUTOMATED VOICE: (Cheerfully) Hello. Can I share a secret with you? It’s just three words: FREE. LIVE. CAMS. Free live cams are the absolute best. (Shows shots of women in the process of removing their clothes—one of whom is Blaire) Having beautiful women all over the Internet just waiting to fulfill your every desire. There’s simply nothing better than that.
And playing the Connie Conway song “My, How You Lie, Lie, Lie,” on full blast with Blaire unable to mute it, while the other teens bicker and curse at each other for their exposed betrayals, all in a brilliant display of deceptively cheerful juxtaposition.
And yet, though it all, they each deny responsibility or make excuses to justify their heinous actions. And considering the chameleonic ease with which they lie and cheat and backstab each other for their own pleasure or gain, I think in this case at least, we can place only so much blame on social media.
BLAIRE: (Crying hysterically as a scandalous video of her plays for everyone to see) Why is this happening? Why are you showing this? Mitchie, don’t watch! Just don’t watch, okay? [. . .] It didn’t . . . Baby, it didn’t mean anything. I love you. (She minimizes and moves the video, showing Mitch staring at the screen with numb, teary eyes.) Stop watching. Look at me, Mitch. Mitch, look at me! I didn’t mean it.
In any other movie, these kids would be the heroes, flaws notwithstanding; Blaire, I dare say, is set up to be the quintessential Final Girl. But they’re also just as dumb and conceited as any slasher victim of old, just as likely to go off in search of their next and/or final drunken orgy in the woods. That said, Unfriended’s confined set-up not only necessitates and executes more creativity regarding character interactions as well as kills, it provides obvious but still significant commentary on young people’s abuse of each other via the internet. Instead of the attractive youths being hindered by a lack of technology with which to call for help, here it’s the abundance and over-reliance on it which proves fatal. Seriously, everyone, think twice before you start slandering online, lest the consequences bleed into your reality—literally.
CREDITS:
Special thanks to KTWH 99.5 Two Harbors Community Radio. All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.
MAIN THEME:
“The Call” - Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund
https://www.briandmorrison.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BriandMorrisonGuitar/
https://www.youtube.com/user/briandmorrison
EPISODE SONG:
“Cyber Criminals” - Alex Nelson
https://www.facebook.com/alex.j.nelson.7
“Cyber Criminals” - Alex Nelson
https://www.facebook.com/alex.j.nelson.7
All other music and sound clips are from Unfriended (directed by Levan Gabriadze; production by Bazelevs Company and Blumhouse Productions; distributed by Universal Pictures).
OST SONG:
“My, How You Lie, Lie, Lie” - Connie Conway
Download the full 15-minute episode here!
Unfriended on Wikipedia
Levan Gabriadze on Wikipedia
The sequel, Unfriended: Dark Web, on Wikipedia
Unfriended 's Official Website
Unfriended on IMDb
Unfriended on Rotten Tomatoes
Unfriended on Metacritic
Unfriended on Common Sense Media
Unfriended on Tv Tropes
Unfriended at Barnes & Noble
Unfriended on Amazon
Unfriended on eBay
^^ Back to Movies, Short Films, and Other Works of Cinema
OST SONG:
“My, How You Lie, Lie, Lie” - Connie Conway
Download the full 15-minute episode here!
Unfriended on Wikipedia
Levan Gabriadze on Wikipedia
The sequel, Unfriended: Dark Web, on Wikipedia
Unfriended 's Official Website
Unfriended on IMDb
Unfriended on Rotten Tomatoes
Unfriended on Metacritic
Unfriended on Common Sense Media
Unfriended on Tv Tropes
Unfriended at Barnes & Noble
Unfriended on Amazon
Unfriended on eBay
^^ Back to Movies, Short Films, and Other Works of Cinema
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