More funny than scary, “Unfriended” is less about its putative subject of cyber-bullying than Hollywood finding ways to update supernatural horror film clichés to fit ever-changing American society.
Setting the story in real time — and entirely on a California teenager’s Apple desktop — not only saves lots of money for the producer (schlockmeister Jason Blum) but also works a lot better than you might expect.
The virginal Blaire (Shelley Hennig) starts getting Facebook messages from someone who claims to be Laura (Heather Sossaman) on the one-year anniversary of Laura’s suicide, which followed an especially humiliating video posted on YouTube. Blaire quickly unfriends Laura, but of course it isn’t easy getting rid of her late friend’s ghost.
A bent-on-vengeance Laura starts threatening Blaire and her none-too-bright pals on Skype, demanding they fess up to their roles in the shaming video — or else. There is a lot of tabbing and resizing going on as Blaire and her pals wend their way back and forth between various social media sites: Instagram is interrupted by pop-up ads for X-rated webcams while Spotify provides the soundtrack.
Laura, who has apparently watched a lot of ’80s horror movies, says things like “You each have dirty little secrets” and “Let’s play a game, and the loser’s gonna die” to this increasingly terrified group. It’s not exactly surprising that appalling things do start happening, albeit on a special-effects budget that looks to have been well under $50.
Even at 82 minutes, the increasingly shrill and repetitive “Unfriended” starts wearing out its welcome about 10 minutes before the end. But it’s clever enough about social media to keep an audience engaged until then — it’s especially hilarious to watch the hapless Blaire begging for help from random strangers on Chatroulette.