Sharing movies with loved ones is a beautiful thing. As beautiful as it is, I think we have all experienced a moment while watching a movie with a parent or any comparable figure, where the thing taking place on screen was so uncomfortable you wish the couch would swallow you whole. We’re going to try and avoid that as much as possible! I hope this works as a sort of guide for you to know when you should excuse yourself to refill the popcorn bowl and avoid the wrath of a disgruntled or disgusted parent. Before the likes of HOST, SEARCHING, and MISSING, there was UNFRIENDED, a pioneer in the screenlife genre of moviemaking that I have grown to love and covet. And when done well, it can be thoroughly terrifying. I am a fierce defender of UNFRIENDED and was really looking forward to sharing it with my mom, while not anticipating she would share my love for it. Read on to find out how right or wrong I may have been.
High Tech Horror
Upon answering the FaceTime call, I greeted my mom with a cheery “good morning” and an even cheerier “you’re gonna hate this!” For those unfamiliar with UNFRIENDED, it takes place entirely on a computer screen through a group Skype call. Before we even get to the intentional horror in the film, my mom had to confront the horror of trying to navigate the tech being used to tell the story. Right off the bat, we are presented with the Universal logo glitching on screen. My mom 100% thought that there was something wrong with her TV or that Netflix was acting up, and I had to prepare her for the reality that things like that were going to keep happening. And UNFRIENDED does provide a very trippy viewing experience! There is almost a learning curve of sorts when watching it as my mom was scrambling to decide what part of the screen she should be looking at and what pieces of information were important to read. There were times where things were moving so fast that my mom had a hard time reading everything she was supposed to read, and there were also times she was practically tearing her hair out over the sloth-like pace at which we had to watch Blair (Shelley Hennig) do her computer business.
One of the most fascinating parts of our UNFRIENDED viewing experience was the way our own personal tech bled into it in a very meta way. Firstly, my mom was using her smartwatch to monitor her heart rate and gauge her fear, which feels like it could be a plot element utilized in future sequels. (If this comes up in Unfriended 3 or 4 or so on, please contact my mom to begin the copyright suit). Something about the informal, Skype call element of the movie also made it feel like we were just hanging out on our own video call, and chunks of UNFRIENDED were lost to us as we got distracted trying to show each other our painted toenails, and a very lengthy conversation about calcium supplements. Apparently bone density goes down after age 30, so keep an eye on that.
The tech utilized in the film, however, did provide my mom with a sense of comfort as she quickly came to the conclusion that this would never happen to her. Firstly, she’s not confident that she would be able to figure out all the features of Skype to even notice that a spirit was seemingly attempting to contact and torment her from the beyond. She wouldn’t be following any of the links being sent to her or participating in the necessary software downloads and would remain blissfully unaware of the terrors enacted on the characters in UNFRIENDED. She also realized there would be a possibility that she wouldn’t even understand what was being said to her when she had to ask me what STFU meant. Despite my mom’s lack of familiarity with some technological aspects involved in the events of the movie, she did offer perhaps the most sage piece of advice that could’ve saved a lot of time: “She should probably hang up the Skype call.”
Blood and Bullies
UNFRIENDED begins very boldly with grainy footage of a teenage girl shooting herself in the face. The camera is placed far away from her, and while it isn’t graphic in terms of blood and guts, it’s a violent thing to see regardless. I’ve seen this movie so many times that I’m somewhat desensitized to it so I didn’t even really consider how upsetting that would be for my mom to see. Later in the film, we see the same girl, Laura (Heather Sossaman), before her death being ridiculed by classmates after drinking too much at a party and soiling herself. This devastated my mom, who is a very empathetic person, but made her even sadder than I expected. It also had the effect of making my mom fiercely align with Laura and become very suspicious of our main characters. She was team Laura all the way.
Beyond the heavy upsetting stuff, UNFRIENDED also has its share of scares and gore. The first time it becomes clear that there is something beyond teenagers pranking one another going on, I saw her physically shiver which was just a thrill. There were also a number of jump scares that sent her flying into the back of the couch. The gore in UNFRIENDED is relatively infrequent but incredibly effective. After a relatively tame first act of the movie, it comes out of nowhere with an absolutely grotesque blender kill that my mom did not take well. Also of note is a particularly foul curling iron kill, which we both liked to think of as a nod to one of our favorite movies, SLEEPAWAY CAMP, and a knife to the eye that was so bad I was sincerely worried my mom might throw up.
TEENS
As has become commonplace with any movie featuring a “teenage” cast, my mom hated the characters in UNFRIENDED. “I may not care if these people get killed,” she declared very early into the film’s runtime, which is ultimately the perfect recipe for a fun slasher experience. Her statement was put to the test rather quickly though as the first kill made her sad because she was starting to kind of like that guy. Even through her annoyance though, we did have a good giggle over a conversation on “farts and boners,” as we are only human. Mostly though, she was just furious at the behavior of these adolescents and aghast at their idiocy, counting down the minutes until Adam (Will Peltz) in particular died. That became a bit challenging however, as my mom thought the two teen boys looked far too similar to tell them apart, in spite of their names being in the bottom corner of each of their Skype windows. The biggest question my mom had though was a crucial one, and perhaps one that only a mother would have, which was “Where is anybody’s parents?”
Did Mom Like It?
So, the time came to ask the age-old question: Did Mom like that? While she had her fair share of jokes, complaints, and suggestions, I actually think she did like it! 3.5/5 moms would recommend. She said she was invested the entire time and had a lot of fun, and what more could you ask of a movie? UNFRIENDED’s breezy runtime was super appealing to her and made for a thrilling and satisfying ride. She even learned a thing or two, like the meaning of “STFU,” and according to her smartwatch, burned 369 calories in the process. You heard it here first: horror movies are good for you!
Tags: Blumhouse Productions, Columns, Courtney Halverson, Heather Sossaman, Horror, Jacob Wysocki, Levan Gabriadze, Moses Storm, Renee Olstead, Riley Cassidy, Shelley Hennig, Timur Bekmambetov, Will Peltz
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