Unfriended: Horror Redefined
Bringing the teen-slasher-ghost-film to your desktop
By now we’re all familiar with horror movie tropes and cliches. And you’ve probably heard the one with the young couple moving into a house haunted by a long-ago murder, with the door they’re not supposed to open, but they go ahead and open it anyway.
But what if we told you there’s no need for the haunted mansion in Fearsville, Scaryfornia anymore? What if the entire scare-fest played out right there on the pimply-faced teens’ desktops?
That’s the ingenious concept behind ‘Unfriended’, directed by Levan Gabriadze and written by Nelson Greaves. The full length feature film plays out entirely on a high school student’s MacBook screen, utilising YouTube, Instagram and Skype. For a taste, check out the trailer below; you can watch a video set on a laptop, on your laptop (so meta!).
Unfriended centers around six teenagers in a group Skype sesh. When their talk is interrupted by the mysterious Billie227, they at first pass it off as a simple Skype glitch… that is, until one of them gets messaged by a girl named Laura Barns.
Laura, it turns out, committed suicide a year ago following an intense cyber-bullying scandal.
What follows is a race to figure out who Billie227 is; a race that will bring old skeletons out of the closet, and maybe add some new ones along the way.
The Skype platform is near ubiquitous, and almost all of us have seen or used it at some point in our lives. This is where Unfriended shines; it turns this technology against us, making it mysterious and threatening by taking the familiar and making it the enemy.
And by using a very specific viewpoint, the audience is made to feel voyeuristic — we don’t feel like we’re just seeing a conversation between friends, we feel like we’re in on it, and watching events unfold firsthand. Spooky.
The relevance of Unfriended is undeniable. The film takes advantage of how pervasive internet culture has become, especially with teenagers and their social lives. It also shines a light on the growing prevalence of cyber-bullying — a very real, very potent phenomenon in this generation. And even if when it’s not haunted friends like Laura, we’ve all seen the effects of anonymity on racism, sexism, and personal attacks in social media.
But one has to wonder: will the novelty of the film last? Director Levan Gabriadze mentions:
“Everything dates in this world; computers do too. This will be a testament of this year; it will be attached to this period.”
Gabriadze might be right, and we’re seeing similar experiments in network television shows like Modern Family adopting the format, and showcasing an entire episode on the computer. Unfriended is most definitely a new form of visual storytelling, and one that could be adapted to a range of genres — imagine a Hangover style around-the-world comedy told entirely through CCTV footage, FaceTime, tablets and smartphones.
And if Unfriended is a testament to 2015, what will next year’s storytelling testament be? The next half-decade could be full of surprises!
If you’re not much of a horror-fan, fear not! The short film Noah—more heart-breaking than heart-racing— tells the story of a crumbling romantic relationship through various platforms on the internet. Watch it below! (Warning: it’s a little on the NSFW side)
Meanwhile, I’m now blaming Unfriended for the mini heart attacks I get whenever I hear the Skype call-tone 😝
Do you know of any movies or shows that uniquely incorporate the technology we use today? Have you ever thought about writing a story told through today’s networking technology, like social networks or messenger apps? Let us know in the response section, we’d love to hear from you!
Enjoy!
Woven is supported by LongShorts, a social media-based storytelling. Check it out here for iOS.
