Film of the Week: Unfriended – Dark Web

The first film, Unfriended, was a unique take on the found-footage genre, as the entirety of the film was shown on someone’s desktop computer, and all the other characters appeared through Skype. It’s a horror movie, about the ghost of someone the characters wronged, come back to haunt them, and take revenge, and successfully takes out each and every one of them. The setting was unique, but the majority of the film was them shouting at one another. It wasn’t scary for a ghost story but how the story was told on the desktop, through multiple software applications – kept it fresh and unpredictable.

I had no idea a sequel was in the works or even out, but when I saw it on Amazon Prime Video, it sparked my curiosity and I watched it. Much the same as the first, it was told on someone’s desktop computer, but unlike the previous, this isn’t a ghost story, but one about a group of hackers from the dark web having targeted a group of friends, played out their own “game night”. Due to having no paranormal phenomena involved, but purely living people, the film is actually better than the previous. The first wasn’t at all predictable due to the way the story was told, but when the phenomena started to happen, it was clichéd. With living people only, playing mind games with others, it reaches a whole other level of unpredictability, and at times, when the hackers interacted with the unfortunate group of friends, I genuinely was on the edge of my seat, hoping the hackers would be outperformed, but learning very early on that they were several steps ahead from the very beginning.

With the concept already explored in the first, the filmmakers knew what they were doing, and therefore upped their performance as well, by including many more software apps to defeat those who the audience knew weren’t going to come close to tipping the scales. Just when you think the hackers might lose, they had a way to make sure all evidence of their acts were erased, almost instantly.

Also, there wasn’t as much raw shouting as before, but instead had a lot more emotion involved. The actors portrayed each devastating blow suffered from the hacker’s attacks with enough emphasis to make the audience feel the effects, too. Those hackers never held back their punches. Those hackers knew exactly what they were doing, and utilised their knowledge to keep the unfortunate group guessing. The characters themselves were smart and intelligent, every day people, and the actors played that perfectly.

Unfriended – Dark Web is what this take on the found-footage genre should have been the first time round. The first film had blatant frays around the edges, indicating it was an experimental concept. Now the filmmakers knew what they were doing, they polished off the rough parts and played to their strengths from the first – keeping the tone of the film the same, but ultimately a different film from the first, making it a good sequel. It’s not often sequels are recognised as being on par with the first, and rarer still to be better, but Unfriended – Dark Web is better than the first. It is what the first should have been.

With how sudden this one appeared, I doubt I would have any knowledge of a third, if ever they decide to make it, but if I do happen to find the third on Amazon Prime Video, I’ll be happy to set aside the time to watch it, because now the filmmakers know what they’re doing and the concept has been fully established, and technology is ever increasing and more and more software applications are getting exceptionally more versatile; it’ll be interesting to see what happens next.

I do recommend this film if you’re a fan of the found-footage genre.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)