Friend Request review: Another examination of social media is just a limp lacklustre cousin to last year’s Unfriended.
Facebook and all social media is the new evil that Hollywood is out to exploit. Well, not Hollywood exactly, as this German production shot in South Africa with an American cast speaking the English language also wants to get in on the action. Here’s THN’s Friend Request review by Luke Ryan Baldock.
Friend Request review
Friend Request sets itself up for a nice and telling look into he world of social media, but it fails to make an impact. Last year we had the exceptional Unfriended, which was clever in its presentation and cleverly put us right into the world of the generation living through computers. Friend Request will be nowhere near as memorable.
Laura (Alycia Debnam-Carey) is a very popular girl at college, we know this because an onscreen title tells us she has over 800 friends. The measuring of status via Facebook friends is delightfully satirical, but becomes far too humorous as the film goes on. She becomes the only online friend of class loner Marina (Liesl Ahlers), but when Marina becomes a bit obsessive, liking every single one of Laura’s photos, Laura has to quickly rip off the bandaid and put an end to Marina’s delusions. This ends in Marina’s suicide, which she streams on social networks, and extends into apparent hauntings from the other side.
Friend Request review
The simple plot would have made an excellent parody, but alas, the majority of the laughs are unintentional and derive from the stupid characters and dialogue. It’s very easy to identify the film’s stupidity when the suicide video appears on Laura’s timeline, framing her for uploading the video. After Laura denies she did it Det. Cameron (Shashawnee Hall) quips “So it just magically appeared on your timeline?”, as though that is the only other option. It’s never once mentions about hacking and throughout the runtime the police fail to exhibit any competence. Laura’s friends also become agitated at her, despite having experienced the paranormal themselves
The other big misstep is removing any kind of important moral message. Unfriended worked because the haunted victims had actually bullied the vengeful spirit. Friend Request makes Marina just crazy. There’s no social commentary since Laura is a nice person, she reaches out to Marina and its Marina’s actions that push her away. It removes us emotionally from Marina and kind of suggests that weird loners at school should be left alone lest they return from the grave to haunt you, even if you were nice.
Friend Request review
On the upside there is some very disturbing imagery present. Early on the film utilises some interesting animated transitions based on Marina’s online videos, which adds a sprinkling of originality. There’s also an intriguing backstory that would have made a far better film than the one we got. The rest of Friend Request’s issues are as a result of its cookie-cutter horror assembly; loud jump scares, sudden revelations, investigations the ghost somehow allows to happen.
Overall Friend Request is good for a laugh at how it tries to explore a world it doesn’t understand. Cinema is no stranger to writers completely missing the boat when it comes to writing younger characters, but here it seems to also be mixed with humour and horror lost in translation from its mostly German production team. You can almost feel director Simon Verhoeven following the beats of other horror movies as a template. Decent performances, some good scares, but overall a waste of time. It certainly won’t be getting a thumbs up from me on Facebook.
Friend Request review by Luke Ryan Baldock, April 2016.
Friend Request is released on 20th April.
