The Knightly News

—By Danielle Brubaker & Emma Kileen—

Synopsis:

Unfriended, a new movie directed by Levan Gabriadze,features  six teenagers who get killed by the spirit of a girl who committed suicide at their school.  The story unfolds through video chat and Facebook messages.

Danielle’s review:

There is no way a movie that features a guy being murdered with a blender (the logistics of which remain unclear) can be respected. When the death-by-blender is followed by a girl being choked with her own flat iron, Unfriended goes from disreputable to laughable very quickly. Unfriended is the story of six shallow and ridiculously brainless teenagers and the creative ways that they’re killed by a spirit on Skype named “billie227.” Excuse me for not trembling in fear.

A large part of the movie consists of waiting for everything to load. Files have to be downloaded, an Internet connection has to be maintained, junk folders have to be deleted. The Rainbow Spinny Wheel of Death even makes a few appearances. No one spends money to go to the movies to watch a video buffer. I understand that it’s supposed to feel like an authentic Internet experience, but it’s just tedious.

The alleged scary scenes are predictably underwhelming. The screen is so glitchy and pixelated that it’s impossible to even see what’s supposed to be horrifying. Half the time it’s difficult to decipher what’s going on, because the one blonde chick just keeps hyperventilating in the corner of the screen, making excessively unhelpful comments. It’s truly a miracle she doesn’tdie first.

With its annoying computer format and terribly crafted horror scenes, Unfriended had me closer to peeing my pants from laughter than from fear.

Emma’s review:

Many critics say that scary movies are “dumb” or “not even that scary”. But I, for one, always have nightmares after watching these not-so-scary-scary movies.  The trailer alone for the movie Unfriended left me half covering my eyes and half peeking.

The glitches from the computers are what got me every time.  Whenever the spirit hacks into the computers and is about to kill one of the teenagers, there’s a 30-second glitch.  And while everyone is yelling, “Are you OK? What happened? Hello?!” a bloody face just pops out of nowhere and at that point, I’m just done.  When is this movie over?  I’m never going toSkype again.

Also, the ghost likes to play “games,” which in and of itself sounds terrifying—. Sometimes, the ghost makes the lights turn off, and the teenagers start to cry \, not knowing if they are going to lose the game, which would mean certain death.

Thankfully, the movie included a few moments of peace. Because it unfolds on a computer screen, a lot of the running time consists of email correspondence and waiting for videos to buffer.  But the movie also turns

normal, everyday appliances into something that can kill you.  A blender: who knew they were capable of vicious, bloody attacks?  Hair straighteners: never putting one of those near my face ever again.

Unfriended absolutely terrified me, but I’m trying to think of it as a sort of motivation. I now intend to play a sport all three seasonsbecause I never want to be home alone again.