What would you do if you received a Facebook message from a deceased friend? Well in the thriller Unfriended, that is exactly what happens. The movie begins with a provocative Skype call between main character Blaire Lily (Shelley Hennig) and her boyfriend Mitch Roussel (Moses Jacob Storm) on the -how coincidental- anniversary of their dead friend Laura Barns. However, their “private session” is soon put to a halt when they are interrupted by a Skype call from their friends Jess Felton (Renee Olstead), Ken Smith (Jacob Wysocki), Adam Sewell (Will Peltz), and an unknown, faceless user “billie227.” Soon after the call, Blaire receives a Facebook message from the long gone friend, which makes her question who exactly sent the message. Is it even possible for the dead to use Facebook? I think not. Her questioning gives her the idea that Val Rommel (Courtney Halverson) is playing a trick on them, since Val didn’t like Laura in the first place.

As the movie progresses they soon realize that “billie227” is more of a threat then they would have ever thought. As the unknown Skype user continues to antagonize and frighten them, Blaire has reason to believe that maybe Laura is really contacting her from the dead, but not as a friendly greeting; instead she has come back in vengeance to slowly weed out whoever posted the embarrassing video that influenced Laura to commit suicide.

Viewers saw the movie from the perspective of Blaire’s laptop, which gave for an interesting movie experience.  This point of view has numerous pros and cons, some which could make or break the movie depending on your preferences.

Pros: you can see what songs the computer plays, which contributes to the effect the movie gives. (i.e. “How You Lie, Lie, Lie” was played when the mystery Skype-r called her out on a lie). You could also see messages Blaire sends, and websites she opens (i.e. a forum containing information of what to do when contacted from the dead)  while simultaneously on the Skype call. Also, in one scene when she tried to turn her volume off you could  see the volume dial go on mute, even though you could still hear the music, which really sold that the “ghost” was hacking her computer. Little details such as these really made the movie realistic.

Cons: The movie is supposed to be as realistic as possible, so whenever Blaire would open a new window you could not see what was going on in the skype call, and you could barely hear it. You could only see what she would see on her screen. This would only bother viewers if you are really curious about what is going on in the call (like my friends and I were).

Since Unfriended was made for more “adolescent” viewers than adults, there were many relatable moments. For example, when Blaire messaged someone it wasn’t uncommon to see her type something, then erase it and say something totally different. Or if her boyfriend wasn’t quick to respond to her messages, she would flood his messages with worried texts as to why he wasn’t replying. You could also hear the notifications as they popped up on her laptop, and as you would if you were on your phone or computer, the little message bubble would appear in the top right corner. The directors also threw in a couple quick ads, such as at the top of her screen you could see the MTV tab for Teen Wolf, because main character Shelley Hennig also plays the part of a werewolf on that thriller show.

Unfriended is a great movie. It is enough of a scary movie for you to let out an embarrassingly high pitched scream at the pop up scares, but also bearable enough for movie-goers that aren’t necessarily cut out for extremely bone chilling films. I will say one thing about this film though: once it is finished I guarantee you will rethink everything you’ve put online. I would rate this film a 4 out of 5 stars.