UNFRIENDED/ CYBERNATURAL
US, 2015, 83 minutes, Colour.
Shelley Hennig, Moses Storm, Renée Olstead, Will Peltz, Jacob Wysocki, Courtney Halverson, Heather Sossaman.
Directed by Leo Gabriadze.
In Poltergeist, the evil powers are inside a television set or, at least behind a television screen. This time they are in the worldwide web, operating through the Internet, through chat rooms and through Skype.
The title has literal as the young people communicating on their computers have an experience of being unfriended. But, the working title of the film was Cybernatural which rather appeals as a play on cyberspace and supernatural influences.
Who would have thought that we would have a film where the camera focused entirely on a computer screen? This is the experience of those who spend hours in front of their computer, looking at, staring at, becoming involved… However, there is quite some action in the film, but always within the computer screen, Skype images of each of the young people, You Tube and video clips, so that the film keeps up its pace.
At the opening, the young woman is flirting with her boyfriend, but soon a number of friends are introduced. The context is the suicide of another young woman, after a party, with the suggestion that she was bullied and took her life.
Each of the friends has an association with the dead woman but plead innocence. As the film progresses, a mysterious member starts to contact them all, entering via chat rooms, with the Internet address of the dead woman.
As we might imagine as the film goes on, each of the friends is going to be eliminated. The malevolence makes its way through the Internet and dramatically takes its toll. The drama is in finding out what the connection with each victim was to the dead woman, who will be next and whether anyone will survive. To that extent, the film follows a not unusual pattern of elimination deaths.
Gradually, the characters of the participants are revealed, not very likeable at all.
The mysterious communicator invites them all to play a game, that they have to answer a question truthfully within a fixed time otherwise they are the loser. They have to hold up their hands to camera, putting down a finger each time they fail with their answer. The question is a very personal, revealing a nasty side to each of the characters, including the two flirting at the opening.
The film also shows on the You Tube clips what actually happened to the girl, how she was sick, defecated, with everybody laughing at her, humiliating her. Obviously, she is going to have the last laugh.
The film is contemporary in its preoccupation with information technology, young people and social media, the amount of time and energy invested in being online, the emotional consequences.
And the other message of the film is a warning against bullying and its devastating consequences – this time not only to the victim but also for the victimisers.
1. Cybernatural, and its overtones? A horror story, ghosts, through computers and Internet? The title?
2. The fixed camera, on the computer screen? The effect for the audience? Using Skype, image and conversation, multi-images, reactions and drama, appearance and disappearance? Texts and replies? Chat? The use of Youtube?
3. The situation, Laura and her suicide, seen on the Youtube clip, the bullying, the mockery, her lying on the ground, soiled? The repeat of these scenes?
4. The six characters, their age, experience, relationships, sexualities, drugs, lies?
5. Billie and her using Laura’s address, account? Her interventions? Words and accusations? Reactions? Ken and his trying to find solutions?
6. The game, willing and unwilling to play, holding up five fingers, denials and a finger going down, losing five fingers and being the loser? The timing of the questions and for the response?
7. The secrets? Val, relationship with Laura, her early death? Ken, his participating, the attack on him, arm in the blender, the view truth through the lattice? Jessie, relationships, reporting people to the police, drugs? Adam and his sexual relationships, the issue of abortion, betrayal, his interactions with Mitch? Reports and jealousy?
8. Blaire, the opening, the relationship with Mitch, being suggestive, the chat and her fears? Mitch’s reactions? Blaire and her laughing at the soiled Laura? Revealed at the end? Her death?
9. The film as a contemporary moral fable with lessons, especially about obsessions with computer and Internet, and, more especially, about bullying?
