Unfriended: Dark Web - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Unfriended: Dark Web

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie
The horror genres are kind of at it’s end for “new and inventive” sub genres, as we’ve been through slashers, supernatural horror, jump scares, monster movies, ghost stories and even found footage films. A small sub genre of horror movies that has never gotten much love is the modern “cyber” horror, where online uses are used to create suspense and terror. Back in 2014 I had the unpleasant experience of having to review a little cyber horror film by name of Unfriended. Unfriended was a cheap little flick that cost only $1 million to make and centered around being cyber stalked by a mysterious person in a group chat. The movie was utterly inane, and a complete waste of time, but somehow made an absolutely LUDICROUS $65 million dollars at the world wide box office. Almost 65 times it’s budget. No studio on the planet is stupid enough to pass up profit margins of that magnitude, and a sequel was green lit. Some 4 years later, the sequel has arrived, being shot for the same amount of money, but it seems the general public has spoken with their dollars, and the ill conceived sequel has made a paltry $10 million worldwide (hopefully negating another sequel, but I doubt it, as 9x budget is a healthy enough margin to continue).

Like the first movie, we really only see anything as seen through the little video screens of a chat window. Matias (Colin Woodell) has just bought a new laptop on craigslist, and is joining his friends AJ (Connor Del Rio), Damon (Andre Lee), Serena (Rebecca Rittenhouse), and Nari (Betty Gabriel) for a skype game night where the group is playing some Cards Against Humanity (one of my favorite card games). However, things are a bit wonky this night. Matias has just had a fight with his deaf girlfriend Amaya (Stephanie Nogueras) and his game is a bit off tonight. While Matias is spending time trying to get his new computer to work and begging Amaya to talk, he’s interrupted by the owner of the laptop (which seems he actually stole) starts harassing him to return the laptop immediately. Feeling guilty about the theft, Matias agrees to return the laptop, only to stumble on a bigger secret. Stored on the laptop’s internal hard drive is almost a terabyte worth of videos that involve young girls being tortured to death.

Realizing what they have in their hand, Matias is about to turn over the information to the police when the mysterious owner levels an act of war on Matias and his friends. He has captured Amaya and is using her as leverage to get the boy to turn over the computer, but only if he and his friends stay active and online so that no one suspects or tuns him into the police before the trade happens. What happens next is a ridiculous mess of a movie that tries to use the terror of a cyber hacker and the evil “dark web” to instill fear in the viewer and make them wonder who will get killed next.

Oi vey. My brain actually lost some cells watching this movie. It’s almost worse than the original, with a ludicrous handle on technology (as a computer technician in my career, the blatant use of movie grade “hacking” made my brain almost boil itself alive), and a hilariously inept script that leaves plot holes open to everyone. How did the hacker actually no HOW to hack the computers of everyone? How did this giant global dark web conspiracy get things set up? And what would have happened if they had just turned the laptop in from the beginning and not play their game? Many of the questions are asked in the film, but very few are actually answered. The characters do a decent job what they’re given, but there’s not a whole lot of stuff to work with, as you just look at a few horrified faces in a video chat window. It’s pretty one dimensional, and while it KIND OF works in some ways, really doesn’t do much for me.

I will say this. There’s an actual twist later on in the movie that actually had me going “well, that was kind of different and nifty”. Some may see it coming a mile away (some friends said they saw it coming, some didn’t), but it’s rather clever for the stupid script that we’re stuck with for the rest of the movie. The same can be said about the suspense. Take aside the horrible handle on technology and hacking in general, the film actually kept a general layer of suspense that was palpable throughout, even if you did want a lobotomy as a result of watching.




Rating:

Rated R for some disturbing violence, language and sexual references.




Video:

The 1.78:1 AVC encoded Blu-ray is a solid entry, and one that really is defined by it’s shooting style. 99.99% of the time we’re watching through a web cam, or at least the images OF a webcome being show on a computer screen as the group Skype’s each other. The rest of the area is just a black matte as we’re supposed to be staring at the screen like it IS the entire monitor. There’s a few bits through the end where we see through some street cams or whatever, but those are a bit blurrier and lower resolution than even the web cams. One thing that always drives me nuts about these “cyber” films, is the incessant need for the web cam to routinely pixelate and freak out, something which MOST good webcams haven’t done since the invention of broadband. As a plot device it’s rather tired and worn out, grinding this tech nerd’s gears just a bit. Blacks are paramount to this film and for a majority of the time they’re rock solid. There is some banding, but it’s only intermittent, and the rest of the film is decently detailed. The saving grace of the film is that there is so much matte screen going on, with little pictures in the middle of the screen, that it has a really difficult time looking bad.







Audio:

The lone 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is competent at it’s job, but there’s really not a whole lot that it CAN do considering it’s location. 99.99% of the film takes place inside of the people’s houses, with us listening through crackling microphones while Matias, Nari, Serena, AJ, and Damon talk to each other, punctuated by the bleeps, creeps and sweeps of the computers (sorry, little Spaceballs humor there). The score adds most of the actual activity to the track, and it’s an ominous score that just pulsates in the background. Despite the use of microphones and laptop speakers for the majority of the dialog, it’s still clean and relatively clear. The surrounds get use only with the score and a few background noises, but the LFE is quite appealing. Lots of deep and low tones that really give a sense of dread to the viewers experience. It’s not a GREAT track, but the sound design of the movie kind of defines what it can and can not do, and there is a lot the track just CAN’T do because of that. As such, it’s a good track that really does the best it can with the tools at its disposal.




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Extras:

• Three Alternate Endings: Who Deserves to Live?

Final Score: ​

Unfriended: Dark Web is just about as inane and silly as the first one, doing a few things worse than its predecessor, and a few things that are just plain abysmal. Watching this in a group was absolutely hysterical as we were yelling at the screen (and characters) the whole time, just giggling with involuntary laughter over the idiocy being portrayed on screen. For a film that cost only $1,000,000 to make, it probably (and sadly) will spawn another sequel as it almost amassed 10x it’s budget worldwide. A hefty profit for any studio, no matter how awful the actual movie. The audio and video specs for the Blu-ray are good enough, but sadly there’s only some alternate endings for special features (which gives it a “choose you ending” type of feel to it when watched that way). Honestly, unless you’re a glutton for punishment, just skip it.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Colin Woodell, Stephanie Nogueras, Betty Gabriel, Andrew Lees, Connor Del Rio, Rebecca Rittenhouse
Directed by: Stephen Susco
Written by: Stephen Susco
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Universal
Rated: R
Runtime: 88 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: October 16th 2018

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Skip It

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Will skip it based on your recommendation.

 

[Asere]

Thank for the review. I fell asleep during the first one and never got around to see it completely. I will skip this one.

 

[Valerius Walls]

Are there any trailers on this disc? I can tell there might be some in here. Maybe for Halloween (2018). Are there any trailers on this disc? And I'm menting the DVD not the Blu-Ray because you say the Blu-Ray changes their trailers. Are there any trailers on this disc?

 

[Michael Scott]

nope, only the streaming trailers on startup (which of course vary depending on what universal has in their streaming cue at the time)