Unfriended: Dark Web (2018)
Cast
- Colin Woodell as Matias
- Betty Gabriel as Nari
- Rebecca Rittenhouse as Serena
- Andrew Lees as Damon
- Connor Del Rio as Aj
- Stephanie Nogueras as Amaya
Director
- Stephen Susco
Writer
- Stephen Susco
Cinematographer
- Kevin Stewart
Editor
- Andrew Wesman
Horror
88 minutes
I'm torn: should I laugh or yell at the lousy anti-internet horror film "Unfriended: Dark Web?"
Like
its 2014 predecessor, "Unfriended: Dark Web" is a deeply misanthropic
horror film that follows a group of hapless Millennials—through
realistic-looking video footage of their computer screens—as they
are cyber-terrorized by a mysterious group of internet
trolls/killers. The biggest difference between the two films is that "Unfriended" is dynamic and cruel while "Unfriended: Dark Web" is unbelievably stupid and sadistic. Neither movie is especially smart or incisive about the Way We Live Now, but they don't really have to be.
Still, "Unfriended" works because its creators capably lead viewers
around by the nose. "Unfriended: Dark Web" doesn't because its makers
have a bunch of ideas, but fail to synthesize them in any meaningful
way. The result is an unbelievable social critique built on the back of a
Rube Goldberg-esque series of unbelievable, cruel plot twists that will
make even the most credulous moviegoer roll their eyes in disbelief.
Maybe future viewers will get a kick out of this film's campy depiction
of a vast internet-enabled conspiracy that's foisted onto Matias (Colin Woodell), his deaf girlfriend Amaya (Stephanie Nogueras),
and their pals after Matias acquires a mysterious used laptop. But
today—when most viewers probably don't know or care what the "dark web"
is—"Unfriended: Dark Web" looks pretty desperate.
For starters:
Matias's actions are so hatefully stupid that he made me appreciate the
relatively advanced problem-solving skills of the sexually
active protagonists from '80s slasher films. Unlike those kids, who were
just horny in the wrong places, Matias seems to be allergic to logic.
He impulsively opens more computer programs—which he has to decrypt, log
in to, and repeatedly engage with—and interacts with more strangers
than any thinking, feeling person ever could.
Matias ignores
several big, bold warning signs, like the portentous screen names of
his stalkers (they all call themselves "Charon," which prompts a
hilariously insipid Wikipedia search for information on the
Greek underworld's ferryman). One anonymous interlocutor has an
unsettling request: he wants Matias to "trephine" a girl (another
Wiki-explanation: "trephining" is when you drill a hole into a human
skull). Also, all of Matias' adversaries communicate using a shady
private chat room called "The River" that looks like torch-lit sewer canal from the similarly crude and gory "Doom" computer games. What year is this, and how slow is the dial-up modem?
By
now, you've probably figured out that Matias is the kind of
dumb-dumb horror movie protagonist whose contrived behavior only makes
sense as a means of pushing along his obnoxious story. Each new plot
development is so slapdash and uninspired that it's impossible to
suspend one's disbelief. I can't even tell if the baddies' use of a
make-shift sound board and a well-timed van (yes, it's just a regular,
gas-fueled van) are supposed to be funny, or are just unintentionally
lame. I'm leaning towards the latter since it's impossible to take
seriously a movie where a sassy but defenseless deaf girl is repeatedly
imperiled by a faceless internet-enabled killer who uses a
goofy-sounding hacking tool to send all-caps chat room threats to his
victims (a distorted chiming noise can be heard every time the evil
hacker contacts Matias; it sounds like the hacker's cell phone is
ringing while he's accidentally flushing it down the toilet).
The illogical nature of these generic plot twists would be
forgivable if watching "Unfriended: Dark Web" wasn't such a punishing
and unrewarding experience. Matias toggles between various windows and
tabs, but is frequently interrupted by strange women, malicious computer
dweebs, and pesky friends. His interactions are therefore mostly of the
"What do you want me to do now" or "We can't do Y, or X will happen"
variety. And every new conversation only further trips up Matias and his
friends, none of whom exhibit enough technological know-how or
emotional maturity to make them worth rooting for.
And because
"Unfriended: Dark Web" stinks on a basic storytelling level, it's
impossible to take seriously as a low-brow cultural critique. In this
film, our primary source of human contact is a group of cartoonishly
naive Millennials. Is their blinkered naïveté supposed to reflect social
media users' deep-rooted alienation? Sure, let's go with that.
Honestly,
it's hard to appreciate being chastised for willingly giving away
so much personal information online—and for being so short-sighted about
the "private" nature of our online interactions—when the film's
protagonists are too dumb to fight back against big bad social
media boogeymen who use Photoshop and word processing tools to entrap
our heroes. The internet may be a nightmare, but it's a whole lot
scarier than anything in "Unfriended: Dark Web."
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