Monday, October 31, 2022

October Horror Challenge 2022 #115: "Friend Request (2016)"

I'm still in the mood for a social-media themed horror movie. Maybe this one will be everything I dreamed the other movie would be. It sounds like this movie is focused on social media in general and Facebook in particular, since it's about a girl who sends a friend request to a classmate that winds up with some deadly consuquences. Ever since I saw the movie Unfriended and really liked it, I've been a fan of these types of horror movies that take the social media we use every day and explore the possibilities for horror in them. I'm hoping this movie is a good one.

In this movie, Laura, a popular college student, graciously accepts a friend request from Marina, a young social outcast. To everyone's shock, Marina decides to committ suicide after Laura decides to unfriend her. Soon, a disturbing and mysterious video appears on Laura's profile and her contacts slowly dwindle. When her friends suddenly begin to die one by one, the frightened young woman must find a way to stop the carnage before it's too late.

This movie is ringing serious bells in my head. I swear I've seen it before. I watch so many movies that it's bound to happen from time to time when I repeat a movie I've been before. I can't find it in my archives of reviews, but it definitely reminds me of a movie I've seen before. I've definitely seen this one in the last six years that it's been out. I'm calling it now. I recognize character names and even lines they say to each other, and the creepy things a certain character is doing are familiar to me, too. This is definitely a repeat watch.

It's not a bad little movie, though. Laura, the main character, is likeable enough, even though she makes some boneheaded moves that never end well in horror movies. I kinda wanted to yell at her right from the beginning when she befriends the strange, lonely girl named Marina in her class. I get that she felt sorry for the girl but then she lied to keep the girl away from her birthday party, then posted pictures of the party all over Facebook where the girl was sure to see, which is a stupid thing to do. Then she unfriends the girl and starts off a chain reaction of horrible things that bounce off each other. Soon bodies start to pile up and there seems to be no way to stop it. One of the friends actually comes to a pretty smart (albeit twisted) solution and thinks he's figured out what he has to do. Bonus points for creativity, minus a million points for craziness. There are some bad CGI bugs that were more effective when it was just one bug crawling out of a guy's ear, so i don't know why they ordered a whole swarm and it looks pretty silly whenever they show up. This movie has a lot of jump scares, those are its favorite kind of scares. There's a cool turnaround at the end of the movie. All in all this is a cool little movie. Could have been better, could have been worse. Obviously worth watching twice.

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