Hell Is Other Skypers

Like it or not, this is the age of social media and it would be darn silly for the horror genre to not embrace it (particularly considering its large teenage audience makes up a good chunk of the participants). Titling your film Unfriended and setting it in the realm of Skype may, on paper, seem a tad too trendy, but let’s face it: this is how we live now. 

Quick Plot: Blaire and her friends are high school seniors having a Skype group call that keeps being interrupted by a mystery account user. Is it just a glitch, or someone eavesdropping? More importantly, is said someone the vengeful ghost of Laura Barns, a former frenemy who killed herself after an embarrassing video was posted online?

Like The Den, Unfriended is a film that takes place entirely on a laptop. While that might sound insufferable, director Levan Gabriadze manages to make it quite compelling. The cast is game and all equip themselves well, despite the fact that they're all essentially acting straight to a webcam. They speak like what this 30something writer believes to sound like real teenagers, and for the most part, aren't making stupid decisions merely to move the plot along.

We should get one thing very straight: the characters of Unfriended are fairly awful and highly unexceptional people. That doesn't necessarily work against the film's favor. Like a lot of teen-centered horror films, the film isn't asking your heart to bleed for its eventual victims. At the same time, its sextet of Skype users isn't so over the top Heather Chandler-esque that we're actively rooting for each one's demise. It's an interesting balancing act.

That fine line has been a vital part of virtually all found footage or internet-based horror films over the last ten years or so. There are times when the awkwardness of shaky cam combined with a lack of character sympathies can be all out insufferable (see: Crowsnest). In other cases, it's simply a tool that can be built upon to make the viewer think more about the kinds of characters he or she might normally dismiss and beg for an early slasher kill (see: the highly underrated and incredibly disturbing Megan Is Missing).

Unfriended sort of finds a new place: it gives you characters that you believe are real, characters you don't like but don't necessarily need to see tortured, and plays their story out before you. Less than 80 minutes long, it wisely keeps the pace moving and mixes up its webcam storytelling when needed. While the concept of bullies getting their comeuppance isn’t new (where would 85% of ‘80s slasher be without it?), Unfriended has plenty of fresh ideas. It also manages to be genuinely unnerving in plenty of moments, making it, you know, a pretty darn effective little horror movie. 

High Points

Credit really does have to go to the young cast, who manage to give natural performances in a fairly unnatural context

Low Points

As much as it makes perfect sense for the particular story being told, it doesn’t make it any easier or more pleasant to watch a bunch of teenagers screaming at each other

Lessons Learned

Chat Roulette can be a surprisingly useful resource for potentially protecting yourself from vengeful ghosts

You know you're not the sharpest crayon in the box when your default browser is Yahoo

On the flip side, you know you're an aging blogger when you watch a teen-centered horror film and have to google a slang acronym used by the film's killer

As a bonus, aging bloggers everywhere get a free lesson: STFU apparently means "shut the f#ck up." Who knew? (aside from everyone under the age of 34)

Rent/Bury/Buy

Unfriended easily justifies its gimmick and manages to be a genuinely good, occasionally rather scary horror movie. It’s not quite at the top tier of this subgenre, but it’s definitely high up. 

Do You Want To Play a Game?

Cheeky dark humor, likable characters, surprising plot twists, badass beheadings, AND Ron Perlman?

Folks, we might have a winner.

Quick Plot: Nice guy Elliot is a few days away from marrying his pregnant fiancee when he loses his insurance sales job for being too nice of a guy. Saddled with the debt of college loans, looming baby bills, and the financial responsibility of taking care of his elderly father and special needs brother Michael, you could say Elliot is having something of a terrible horrible no good very bad day.

It's about to get a whole lot worse.

A WHOLE lot. A whole lot as in 'eating a dead fly is probably the best of it.'

Elliot, you see, has been chosen as a contestant for a mysterious 'game' that makes Fear Factor look like as easy as Wheel of Fortune. A grandfatherly voice on his flip phone assigns Elliot a task to complete. With each successful finish, Elliot earns big money, so long as he completes all thirteen  progressively more challenging challenges. Digesting a household insect makes it a no brainer; making a child cry and sawing off an old acquaintance's arm are no regular Daily Double.

13 Sins is a remake of a very good Thai horror film called, depending on your translation, 13: Game of Death. Written and directed by The Last Exorcism's Daniel Stamm, 13 Sins takes what worked in the original and smartly adds plenty more, taking great care to craft its lead character as a realistic and sympathetic man in way over his head.

Elliot, played by Mark Webber, is easy to root for. The film establishes him very quickly as a good man taxed with big commitments he, like so many of us normal folks, can’t possibly fulfill. I know that it's something of a tradition to cast your token young pretty people in the horror genre, but as I watched 13 Sins a few days after Crowsnest, I was reminded just how hard I hate said tradition. The characters at the heart of Crowsnest (a typical found footage slasher) were early twentysomething upper middle class brats who had no redeeming qualities other than being human beings. 

Elliot is still a young guy, but he's a NICE young guy. A quick scene with his boss establishes, without overly complex exposition, that Elliot doesn't like to cheat people. He kisses his wife goodbye. He cares for his brother. It's not that he deserves to live because he's a human being, but that he deserves to live a happy life because he’s just a good, if not extraordinary man. See, young filmmakers? It's not that hard!

In addition to tweaking its protagonist's family life, 13 Sins also adds an intriguing subplot using the always intriguing Pruitt Taylor Vince and the always excessively awesome Ron Perlman. Vince plays a man whose past experiences with the game have led to an obsessive quest to uncover its secrets and reveal them to the world. It's a fun side story that gives us a taste of just deep the conspiracy runs (hint: it just might involve a grassy knoll). 

You know, I am more than happy to say that I really dug 13 Sins. Much like The Last Exorcism, the film toes a difficult line between comedy, satire, and true horror. It treats its characters like people rather than genre trope roadblocks (ironic considering the film is essentially about the powerful treating the powerless as pawns), making it easy and natural for the audience to be fully invested in the action. Despite being a remake of a fairly new film, it also manages plenty of surprises by altering the material more than enough for the same audience. 

High Points

Any film that begins with an elite benefit dinner being crashed by an honored elderly man's speech turning into a dirty joke and finger severing can't be bad

The original film involved poop eating. This one does not. For that alone, I am a happy viewer

Low Points

MINOR SPOILER!

I like the balanced tone of the ending, but the completist in me is stuck wondering "so what now?" 

Lessons Learned

The more guests you invite to your rehearsal dinner, the more chaos you should expect to unfold at the toasting

Homeless men want nothing to do with ostriches

Shoot first. Ask questions after.

The hotter the nurse, the less effective the local anesthetic 

Rent/Bury/Buy

13 Sins is a fine way to spend 90 minutes of your life. The film manages to balance black humor with real stakes so that even if you might chuckle at the sight of mass decapitation, the fact that your lead character reacts to it like a person helps to ground the story in that very vital humanity. You can find the film streaming on Netflix Instant where it exceeds the quality and depth of most of its breezy peers. 

Kill Them. Kill Them All (Please)

Like so many forgettable slashers made in the mid-80s or low budget zombie indies filmed in backyards during the '90s, Crowsnest is yet another product of its trendy time. In this case, the fad is found footage, and like many a slasher or undead feast, it's a little lazy, a little scary, and ultimately, a passable if unmemorable under-90 minute stream on Instant Watch.

Quick Plot: Meet The Worst People In the World. 

Okay, perhaps that was harsh. These pretty young people aren't Nazis, as far as we can see. They're just Awful.

Capital A. Because when you get five giggling twentysomethings stuffed in the driver's parents' car in a haze of pot smoke and wine coolers--WINE COOLERS--there's really no other appropriate punctuation.

We'll get back to Just How Much I Hate These People later, but to run through the story is simple, especially if you've seen any of the myriad of found footage horror made this century. Justin just got a high tech video camera (which allows him the line "Thousand time zoom, bro!") and has naturally decided to test it out chronicling his trip to pal Kirk's cottage along with respective girlfriends Brooke and Amanda. Tagging along is Amanda's god-fearing fifth wheel little sister Danielle.

Because 25 year-olds with wealthy parents and apparently no other interests in life are awesome, Kirk takes the gang on a diversion to score some half priced beer at an off-the-beaten-track abandoned mining town he found online. Though we don't see their interaction with what we assume is a Cabin In the Woods-style harbinger (he's quoted and everything), we know enough to expect very bad things to happen to these fairly bad people.

The challenge I had in watching Crowsnest is that as a horror movie, it's fairly decent. There are a few outstanding jumps executed shockingly well. The lack of a soundtrack (something the occasional found footage film decides to use to disastrous effect) means sudden actions have that realistic come-from-nowhere effect that sleeker studio releases often fail at. With the lights out, this could prove to genuinely scare some viewers.

The flip side is that Crowsnest falls victim to the three major dooming tricks of found footage:

1. Unlikable characters

I truly thought, and I'd love to hear validation on this, that the characters were intentionally being set up to be horrid. Perhaps director Brenton Spencer was going for a Hostel-ish trick of creating bratty leads so that we almost think we want terrible things to happen to them, before realizing even the smarmiest white college boy doesn't deserve THAT. There's a chance that was indeed the plan. It's hard to imagine writer John Sheppard could have had his male characters trading lines like "when the river runs red, take the dirt road instead" to get a laugh. All five of Crowsnest's characters are spoiled, irresponsible, whiny, screechy, and not anywhere near as charming as they think they are. No, they don't deserve foot amputations, but wouldn't it work better as a film if they, I don't know, also didn't deserve a lesser toe amputation?

2. Shake your cam-cam-camera

Movies like REC get the best of both worlds: they can maintain the immediacy of handheld horror while their setup allows them to display professional camerawork because the characters filming are in the industry. Crowsnest never makes any excuses for its characters wobbly filming. That's fine as an idea, but watching a camera bob back and forth for 80 minutes isn't anyone's idea of a good time.

3. Put the f*cking camera down

The Last Exorcism was presented as an earnest documentary. They wouldn't give up easily. Night vision made the cameras in Grave Encounters a necessary tool just as much as it was for our entertainment. Crowsnest doesn't have that luxury. There is nothing useful about lugging around a video camera when all of your energy should be utilized escaping multiple homicidal maniacs. 

High Points

As mentioned earlier, Crowsnest does an excellent job on multiple counts in delivering out-of-nowhere scares

Low Points

Too bad I was rooting for those scares to prove fatal to all five of our maybe protagonists

Lessons Learned

When not drinking the wine coolers generally served at middle school parties, sexy girls always hog all the beer

Getting your head cut off really hurts

The best way to jump start a broken down vehicle is to be rear-ended

No, you don't have to go back for the camera. You never, ever, have to go back for the camera

Rent/Bury/Buy

Fans of found footage horror will actually find a few decent scares in Crowsnest. On the other hand, any viewer who prickles at seeing yet another batch of vacant pretty people do stupid things and pay for it might find the film insufferable. It's less than 90 minutes and streaming on Instant Watch, so the gamble is yours.