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Friend Request (2017), R, ★


There's bound to be another horror movie surrounding the general themes around people obsessed with social media. Yeah, we had a solid movie with Unfriended surrounding bullying, social media and Skype. It was an original idea and it worked but I do not know if I want to see another movie with that concept again. But, we have another one of this nature and this movie is like a concoction of a human being that seems nice but is artificial in the end. This is an utterly forgettable horror movie.

So, Laura (Alycia Debnam-Carey) is a popular college girl living with friends Olivia, Izzy and Gustavo (Brit Morgan, Brooke Markham and Sean Marquette). Laura is a very active social media user, especially on Facebook. During lunch, she catches attention from a girl named Marina (Liesl Ahlers) and she later sends Laura a friend request. However, Laura sees that Marina has 0 friends on Facebook and is intrigued by her artwork and her animations. Laura starts hanging out with Marina.

Soon, Marina becomes obsessive over Laura as she makes fun of her with photoshopping and also with gruesome and haunting images full of wasps and darkness. On Laura's birthday, Marina attempts to invite herself to hang out with her but she denies her request as she wants to go out with her boyfriend, Tyler (William Moseley), to dinner. She ends up at a surprise dinner with all of her friends, as she tags herself and all her friends on Facebook which Marina sees and gets upset. It all unwinds down to a conflict as Marina commits suicide and destroys her present to Laura which makes people in Laura's friendly circle upset and disturbed that they unfriend her. However, the problem is Laura is unable to delete the video or profile.


I can see this as a dark teen drama/thriller about social media and its use but not a horror movie because actually when it turns into horror and when friends start to get possessed by Marina's dead spirit, the movie gets repetitive and gets worse. There is not much to say about this movie except the lesson is that to treat others with respect as people would treat you especially on social media because  sometimes it could lead to fatal consequences. Actually, teens, who would have slumber parties to watch horror movies, will not watch this because it is going to be an unpleasant experience and will separate themselves into different paths. This is a movie that will cause a clique to break up.

The bottom line is that even though there is a promising performance by Alycia Debnam-Carey, there are no likable characters. I did not even care about them because there is very little to care about. They are standard college caricatures in a seemingly low-budget horror film with a concept and nothing else. This is not a movie, this is a concept for a message for bullying in its angle from a horror point of view. And, the ending felt rushed and had a terrible resolution for its main character. This movie is a plague. Avoid the plague.

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