Part Two of my little block of reviews all focussing on movies with the same theme, and in this case (in case you forgot) the theme is social media in horror movies. Today we're looking at Friend Request, which is currently showing in cinemas here in the UK. How much of a coincidence is that - it's almost as though I planned this...
Laura Woodson is a college sophomore studying Psychology. She has a boyfriend, an apartment she shares with her two best friends, and close to 850 friends on Facebook. When she accepts a friend request from the strange Goth girl, Marina, from one of her classes, things begin to go wrong. First Marina becomes stalkerishly obsessed with Laura, and when Laura cannot take it any more and unfriends her, Marina promptly kills herself and films it as well. After that, Laura finds herself haunted by Marina's vengeful spirit; her Facebook is taken over so that Marina's suicide video is posted and cannot be removed; as a result of that her online friends start to desert her; and then a murderous force starts to stalk her closest friends. Laura tries to stop Marina's spirit before her curse comes true and she shows Laura what it's like to be truly lonely...
It's a jump scare-a-palooza! Seriously, remember how I complained about the cheap jump scare at the end of Unfriended? Well, the vast majority of Friend Request's scares are cheap jump scares. The film even (after a flashforward and montage of Laura's happy life, that is) starts with a jump scare, which is just about the only forgiveable one as it's meant to be played for laughs. After that, whenever the film wants to have a scary moment, out come the jump scares! And there's very little variety to them either - it's either a scary reflection, or a sudden ghost face in extreme close-up. Occasionally there's some gore thrown at the camera or around the scene in an attempt to keep things fresh.
I don't appreciate it when a film attempts to manipulate me through cheap jump scares, trying to tell me when I should be scared - especially when it's clear that Friend Request could have achieved a good deal more genuine tension and fear if it had focussed instead on some of the creepy and atmospheric imagery they had via Marina's art and animations. Sure, they're used to some extent for background and for one or two atmospheric scenes, but if they'd just dialled back on the jump scares and played even a little more with the imagery then the film could have had a real, tangible sense of dread that wouldn't have been so easily countered by my closing my eyes every time I (correctly) predicted a jump scare was coming.
Interestingly, I felt that there were some parallels between some of the plot points and concepts of Friend Request and Ringu/The Ring (moreso the American remake than the Japanese original, however). The whole idea of a curse passed on via social media; the disturbing imagery that gradually becomes clues to uncovering the whole story as the movie progresses; and the whole idea of the lonely outcast whose hate and rage allows her to transmit her curse and effectively live on through it, even after her death. I don't think this was a deliberate aping of the older film(s); instead I think it's another example of how Friend Request could have been better if it hadn't gone for the easy scares.
Friend Request also has some plot holes large enough to drive a bus through. The biggest one of these (easily double-decker-sized) is how Laura is still considered a suspect in everything that happens somehow, even after she's told the college and the police that she has no control of her Facebook account - others have seen this and encountered similar problems so it should be clear to anyone she shows that she's not to blame for anything. This gets even worse when the police even admit they can't track who's posting the videos and that they don't even have an IP address, which would clear just about anyone else as long as they didn't have a history of computer hacking, but the police still treat her as though she's behind everything. Another character gets a Scatman Crothers ending, people were able to access confidential records with no problems whatsoever, and in general the movie relies on people being stupid at very specific moments to maintain its credibility. In the end, Friend Request is a case of wasted potential; it could have been much better if it hadn't gone down the cheap path of endless jump scares.
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