Delayed Reaction: Unfriended: Dark Web

Premise: A friends game night is ruined when one of their computers turns out to be previously owned by someone on the dark web.

The internet scares the shit out of me. I block all the negative possibilities out of my head as best I can, because, well, I couldn't function if I didn't. However, it's incredibly easy to scare me about the internet. Unfriended: Dark Web is a great example of taking a good idea and finding a better way to use it. Similar to the Ouija movies in that way. Unfriended is ok. It's the same general idea: a bunch of friends on a Skype call have horrible things happen to them. It takes a supernatural turn though that's harder to take seriously. Whenever I think of that blender scene, it makes me laugh rather than get chills. Unfriended: Dark Web is more grounded. Instead of the spirit of a dead classmate haunting them, it's people on the dark web targeting them. "Powerful internet cult" is an increasingly common idea (The Den, V/H/S) in horror and a not-too-distant cousin to home terrorization movies like The Strangers or even The Purge. While the deaths in this movie have some scares to them (except the friend who is shot down by the FBI. That one was so excessive that I had to chuckle), it's the different ways that their information could be accessed and used against them that's what really unsettled me. I'm more afraid of someone seeing my internet history than I am of being robbed. I can't be alone in that thought.

I won't pretend that Dark Web is a model of constraint. The setup is farfetched and more than a little contrived. Some of the visualizations of the "dark web" are pretty silly. None of the characters really pop. At times, the friends felt like a Benetton ad of horror character representation. Not all the twists really tracked. I'm certain the final twist would fall apart under even moderate inspection.

Still, I found the movie mostly effective. While I feel like it was mainly done for plot contrivance, I really liked the inclusion of the deaf girlfriend. That allowed it to have some beats that I don't normally get to see in a horror movie, like how easily the first Charon could follow her. The same with connection dead spots while he was on the subway.

I was expecting this to be a completely laughable effort, so the fact that it's reasonably scary and kept me off my computer for the rest of the night I saw it is a pretty nice turnaround. I'm not sure where else the Unfriended concept can go from here, but I'll be along for the ride if they come up with something else.

Side Note: This was not a great movie for having a spotty streaming connection. I watched it through HBO Now on my 32" TV. Every time the connection dipped enough to lower the picture quality even a little, it got hard to read what I needed to on the screen.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend