Unfriend (2016)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Unfriend |
| Original title | Friend Request |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2016 |
| length | 93 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 16 JMK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Simon Verhoeven |
| script |
Matthew Ballen , Simon Verhoeven , Philip Koch |
| production |
Quirin Berg , Max Wiedemann |
| music | Martin Todsharow |
| camera | Jo home |
| cut |
Denis Bachter , Felix Schmerbeck , Tom Seil |
| occupation | |
| |
Unfriend (AKA Friend Request ) is a German horror - thriller by Simon Verhoeven from the year 2016 . The script was written by Matthew Ballen, Simon Verhoeven and Philip Koch ; the leading roles are occupied by Alycia Debnam-Carey , William Moseley , Connor Paolo , Brit Morgan , Brooke Markham, Sean Marquette, and Liesl Ahlers. The film was released in German cinemas on January 7, 2016.
action
Laura is a popular psychology student and is enjoying her college life to the full. She is very active on social media and enjoys sharing things with her 800+ friends on Facebook . One day she receives a friend request from the outsider Marina, who she hardly knows and who otherwise has no friend on Facebook. When Laura accepts the request, Marina turns out to be extremely intrusive and possessive. Furthermore, there are a large number of scary and disturbing videos and photos on their profile. After feeling more and more stalked by Marina, Laura sees no choice but to delete her from her friends list.
Marina then commits suicide, thereby starting a terrible curse. Little by little, each of Laura's friends dies - supposedly by suicide. Videos of the murders appear on Laura's Facebook profile, which she cannot delete for some unknown reason - just like her profile and / or her friends. The number of her Facebook friends continues to decline.
Laura and Kobe find out that Marina's mother nearly died in a serious fire and that her body was only kept alive to give birth to Marina. Laura and Kobe finally drive to the old house. When Kobe sees the dead Marina as a ghost, he decides to kill Laura in order to save himself. However, she manages to escape, recognizing an old factory as she escapes, which can be seen in several of Marina's drawings and videos.
When she arrives at the factory, she receives a video request from her mother, who takes her own life there. Shortly afterwards, her friend appears, to whom she had given the address of the factory. When he wants to comfort her, Kobe stabs him from behind.
Laura flees from him again when he is killed shortly afterwards in a long corridor by black wasps - like some of her friends before. Marina appears as a young girl and explains to her that she would like to be friends with Laura forever. Laura finally discovers the room in which Marina hanged herself and burned herself. When she looks into the laptop, the curse also takes hold of her.
Some time has passed and there is a new load of students. Laura looks at some girls the way Marina saw Laura and her friends. Laura then looks at her laptop (presumably Marina's laptop) and reveals that she has no friends, just like Marina did before she met Laura. Then her new account will be revealed, sharing the same dark, grotesque images and renamed Lau Ra. The camera reveals that Laura's eyes are green and blue, which means that she is obsessed with Marina.
background
The film was shot in Cape Town . Although the film was shot by German director Simon Verhoeven and produced under German production companies Wiedemann & Berg and SevenPictures , it was shot in English due to the predominantly English-speaking cast. Filming was completed in March 2014.
Originally also known as Unknown Error , the film was later renamed Unfriend to avoid confusion with the 2014 horror film Unknown User .
In the film itself the name Facebook is neither mentioned nor shown. Nevertheless, you can see the relationship to the social media platform from the many Facebook-typical elements. For the German version, comments or contributions were translated and integrated directly into the image. Other texts on the platform, such as Unfriend or the reference to friendships made, were left in the original.
Reviews
The film received mostly positive reactions from the critics. The film magazine Deadline found it “a visually fascinating haunted piece. A fine horror film that illuminates a topic that concerns us all. Not to be missed "The Quotenmeter.de editors was:". Männerherzen . Director Simon Verhoeven enters with, Unfriend 'first horror movie terrain and proves to be a stylistically confident Arranger creative horror scenarios " Quotenmeter.de
Awards
Cinematographer Jo Heim was awarded the Bavarian Film Prize for best image creation on January 15, 2016 .
Web links
- Unfriend in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Unfriend on the website of the production company Wiedemann & Berg Film
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Unfriend . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , October 2015 (PDF; test number: 154 927 K).
- ↑ Age rating for Unfriend . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ Filming completed . In: simonverhoeven.com . March 2014. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
- ↑ Björn Becher: "Unfriend" - German social media horror film will be released in 2016 . In: filmstarts.de . July 8, 2015. Accessed December 4, 2015.
- ↑ Unfriend. In: DEADLINE. December 22, 2015, accessed May 28, 2016 .
- ^ The cinema critics: "Unfriend". In : quotemeter.de. January 5, 2016, accessed May 28, 2016 .