Unfriended/It Follows

Unfriended (2015)

61% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 85 reviews)

Runtime: 83 minutes

Directed by: Levan Gabriadze

Starring: Shelley Hennig, Moses Storm, Will Peltz, Matthew Bohrer, Renee Olstead

From: Universal

It Follows (2014)

96% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 157 reviews)

Runtime: 100 minutes

Directed by: David Robert Mitchell

Starring: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilcrest, Olivia Luccardi, Lili Sepe, Daniel Zovatto

From: RADiUS/TWC

Yes, last night I watched both of these motion pictures on the big screen at the local cineplex, and even I am surprised that I rated the former 4 stars and the latter only 2 ½. I'll explain why below via my Letterboxd reviews, first with Unfriended then It Follows. I'll be back tomorrow night.

Early in the year when the first trailer for this film came out, while I was amused by all the buzz it created, I just presumed it'd be like Snakes on a Plane and it wouldn't necessarily mean it'd do well at the box office. Besides, I just presumed it'd be teenybopper crap so I didn't have to pay much attention to it. Then, I realized it would be rated R and I saw strong praise for it from here and elsewhere and I realized it was something I should probably actually see.

I am sure most know of the plot, so I won't say much about it except that it's about a teenaged girl (of course played by an actress who's actually in her late 20's now) who has an embarrassing drunken night and it goes viral and she experiences cyberbullying, which results in her suicide. A year later her ghost returns via an omnipotent online presence and only through the view of a computer screen of a young girl (with the quality name of Blaire) you see it do damage via not just more traditional supernatural horrors but also by such means as Skype, Facebook, Spotify (yes, really), and Instagram, among other services that I have not all used as a 34 year old man who thinks that most “young people these days” are the types of sh*theads you actually see in this movie. Understand this, the six people (it dwindles down as the film goes on) seem like normal kids but actually are awful people who are easy to turn on and yell at each other, engaging in some gross behavior. The deaths of these asstagonists wasn't too sad to me, for the most part.

I understand those that hate it and think it makes zero sense or find the characters we have to follow absolutely insufferable. Me, I viewed it as a parable against cyberbullying and being an awful teenager. The movie feels authentic in presenting how “the youth” interact with each other in these modern times and just from a night of a Skype conversation among a group of teens and Blaire using other services to communicate with the malevolent force and some of the group of of Skype, it's always interesting and to me it was more than just a new gimmick masking a bad story. To me it made this preposterous tale actually work and get across its message effectively. Lord knows if the audience will even understand what's being said, but I wish they did accept the idea to be nicer to each other and realize cyberbullying is now quite easy but still pretty awful and something with often tragic consequences.

Note that I can't explain away the LOL moment where a character states that they don't know what an Internet troll is! That was pretty dopey, but even with that and a film where you get a lot of yelling and screaming, I enjoyed this more than I could have ever predicted.

Now, It Follows.

I know I know, yet another review from me where I happen to go against the grain and I am unable (incapable?) of loving something that most people (whether just in the film world or in and out of it) think is the bee's knees. I was not expecting that to be the cast here, me seeing this on my own double bill, seeing this at the theatre right after watching Unfriended, and that being the film I thought was better and more entertaining to me.

To clarify, the way it was filmed was pretty good, with quality cinematography (if a little too show-off at times), nice performances from a young cast I did not recognize aside from lead Maika Monroe, some creepy moments and a weird & great synth score from a random dude calling themselves Disasterpiece. Unfortunately, when it comes to the story... it let me down. It's not the slow pacing or how many things aren't explained.

Basically, it's a movie trying SO hard to be something from the late 70's to early 80's (some technology is from that period but it's in a modern world) & an STD metaphor as after sex, a 19 year old girl called Jay (Monroe) is told a cockeyed story about being passed a curse and the cursee can see a slowly walking person-actually a visual representation of something from their lives-but no one else can, something we know far sooner than the characters do, leading to me twiddling my thumbs as I wait for them to catch up. Many contrivances happen and an original concept seems to get wasted. Also, there were too many “on the nose” moments, mainly coming from dialogue.

If the ending would have been bitchin' then maybe I'd be more forgiving of this. But, what we got in the final act instead was just flat out STUPID, so dumb that I just about howled with laughter at its dopiness, then how it plays out was bad, in my eyes. I am not sure why that was accepted by most people as I totally rejected it. I know that after the fact the filmmakers tried to explain that way; I didn't buy the explanations, personally.

What a shame as I wanted to love this like so many do. It was just impossible for me to do so. And why was it so misogynistic with the frequent female nudity, look at pornographic magazines and how the camera leers at the female characters, all young adult women? What is the director saying there? “Disappointment” is my closing thought of this movie.