Have you ever had the fear of being watched in your own home? Suppose your wi-fi connection is not as secure as you thought. Maybe that webcam on your laptop is actually recording everything you’re doing. Or perhaps someone has even found a way to access your computer remotely. What would the person on the other end be doing with all of this information? Would they keep it for themselves, or would they share it online, in a place you can’t possibly access, for people you’d never want to meet in your wildest dreams? In the digital age these fears are not completely unfounded, and they are thoughts that have probably passed through everyone with a computer’s head at least once. They are also the central premise of 2018’s Unfriended: Dark Web, a sequel to the 2015 computer-screen horror film Unfriended.
I didn’t hate the original Unfriended, released in 2015. I didn’t love it, but it certainly wasn’t all bad. Unfriended just has a very interesting concept unfortunately wasted on poor execution. That being said, I was still looking forward to watching the sequel, 2018’s Unfriended: Dark Web. The idea of the dark web has always both fascinated and frightened me, and it seemed like a logical next step for the Unfriended series to take.
Unfriended: Dark Web follows essentially the same premise as the first film – a group of friends are talking on Skype, spooky things happen and then they are all unnaturally tethered to their computers because the plot demands it. This time around it’s a group of twenty-somethings, and the film focusses on the repercussions of protagonist Matias (Colin Woodell) using a stolen laptop he swiped from an internet café (as you do). Upon booting up the laptop, Matias discovers that the login information of the previous owner, Norah C IV, still works on their Facebook, and that nearly all of the hard-drive space is taken up with hidden folders. Matias, being the morally questionable and dangerously curious guy that he is, reads some of the strange messages coming to Norah C from a bevy of beautiful women, and, even worse, responds to one of them. It seems that whoever this Norah C person is, they have a lot of highly profitable deals going on, and Matias can’t help but be interested. He also discovers The River, a program hidden in one of the laptop’s secret folders. The River is essentially a way to connect to the dark web, and before he knows it Matias has gotten himself tangled up in a dangerous game with the actual owner of the laptop, a dark web used called Charon IV. It’s a game that threatens both himself, his friends and his girlfriend.
From the outset I found it hard to get into Unfriended: Dark Web. Nothing about the mystery was as compelling as the one in the first film, and it felt like the film was recycling elements of things I’d already seen before: shocking videos, unidentified people showing up on Skype, and not being able to leave the computer under pain of death.
It doesn’t help that a lot of Unfriended: Dark Web is just plain stupid. First of all, for most of the film you assume that the person who lost the laptop is an idiot, because A. why would you ever take your special dark web laptop anywhere except your house and B. why would you ever forget your special dark web laptop in an internet café? Then there’s the fact that the film initially presents the dark web users as pretty much just straight-up ghosts, like Laura Barns was in the first film. Whenever one of them gets close to a screen it begins to glitch out, and they have the ability to make Facebook messages appear and disappear as if they’re possessing the computer. It’s just laughably stupid. The dark web is actually a pretty scary place, but doing this trivializes its depravity and just turns it into the playground of spooky boogiemen.
The scares in Unfriended: Dark Web are also pretty minimal, which, for a horror flick, is the worst crime it can commit. There was never one moment when I felt even remotely tense, unlike in the first film which did create a pretty strong atmosphere at the start, before it too collapsed under its own stupidity. There are the usual frights, like being shown videos of awful things happening to people or the threat of awful things happening to the characters, but the film also attempts to scare the audience by making them worry that these awful things could also happen to them, that they too could be hacked and be being watched by users of the dark web. Except… it’s all just silly. Most people these days know the value of cyber-security – they don’t leave their wi-fi connection unprotected, they cover their webcam, they don’t use simple passwords. I understand that it’s a film with a message about taking cyber-safety seriously and it wants to show you what could happen if you don’t, but its core demographic aren’t the ones who are going to leave their wi-fi unprotected or make their password “1234”. Also, the things that the deep web users in the film do to incriminate or antagonise their victims are just too over-the-top to be believable, and therefore too over-the-top to be scary. Once again this is a film with a good idea hampered by poor execution.
The film isn’t all bad, though. Visually it’s as good as the first, and there is some really good ominous sound design if you are watching with headphones. I mentioned in my review of the original Unfriended that these films are best to watch on your computer, and I still think that holds true here. I also think the characters are at least a little better this time around – no longer just a pack of scummy bullies, most of the characters in Unfriended: Dark Web are at least likeable (except for Matias, who is both an asshole and an idiot). The best characters are AJ (Connor Del Rio), a conspiracy nut and the comic relief of the film, Damon (Andrew Lees), a web developer of some sort and the only person who seems to know anything about computers, and Nari (Betty Gabriel), the only character with a shred of intelligence enough to call the police about this whole mess. Because these characters are likeable/not literal scum of the earth, it’s more effective when they are picked off one-by-one. I definitely felt no care for the characters in the first film, so it’s a plus that they’ve improved upon that here.
Finally, I’ll just mention briefly that the film apparently has three alternate endings. Two of them appear on the DVD release, one other seems to be an unconfirmed fake. I’ve seen none of the alternate endings, but from what I have read of them I don’t think they’d improve upon the story in any major way.
So, should you watch Unfriended: Dark Web? Honestly I’d say no, unless you’re a really, really big fan of the first film. This film offers nothing really new or intriguing that wasn’t in that original, so I’d say save yourself the ninety minutes and watch something better instead.
BEST BITS
- The design of The River is pretty cool.
- The plot twist is mildly entertaining.
WORST BITS
- Matias is so incredibly stupid and selfish that it’s hard to support him.
- The film presents hacking in kind of a stupid “movie hacking” way.
FINAL RATING: 4/10
More like this: Should You Watch Unfriended?
