An Average Movie-Goer’s Review
Spoilers! If you don’t want spoilers – check out the Spoiler-Free post
I love horror movies and if I’m going to watch them anyway, why not write an entertaining/funny review from the POV of an average movie-goer and not a professional critic.
Today we’re looking at 2016’s Friend Request
After two friends (Alycia Debnam-Carey and Liesl Ahlers) have a falling out, one seemingly commits suicide and the other starts to be haunted by the cursed spirit of her friend.
Detailed Plot:
The movie opens with a professor walking into class and letting the class know a classmate, Marina Mills, (played by Liesl Ahlers), committed suicide. We also learn there was a video of the suicide that was posted on the university site and watched before it could be taken down. It’s clear Laura (played by Alycia Debnam-Carey) was friends with her but also trying to hide the fact.
We cut to two weeks earlier and, after a jump scare from one of those internet videos where something peaceful cuts to a monster yelling, we see Laura on an overly fake run as we see overlays of her (obviously Facebook) social media posts.
Later we see Laura get a friend request from Marina Mills, an artistic classmate of hers who is secretly obsessed with Laura. The next day they take a walk and it’s clear Marina doesn’t have much experience with friends.
Marina starts messaging Laura constantly and trying to get her to hang out, we also see her constantly looking at her profile. On Laura’s birthday, Laura lies saying she’s only hanging out with her boyfriend, Tyler, but in reality we see her hanging out with all her friends. Marina who is stalking her social media sees she lied to her.
The following day Marina confronts Laura about lying to her and Laura apologizes for hurting her feelings. Marina continues to yell, knocking Laura’s food tray to the ground. The two briefly struggle causing Marina’s hood to fall revealing a large bald spot on her head, a result of her trichotillomania, a disorder where one has the uncontrollable urge to pull out hair.
That night Marina sends multiple apology messages to Laura but Laura instead unfriends her on “Not Facebook”. That night Laura sees a weird mirror with a skull trim on her hallway wall containing the reflection of someone in black robes walking along a forest. There’s then a jumpscare with some demon(?) appearing behind Laura that she doesn’t see.
The following day we’re back to the beginning of the movie. We see Laura with several of her friends discussing the suicide, we find out Marina’s body wasn’t found, and all her information, personal data, and social have been deleted from the database.
That night someone on Marina’s account sends Laura the suicide video where Marina first burns a drawing of Laura and then hangs herself above it.
The following day multiple people are staring at Laura as she walks to class and Tyler texts her asking why she posted the video. Laura sees someone posted the suicide video on her account but when she tries to delete it, “Not Facebook” gives her an error.
Later she’s questioned by the cops and it’s hinted something else is going on behind Marina’s death as the cops insinuate Laura is involved in some way. That night, Laura tries to reach out to “Not Facebook” and get help in deleting her account or removing Marina’s posts but they’re unable to help. That’s the best proof we have that this is supposed to be Facebook.
Laura goes to her friend Kobe (played by Connor Paolo) and has him try to hack into the profiles. But, the code he finds looks like hieroglyphics, and is unable to do anything.
The next day one of Laura’s friends Gustavo (played by Sean Marquette) hears something run past him in the empty dorms and goes to investigate. In one room he finds a nest of wasps with two spirits below it frightening him.
Gustavo runs down the hall and into an elevator which gets stuck as the power goes out. Using his phone’s light he sees a nest of wasps in the corner and is attacked by something as we cut to black.
A little bit later Gustavo’s girlfriend and also Laura’s friend, Isabelle finds Gustavo in the elevator bloody and ramming his head onto its walls, he collapses and dies. Later at the hospital for Isabelle, who suffered an attack after seeing Gustavo die, the friends try to see her but she tells Laura to leave and blames her for Gustavo’s death.
The following day someone posted the elevator camera footage of Gustavo killing himself on Laura’s profile. When she tries to delete it, she gets the same error message and when trying to type it’s not her posting it, the text changes to tell Laura she will know what it’s like to be lonely.
After Laura is suspended, Kobe finds the sounds of wasps in the video and tells Laura they are associated with evil and witches. The two break into Marina’s room and find a photo of Mariana in an orphanage with two other kids’ faces scratched out.
Kobe uses the internet to find the orphanage and Laura heads there while Kobe looks for more clues. Laura learns Marina’s last name and finds out that while at the orphanage Marina was bullied by two boys, the same two boys who had their faces scratched out in the photo. Then, because there are apparently no parental controls on orphanage computers, Marina went online and watched videos (?) of some creepy shit according to the Director.
Laura researches the two boys from the photo and finds out they were found dead near the orphanage with their faces mutilated by wasps. Next, she calls Tyler and asks him to find some records on Marina’s family now that she has her last name.
Meanwhile, Kobe starts to get haunted by Marina and starts seeing visions of her after finding out she was using black mirrors to communicate with spirits and demons. Tyler starts hearing buzzing coming from inside his head and after reaching in with tweezers pulls out a wasp from his ear.
At the hospital, Isabel sees a burning church outside her window and the corpse of a pregnant woman on the table next to her. When it moves she runs out of the room to a seemingly empty hallway.
She runs down the hall and sees the same two boys Gustavo saw. She then runs into a bathroom and sees herself in a bathtub with her wrists cut. Screaming and telling herself it’s not real, some monster attacks her off-screen.
We next see Laura at the hospital where it’s clear Isabel is now dead. The police arrive and question her asking if Isabel said anything to her. They show her the footage of Isabel running and yelling down a hall full of doctors and staff that, by the way, did nothing. They tell her Isabel ripped her hair out and then cut her own throat.
One of the detectives asks her where she got the video of Gustavo’s death from and she tells them it’s not her posting it. They say it doesn’t matter since they can’t connect it to her IP which raises the question: why did you ask? One detective says, she “sure knows a lot of dead people.” Dude, the girl’s friends are dead.
We see the remaining characters besides Laura, attempt to delete their accounts and unfriend Laura but each time “Not Facebook” gives them errors. Kobe finds more information on black mirrors and witches and learns Marina’s suicide was a ritual where the person performing the ritual becomes a demon.
The only way to stop it is to find and destroy the original black mirror. Laura believes it would be her laptop which means they have to find where she committed suicide. Tyler is able to find out Marina’s mom was part of a cult and while pregnant was caught in a fire at a commune, surviving with severe burns and staying on life support until Marina was delivered. Laura believes the site of the fire is where Marina committed suicide.
We then cut to Laura’s friend and roommate Olivia who is packing to leave when she starts to hear whispers. She follows them to a computer where there’s a jumpscare when the doorbell rings. Then another one when she looks out the peephole. Olivia falls back and hundreds of wasps pour in through the peephole.
As she backs up Marina now in her monstrous demon form appears and we cut to Laura and Tyler driving to the apartment fearing something happened to Olivia. As they pull up she lands on the car but luckily is still alive.
Laura meets up with Kobe and they go to the commune, on their way there Kobe reveals he’s not doing this for Laura, he just doesn’t want to die and actually believes Laura is the only one who won’t die since Marina wants to make her lonely.
At the hospital, Olivia is on life support and the cops arrive looking for Laura. As one detective tries to get Tyler to call her, the other detective watches Olivia but is distracted by a phone call. Olivia wakes up, now possessed, attacks the detective, takes his gun, and shoots herself.
After she dies, Kobe is next and at the abandoned commune sees his reflection on his phone making him toss it away. He sees a woman emerge from a basement and walk towards him but disappears when Laura appears.
The two check the basement for Marina’s body and after some searching, Kobe goes missing. Laura finds him staring at a mirror and when she approaches, he apologizes and tells her she can’t be lonely if she’s dead and stabs her in the stomach. Kobe believes that if he kills Laura then the demon will stop hunting them.
Laura pushes him away and goes running into the woods then sees a factory in the distance from one of Marina’s drawings and realizes that is where she killed herself. She then texts Tyler the address and heads there.
Tyler heads there and on the way finds Kobe who keeps the whole stabbing Laura betrayal thing a secret and the two head to the address. Once there they separate and Tyler finds Laura but before she can tell him Kobe stabbed her, Kobe stabs Tyler in the throat killing him.
Kobe chases Laura down a dead end but before he can kill her he is attacked by a swarm of wasps and is killed. Marina as a child appears, tells Laura she wants to be best friends forever and leads her to a hidden room where Laura finds Marina’s body. She then finds the computer and stares into it which transports her to a forest where she is attacked by Demon-Marina.
We cut to some time later and Laura is now looking like a Marina clone. She stares at her friend count which is at zero and we cut to black.
Review:
This movie has a very YouTubish vlog style feel at the beginning with the music, overly fake happy people, and a lot of jump cuts but unlike the beginning of Afflicted, which did it right, this movie comes off as overly manipulated and about to sell me antidepressants. Of course, this is supposed to show how hard the main characters fall when the “horror” starts but it just doesn’t work.
The main character loses all her friends because videos, that logically no one could get, somehow get posted on her profile. In a movie about technology apparently, no one questions whether she was hacked and everyone just takes it at face value that she is doing this.
On top of this, the dialogue is just bad and feels forced. Acting is awful too (except for Alycia Debnam-Carey and Liesl Ahlers) but it does get better, unfortunately, by the time the acting gets good, you’re more annoyed by the characters than not. The movie also attempts some comedy with one of the detectives and it just doesn’t work, which goes back to the dialogue feeling forced. It comes off like the detective is making jokes that only he gets.
The actual story is also poorly done but at least somewhat makes sense (no REAL plot holes). The actual monster or demon is never fully shown either but what is shown doesn’t look good. The movie, essentially, only happens because two friends couldn’t talk to each other and set boundaries. Alycia Debnam-Carey and Liesl Ahlers are the best part of the movie, it’s too bad the rest of the movie is just not up to par.
Skip it.
Cast IMBD