Movie Review: Friend Request #EvilIsTrending

Friend Request
Release: September 22, 2017
Distributor: Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures
Director: Simon Verhoeven
Writers: Matthew Ballen, Philip Koch, Simon Verhoeven
Cast: Alycia Debnam-Carey, William Mosely, Connor Paolo, Brit Morgan, Brooke Markham, Sean Marquette, Liesl Ahlers, Shashawnee Hall
Producers: Quirin Berg, Max Wiedemann
Official site: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | IMBd
#EvilIsTrending

Popular college student Laura (Alycia Debnam-Carey) has tons of friends, both on Facebook and IRL. She graciously accepts social outcast Marina’s (Liesl Ahlers) online friend request, until Marina crosses the line and Laura unfriends her. To everyone’s shock, Marina takes her own life in a ritual meant to torment Laura, which appears in a video posted on Laura’s profile. Even though it wasn’t Laura who posted the video, or other creepy content that begins appearing on her page, her Facebook friend count begins to dwindle as a result. When her real-life friends start dying mysterious, cruel deaths, Laura must figure out how to break the deadly curse before it’s too late.

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Popular college student Laura (Alycia Debnam-Carey) has tons of friends, both on Facebook and in real life. She graciously accepts social outcast Marina's (Liesl Ahlers) online friend request, until Marina crosses the line and Laura unfriends her. To every one's shock, Marina takes her own, which appears in a video posted on Laura's profile. Even though it wasn't Laura who posted the video, or other creepy content that begins appearing on her page and her Facebook friend count begins to dwindle as a result. When her real-life friends start dying mysterious and cruel deaths, Laura must figure out how to break the deadly curse before it's too late. What follows is a pretty much a paint-by-numbers horror movie.

Bearing a strong similarity to the movie Unfriended in 2014. Mostly the movie consists of the expected jump-scares, plus attempts to "solve" the haunting by traveling to the place it all began, etc. One character, a young man with a crush on Laura, goes crazy over his unrequited love, which seems like a serious stretch. And other than being "friends" and having a good time, there's nothing of substance to any of these characters. I’ve seen much better genre selections that went straight to Netflix.

If Friend Request was really trying to say something about the dangers of social media, there might be some value to the story, but the film either isn't interested in that, or is so bad at doing so that the message gets lost.