Thursday 16 August 2018

UNFRIENDED: DARK WEB (SCREENING 1)

Starring: Colin Woodell, Rebecca Rittenhouse, Betty Gabriel
Writer: Stephen Susco
Director: Stephen Susco


I don't think I can review this film properly until I've seen a screening of it in which at least most of those who are supposedly watching it aren't talking through most of its running time. So let's review the behaviour of the audience instead.

Okay, so we get the opening bit, in which various passwords are tried on a start-up screen.

"He's trying passwords."

"Heh heh. Password."

"Heh heh. Password. In upper case."

"Heh heh. Did you see what he just typed?" (It was something rude)

At this point I get two teenagers talking about nothing to do with the movie, just for balance.

Then we get the two guys towards the back of the cinema, who seem to be trying material out for their MST3K-style comedy act. It starts badly. No one laughs except them.

A Messenger window appears on screen. Someone reads the entire text of the conversation aloud. The person next to them asks how they can see the text as it's quite small.

There's some text in French. Someone says they can't understand it. Someone else asks whether or not it's in French. Someone else asks how we're supposed to know what it means. I wait to see if the guy uses Google Translate. He does. There's a hush as the words reveal themselves in English. It's like the audience has discovered fire. Maybe this is the point where everyone finally shuts the hell up.

The hush lasts about another five seconds.

The comedy guys give it another shot but there's nothing much happening on screen and it falls flat once again. Timing is everything.

Video files are discovered on the computer and played. It's reasonably obvious what's going on in most of them but there's a very audible "What's going on?" from one of our fellow viewers.

There's a Skype conversation with a deaf girl and the possibility of an intruder in her place. A voice says "Why doesn't she know he's there?" I feel myself getting more stupid by osmosis.

Someone is shown two people and given a choice of who lives and dies. Reaction: "Why's she crying?"

And so it goes on. And on. And on.

"Who's that girl?" "Isn't she from earlier?" "When?" "Isn't she the girl in the video?" "Which video?"

"He's going to die." "Yeah, he's going to die." "He's going to die."

The comedy guys get louder, but no funnier.

Someone falls from the roof of a building and is seen next face down on the pavement in a pool of blood. The unsolicited announcement which follows is "They're dead". I'm glad they pointed that out as the fate of the character seemed pretty ambiguous to me. Oh no, hold on, they fell from the roof of a building and they're now face down in a pool of blood.

The tension in the movie ramps up considerably. Or it would have done had it not been like sitting in a dimly-lit coffee house trying to watch the movie while trying to ignore the conversations of a dozen other people.

CCTV footage plays - you know what's probably coming next, but someone's there to comment loudly upon it anyway, just to batter any last, tiny iota of suspense out of the sequence.

Two people leave when they think the movie is over, strolling past most of the audience then in front of the screen and out of the door, meaning they miss the final reveal. Clue: it was still pitch black in the cinema, they'll raise the lights when the flick is actually done.

The comedy guys give it one last shot as the credits roll, but yet again their banter doesn't land. The two teenagers continue to babble on as they leave the auditorium, having now managed to chatter continuously since the ads began without pausing for breath.

The credits roll. Someone near me says it was a terrible film, which is amazing considering they spent most of it looking at their phone (thanks for lighting up the surrounding area, it was very considerate of you). I make my way out of the place, passing a guy a few rows from the front. He looks fed up and seems to be shaking his head at the rest of us.

Hey, I felt your pain and at that point I was slightly ashamed of the fact I didn't stand up and say something early on in the film but how do you get a whole bunch of people to be quiet when there's just one of you to do it?

I will go to see this again and I hope to be able to review the film itself next time. At far as this screening goes, I'd like to thank those around me tonight for making it such a wretched, frustrating experience. I'd suggest to them how they'd feel if someone sat next to them and constantly disrupted their enjoyment of something they liked but with such short attention spans I don't think it would make any difference to them.

If I want to talk to someone for 90 minutes, I go for a coffee with them, maybe have dinner. I don't sit in a cinema. Call me old-fashioned. Also, call me very pissed off for having my night at the flicks spoiled. End of message.

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