Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Friend Request Movie Review
Friend Request is a 2014 horror movie directed by Simon Verhoeven and starring Alycia Debnam-Carey, William Mosely, Connor Paolo, Brit Morgan and Sean Marquette.
The movie begins in college with a girl called Laura(Debnam-Carey), a college student who uses her Facebook page a lot. Her whole life is on it. An odd girl is watching her. She is in one of her classes.
She gets a friend request from the girl, whose name is Marina Mills(Liesl Ahlers). She is a little reluctant at first, but she accepts it. Unfortunately, Marina keeps sending her messages and she starts stalking her. Laura looks at Marina's page and it has all weird images and strange stuff on it. Marina starts calling her online. On Laura's birthday, Marina wants to spend time with her, but Laura tells her that she is having a quiet dinner with her boyfriend, Tyler(William Moseley). She goes to a surprise party and the pictures are posted online. Guess who sees them? Yes, Marina sees them and she is furious with Laura. She confronts her at college and she makes a scene. Laura is scared of her and she unfriends her.
Marina tries to make it up to her, but Laura wants nothing to do with her. She finds out later that Marina has killed herself. The police don't know who she is. They think that her name was fake.
Laura gets a message from Marina. She receives a video of Marina killing herself. Someone is posting the video on her page and Marina has been added as her friend again. Laura can't fix it. The police talk to her about it. She tries to delete her profile, but she can't. She asks her friend Kobe(Paolo) to help her as he is good at computers. One of her friends dies when something comes for him. He kills himself by banging his head off the wall. A video of his death shows up on Laura's page. Her friends are disgusted with her. She tries to get it off her page, but she can't.
She gets suspended from college. Kobe looks at Marina's page. He discovers that she was practicing witchcraft. He and Laura break into her room and look around. They find a picture of her from school. Laura goes there and asks about her. Marina was mistreated by the boys there and she had a very hard time. She withdrew and became odd. The other children became afraid of her. It turns out that she has something to do with the death of two boys at the school. Next, Laura's pal Isabelle finds herself friends with Marina on her page. She finds weird things happening to her and she ends up dead. The video shows up on Laura's page and her friends are unfriending her by the dozens. All of her friends try to delete their accounts but can't.
Tyler tries to help his girlfriend by checking Marina's medical records. He finds her mother's address. Kobe tells Laura that Marina used black mirrors to communicate with spirits. Witches also used them. They realise that Marina's laptop was her black mirror and they need to find it. They find out that Marina's mother was killed in a fire while she was pregnant with Marina but Marina somehow survived. Laura's pal Olivia(Morgan) is the next to die. Kobe and Laura go to an old commune where her mother had lived to find where Marina died. Kobe turns on her and tries to kill her in order to save himself. He thinks that if Laura dies, then Marina will leave him alone. Tyler finds out where Laura has gone and he goes to find her.
Kobe chases Laura. Tyler arrives. Kobe and Tyler look for her. Tyler locates her and she tells him what Kobe did, but Kobe stabs him. He dies. Kobe gets attacked by a swarm of wasps and he dies. Laura wanders around an old factory and she finds the place where Marina died. Marina tells her that she wants to be friends forever. Something comes at Laura. The movie ends with Laura at college. She has turned into the outcast now and she has been possessed by Marina. She is looking for some people to send friend requests to on Facebook, starting the cycle all over again...
This was not as bad as I thought it would be. I actually liked it. I found that it was quite entertaining in parts and it had a few creepy moments. It is not brilliant by any means, but it is certainly worth a look if you want to pass ninety minutes. I will give it a 5/10.
Thanks for the review! I thought you might like to check this one out. Most of these social media horror movies are ridiculous, awkward, and terrible. But this one, a few faults aside, was pretty good. Good enough I didn't turn it off like most of them. Fair score, since it's middle of the road. But like you said it's worth a look if you need to burn up 90 minutes.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome Tony!Thanks for the recommendation. I did enjoy it mostly and it was well worth my ninety minutes!!!
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