UNFRIENDED: DARK WEB review by Patrick Hendrickson – faceless hackers just aren’t iconic villains

UNFRIENDED: DARK WEB review by Patrick Hendrickson – faceless hackers just aren’t iconic villains

UNFRIENDED: DARK WEB tells the story of a group of friends who get together for their regular skype session and quickly find themselves under assault from a malevolent group after delving too deeply into what’s called the Dark Web. This sequel has no ties to the original’s story but maintains a similar tone.

Like the first movie, DARK WEB once again presents itself entirely as one unbroken shot of a computer screen. This
was clever the first time around, but it is no longer an innovative or particularly interesting filmmaking technique since it has been seen before. The characters, if you can call them that, are little more than bodies to be added to a tally board. They are one-dimensional and could easily be lifted from this film and placed in any other slasher movie of your pick. No performances stand out aside from the initial tormentor of the main group of friends. This gentleman tries very hard to come across as intense and threatening but fails in both regards.

This movie does not make a whole lot of sense when you get right down to it. The methods of the attackers are completely unexplained and come down to the very simple explanation of “hacking,” which does not nearly account for all of what goes on. Everything from hijacking trains to sneaking into homes somehow goes completely unnoticed.

The worst thing that could be said about DARK WEB is that it simply is not horrifying, or shocking, or thrilling. It is predictable, incoherent, and only partially entertaining in its cliche-ness. One of the notable reasons for this would probably be the lack of an actual villain. There’s nothing comparable to Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger who were the stars of their own series. DARK WEB just has a bunch of faceless nobodies who are somehow able to put together a grand conspiracy that spans continents.

The original UNFRIENDED was more sensible due to it being a ghost story, which is an ironic statement but a true one. There are less rules when it comes to ghosts or other supernatural beings. There ARE rules when it comes to the abilities of regular human beings. Rules that cannot be tossed aside by simply saying, “they’re hackers from the dark web,” which is about the only attempt this production makes in explaining itself.

UNFRIENDED was an ugly movie which was easy to hate due to its ugliness while UNFRIENDED: DARK WEB is just a stupid movie. That would be forgivable if it was stupid AND entertaining. Unfortunately it is not. This movie is the definition of schlocky trash but it fails to garner the same entertainment value of other trashy slasher films, and because of that it gets a 2/5.

UNFRIENDED: DARK WEB opens July 20, 2018

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