Friend Request

this movie is ass 😭 a disgrace to horror movies

Friend Request_360P

Wonder why such a low score for such a good film , was actually quite gripping and well executed.

Since Unfriended last year we have Friend Request. Now, having seen this on IMDb listed as a "Thriller" I wasn't bought. Considering the film looked & sounded like a horror film I wasn't as excited as I was for Unfriended. Though that didn't deter me entirely! I then began to see trailers of the film in cinema & was sure it was a horror considering how creepy it looked, even still it was listed as a Horror on the Odeon website & I made plans to see it! I would've seen it anyway it looked that good! So, the film is about a girl named Laura who befriends a eccentric dark girl named Marina, who has no friends & is very quiet. She has a weird Facebook profile & begins to get clingy with Laura who is her 1 & only friend. But after a conflict Laura unfriends Marina & things go from bad to worse a dark presence begins to stalk Laura & make her lonely after Marina kills herself! My thoughts are that this film was really twisted & f*#ked up! It really grabs you & locks you into this deep dark twisted underworld of the internet & how making one error can have devastating effects on you & your life! It was really dark & made Unfriended seem tame in comparison! The kills were pretty good & sinister! The possession-on-the- internet theme was really scary & close to home as I use Facebook & the internet myself! It really gives that what if feel! I also liked the grimness of the film as a whole! It felt dark & really dreary which added to the atmosphere! Creepy parts of the film like the footage of the kills of Laura's friends appearing on her account & her friends unfriending her thinking she's the one posting them, I liked how it was done when the spirit was trying to turn everyone against Laura! It was a pretty good flow to the story! I overall thought this was a really good film & really dark & sinister to the core! You'll not be disappointing! 10/10

Cyber based horror has become quite a popular sub-genre in the last couple of years, 2015's Unfriended being the other example that comes to mind. Friend Request is directed by Simon Verhoeven (No relation to Robocop director Paul), and is his first directorial feature that is not a comedy, and in the English language. Laura (Alycia Debnam-Carey) is a popular college student who is highly active on social media, which includes her Facebook account (totalling over 800 friends). She then receives a friend request from Marina Mills (Liesl Ahlers) a classmate she barely knows who has no Facebook friends. Out of pity she accepts the request. After being messaged constantly by Marina she decides to lie about going out for her birthday in order to avoid her, however photos from the evening end up on Facebook and soon after Marina attacks Laura at school before filming herself committing suicide, which is posted all over Facebook. Following the suicide Laura and her friends come under attack from a demonic force that appears to be Marina out for revenge. Friend Request is a pleasantly surprising horror feature, which is well-acted by the ensemble. The dialogue between the characters is quite natural and creates a feeling of camaraderie between Laura and her friendship group in the opening scenes of the film. The overarching themes regarding our reliance on social media and how the platforms can manage and manipulate our lives are quite cleverly staged for the most part. Watching Laura's social media being hijacked creates a realistic parallel with stories that are relatable for us watching. Sure maybe when it happens to us it isn't a cyber-demon we went to college with, but having a Facebook Page which serves as an outlet for our thoughts, memories and, well, lives being hacked and seeing spam being sent from a source masquerading under the guise of our identity is an upsetting experience for most. We now see social media accounts as an extension of ourselves, and each other, and Friend Request uses this parallel to make the haunting Laura is experiencing relatable to the audience. However Despite this praise Friend Request suffers from one rather major flaw, it isn't scary. It's certainly jumpy, and had me leaping a couple of times with its scary demons occasionally popping out like demented Whack-a-moles. But it fails to create a sense of dread, or withhold an unsettling atmosphere that makes a great horror movie. The concept of fusing witchcraft with modern technology is quite interesting, but has been covered in previous films to better effect and in the final act Friend Request throws aside any attempt of being a disturbing social commentary in lieu of illogical narrative choices, that I will not disclose to any who wish to see the film. The music in the film is scored by Gary Go and he does a fine job instilling a chilling layer of texture in the latter parts of the movie. Friend Request is an entertaining, thoughtful, film. But it lacks further detail to make it essential viewing, along with not being unsettling enough to be scary on a baser level. Having left the cinema I, in an absent minded fashion, checked my Facebook page almost immediately without thinking, which merited a chuckle. While there is clearly some observant commentary in the film it doesn't transcend into horror at any point, which is a missed opportunity, but it is still relevant enough to entertain for 90 minutes or so if you're in the mood for a jump-scare or two. Review by Alexander Halsall, for more reviews of the latest films follow my blog at thebeestheysting.wordpress.com/reviews/

I'm a little bit critical when it comes to horror movies linked with social media, but this one turned out to be a really good film! First of all I became a huge fan of Alycia Debnam- Carey since "Fear the Walking Dead" and I think the acting skills in this one are actually pretty good! The concept of the story was kinda boring, but I think the director did a really good job by extending it into a good plot! Of course the movie was a little predictable at some points but the ending shocked me as well as the contrast between the first scene and the last one. The characters are also far more improved from the cliché, of course there are some similarities but in the end they are kind of original. I also admired the scary scenes,there were a lot of them and could give you a small heart attack.After all I can say that "Unfriend" is a good example for good horror movies in the 2010's which is why I gave it 7/10 stars! Go watch it, you won't regret it!

I'm a huge fan of horror. Generally, I'll watch every horror film that released in theater, so last night I went to see Friend Request. I didn't know it was opening night either and there were about 6 other people there. I walked in a couple minutes late during the intro sequence and found myself confused as I watched about three to five minutes of Facebook snapshots set to weird pop music. The movie then started, I guess, and that feeling of confusion never subsided. It got right into the plot and completely skipped any character development. I didn't care at all whether the lead character, or any other character in the film for that matter, lived or died. I didn't understand the motivation of the antagonist and it wasn't ever really explained. Apparently she was a witch or something similar and had magical powers for some reason. She wanted to kill all of the main characters friends for no reason other than she felt lonely, I think. I don't even know. The ending was even more jumbled and nonsensical. By the time the credits rolled, nothing was explained whatsoever. This was by far the worst film I've seen in theaters in recent memory. In fact, I don't remember ever seeing anything worse. Spare yourself the pain and save yourself two hours. I'd rather mow the lawn or something than have to sit through Friend Request again.

There are a few blindingly obvious questions raised while watching Friend Request: Why does the cop ask Laura if she knows where Marina committed suicide? They already found her body and informed the school/public, right? If Marina has no records on file, no ID etc, how do the cops know the person who committed suicide is actually Marina right away? (She turned her self into a flaming pinata, so how did they ID her so quickly?) How does a non family member get access to see a medical report on a person who died in suspicious circumstances? Why are the police only interested in Laura's activity on Facebook, not finding out why Marina has no public records or details linking her to the school etc, or why Laura's friends are dying in such strange circumstances, or how she could possibly access CCTV footage to post on her TL???? While this is a film made for the entertainment of Millennial p2p streamers (let's face it, no one saw this at the multiplex) and it may serve to highlight the sometimes dangerous obsession we have with social media and how it can impact on real lives; "Friend Request" treats its characters (and therefore in this case, its intended audience) with disdain and laziness. There's no hero to root for, no one character arcs (no one learns a lesson) and all of them are stereotypical mish-mashes of modern teenage caricatures. Perfect for Netflix and Chill night, but lacking anything more meaningful than that. Friend Request.....denied

"Friend Request" follows a college student named Laura (Alycia Debnam Carey) who receives a friend request on Facebook from a lonely girl named Marina (Liesl Ahlers) who has 0 friends. Laura accepts the friend request out of pity but quickly regrets it as Marina becomes obsessed with Laura in a very short amount of time. Once Marina's overwhelming advances of friendship are rejected by Laura, she decides to take her own life, film it, and put it on the internet. After Marina's death Laura begins to lose control of her life and her facebook account due to further harassment from Marina's ghost. I felt like the plot was an OK lead in to a very familiar concept, college kids getting picked off one by one while one person tries to figure things out and find a way to stop the person or thing that is terrorizing them. After the initial set up this movie really starts to look a lot like a number of previous modern day horror films, it just makes no effort whatsoever to try to shake things up a bit. They took an overused formula and stuck to it pretty much to the tee. I even find it hard to write much about the film because it was so bland and just didn't really offer much at all. You will predict every twist, you will see every death coming, and you will not be shocked by the ending at all. I tend to like these kinds of movies so I was willing to forgive a lot of the film's clichés, but it got to the point where it just felt like the film makers were going down a list of horror movie clichés and checking them off as they made the movie. It's not the worst movie ever, it looks good, the acting is good enough, and a few of the kills weren't bad. However there just isn't enough here to warrant watching it over many similar films that are much better. "Friend Request" is simply a film that is so Luke warm that it's hard to think of much good things or bad things about it. 4/10

I swear I've seen this film before. Girl meets creepy girl, creepy girl more than she seems. creepy girl haunts girl. girl cries. girl dies (or becomes new creepy girl). Recycled plot with face book And I'm sorry, but if i was a taxi driver and i had some teenage girl bleeding out in the back of the car. i would definitely not drop her off outside a spooky abandoned factory by herself. apparently my review isn't long enough to submit so ill fill it with a pointless sentence that doesn't really need to be here along with a couple of cliché 'its in the mirror behind you' jump scares. quick turn around, it'll probably be gone by the time you do. wait, sorry, now its in front of you.