Unfriended

Plot synopsis:
The Universal Studios logo plays but starts breaking up, an homage to the broken Skype video that will take place in the film.The movie starts with someone's video desktop. (Note: the entire movie takes place from the point-of-view of a laptop computer screen). They are on LiveLeak website being told that the video they are about to watch is disturbing and they must agree to be 18 or older to view it. They accept. The description top says this is a response to a YouTube video anonymously posted (with a link). The blurry video is played, showing a girl on a schools baseball field with a gun pointed at her face. People scream out at her to drop the gun but then she shoots herself. Everyone screams. The video is stopped as people run to her. The YouTube link is clicked and begins to play.We see Laura Barns (Heather Sossaman) at a party, drunk, lying on a table with a guy on top of her. The video is interrupted as an incoming Skype call comes in its a shirtless guy lying on his bed named Mitch (Moses Jacob Storm). He asks the girl whose POV we are seeing the film from to show off her body. She shows off her knees. He tells her to go higher. He picks up a large knife and demands that she take off her top. She tilts the camera up and unbuttons her shirt she is not wearing a bra but does not pull the shirt open and then tilts the camera down to show off her panties. All the while she tells him to keep threatening her with the knife, (i.e., "Take off those panties or I'll do it for you"). We see her face; she is Blaire (Shelley Hennig), the pretty heroine of the story (and from the POV of her laptop screen takes place). She tells Mitch that she is ready to have sex for the first time with him on the night of formal. This conversation is interrupted when three other people pop up on the Skype call. Their videos freeze her in her underwear and him, jumping up in his boxer shorts. His best friend, Adam (Will Peltz), points out that Mitch has a boner. Jess (Renee Olstead), Blaire's friend, is there, too, along with their wisecracking pal, Ken (Jacob Wysocki).They notice that there is a mysterious person on the Skype with them, who is dubbed "billie227". Ken jokes that he probably learned about their chat on the Boners & Farts website. He holds up his blender and says he's going to make his salsa and then there will be farts. They keep asking who invited the stranger but nobody knows who it is. They all disconnect to try to get rid of him. Blaire messages Mitch and asks who the guy is. He says he doesn't know. She continues talking, but he disappears from the conversation.They all reconnect in the Skype but the mysterious unseen person Billie227 is still there.They try to disconnect him but there is no option on his video to do so. Laura continues messaging Mitch privately on Skype, asking where he went. He says he was distracted by a weird message from Laura Barns. Just then, she gets a Facebook notification saying she got a new message from Laura Barns, too. Laura asks her, "Hey, Blair, who posted the video?" Blair asks, "Who is this?" It says, Laura is typing but there is no reply. She continues asking questions and types: "Why would you do something so messed up?" but doesn't send. On the Skype messenger, Mitch tells her that maybe the dead is trying to contact with them and sends her a link to a website forum where people are posting pictures and telling stories about how someone they knew was contacted by the deceased and then ends up killing themselves. It says people can be possessed and that they should not respond to any contact from the dead. Blaire begins freaking out with Mitch, asking who this person is and what she should do. He tells her she should "unfriend" her. She goes on the Facebook profile but both Unfriend and Report/Block are unclickable. She tells Mitch this, freaking out, asking him for help. He calmly replies, Try refreshing the page. She does and it actually works she unfriends her. She then gets a message from Billie227 saying "Nice try". Laura is still listed as her friend.Mitch and Blaire go back in the Skype room, nervous. The others say they want to bring Val into the conversation but they all groan, saying they can't stand her. Val (Courtney Halverson) connects with them and Ken loudly calls her a slut and starts teasing her. They begin talking about the concert tickets Val is getting them. Blaire continues messaging with Mitch, telling him she couldn't unfriend her. He suggests that it's her brother. She says her brother wouldn't do that. He tells Blaire to turn her account into a Memorial page. She does a Google search on how to memorialize a Facebook account.Blaire stumbles upon a RIP Laura Barns Facebook community page with thousands of likes, realizing that Laura is now more popular and loved than ever. Blaire fills out the form typing in Laura Burns name, the date of her death, and finding an article on Google about her suicide as proof she is deceased. She lists herself as a friend, opts for it to be made into a Memorial Site, and then clicks Send. Immediately, all of her answers change to: WEGOTHER WEGOTHER WEGOTHER WEGOTHER written over and over which causes the form not to end. Now she realizes she isn't dealing with just a normal person. Laura Barns messages her and asks: "What are you watching?" Blaire clicks over to the paused Laura Barns YouTube video she was watching at the beginning of the film paused at Laura passed out (with half of the video un-played). She quickly clears her History.(Note: one of the Tabs above is a link to MTV's Teen Wolf which the actress who plays Blaire is on).Blaire and Mitch message each other privately. He tells her he can't stand Val and that she is a floozy. When they go back in the chat, Billie calls Val a floozy, infuriating Val who demands to know who Billie227 is. Blaire is relieved and tells Mitch he scared her to death with his pranks but he promises her that he isn't behind Billie. Blaire then gets a notification on her Facebook that Jess has posted a photo album with Val tagged in it. She scrolls through to see tons of pics of Val drunk at someones house, smoking a bong. Everyone looks at the pics the same time and laughs at Val. She is upset, saying her mom is one of her Facebook friends, and yells at Jess. Jess says she thought the pics were funny but she didn't post them. Val begins to argue with Jess and Ken says he will pick them up and they can fight outside a Wendy's. Jess continues that she didn't post the pics but she will delete them. She then tells everyone, every time she clicks delete, she refreshes the page and it's back again. Finally, it works. But then a notification comes that Adam has posted the same pics. Val yells at him, asking if he copied and pasted, but he swears he didn't post. Blaire tells them how Laura Barns contacted her. They point out it's the one year anniversary of her suicide. Ken says that Laura was a slut and she deserved what happened to her. The mysterious user now begins typing to them, telling them it's Laura. They all put their hands up to show that they are not the ones who are typing. Billie (the user name of the unknown Skype account) tells them if they hang up, they're going to die. She then tells them "Lights out" and the lights simultaneously go off in their rooms. Now, they know it's not a joke. They start screaming at Billie and Adam grabs his father's gun and threatens to come over there and kill him. Billie continues taunting them and Val tells her she's going to come over there and mess her up. Billie replies: "You wouldn't like it where I am". Val gets a message (via email) and freaks out, saying that she has now been threatened. She calls the police and gives her address saying she is being threatened by someone online. The police say they'll be there shortly. Val signs off.Billie then plays the Laura Barns YouTube video on everyone's computer. They try to close it but the video pops up over and over and it will not click off. We now see the end of the video where Laura is drunk on the ground, lying in her own feces. She shows a meme of her labeled LEAKY LAURA and individual YouTube comments from anonymous users which Billie points out is them. Blaire messages Laura Barns on Facebook saying that she's sorry. She explains that everyone was posting comments so they all did it too. She adds, But they're good people. Blaire looks at the profile of Billie's account and it is listed as Laura Barns. She now remembers that she used to chat with her on there and never deleted her from her user list. Billie threatens all of them and begins to count down, saying she will start to kill someone at the end of 60 seconds. Ken tells everyone to mute their computers and call each other on the phone. Jess freaks out because she has no phone. They all start talking to each other, oblivious that Billie is telling them that she can still hear them. They devise a plan to install a Trojan virus remover that should get rid of the user if he is a troll. Everyone is told to download the game Ken sends. Blaire downloads the Trojan Remover software along with everyone else but her Trash won't empty because an episode of SNL is still in her QuickTime Player. Right as Billie is finishing her countdown, Blaire closes down QuickTime, runs the program, and empties the trash. They all disconnect again and when they come back, the user is gone. They're all relieved and they laugh about the paranoia. They tease Adam for grabbing his dad's gun and he points out that his dad is out getting drunk with Mitch's dad (a way to explain that all their parents aren't home). Then Blaire gets an email from someone named Billie; it is a link to the picture on Instagram that Val had been sent. Blaire begins freaking out. Her friends tell her to send the email to Ken because he can track down the user via their IP address. But there is no Forwarding button. Adam complains to the girls with computers and they try to tell her how to Forward but she says there is no option. She sends a screen shot to Ken instead and he manually types in the Instagram link. They look at the Instagram picture and it is a screen shot of Laura emailing Val a year earlier, where Val ignores Laura's attempt at friendship and instead writes: KILL URSELF LAURA! The Instagram picture is already filled with comments from other students, telling Val she is a horrible person and that she is the one who killed Laura.(Everyone now loves Laura after the cyber-bullying led her to kill herself.)Val sends a request to chat and the group accepts. Val is standing, mindlessly, in her laundry room, next to a bottle of bleach, but the video appears frozen as she is not moving. They notice that the mirror behind her is messed up as if there's been some sort of struggle. Val continues standing still, frozen, and unresponsive but we hear her dog barking. Blaire calls her phone. Val's phone begins to wiggle on the screen proving that the screen is not frozen Val's just not moving.BAM. Val's computer gets knocked down to the ground. We hear police officers entering the house. They start yelling out codes. Blaire goes on Google and looks up the police codes. The first one is for a time check. The second one she mishears and thinks its a call for medical help. She figures Val is just having a seizure and remembers that she mentioned she had a medical condition that causes seizures before the others don't know if this is correct. Blaire tries to find previous conversation on Facebook where she talked to Val about her seizures. But then Ken points out that the code was repeated as 10-56. Blaire looks it up and the code means suicide. They all freak out and Blaire tries to convince herself that Val just had a seizure.Billie is back and tells them she knows all their secrets and is going to reveal them all. If they hang up, she will kill them. She then sends them all a file called NOTBOYFRIEND.JPG to download. Everyone is told not to click it but Blaire downloads the file and looks at it anyway. It's a picture of her lying romantically with Adam (not Mitch, her boyfriend). A second photo appears and she downloads it. It completes much faster and is another pic of Blaire and Adam together. In the chat, the mysterious user pops up again but now, instead of an icon, it's a video. They all shout "We can see you". But they aren't quite sure what they're looking at. It looks like it's from inside a crate. Ken says he's not going to just sit there and they see movement through the crate. The others tell him to go back to the computer and then stand up. Then, they realize the video is filming from a crate inside Ken's house. In both the crate video (from Billie's account) and Ken's video, we see him moving towards the crate and staring at something inside. Then his video becomes static and we start seeing, in broken flashes, him putting his hand and then, his face in a blender. It's not very clear what's happening because it's only shown in flashes, but blood is shown and he is committing suicide throughout the scene.Now, it's just Blaire, Adam, Mitch, and Jess. Billie says they're going to play a game called 'Never Have I Ever'. Jess notes it's the drinking game but Blaire has never even heard of the game, so they explain that she holds up five fingers and if she has done something, she puts one down. Billie tells them, in this game, if the loser doesn't drink, they will die. Billie starts listing statements: NEVER HAVE I EVER SPREAD A RUMOR ABOUT BLAIRE HAVING AN EATING DISORDER. Billie counts down from 10 until Jess finally admits it was her who started it, defending herself by saying it's kind of true since Blaire always says things like "I'm not hungry". Blaire is furious with her. Billie says: NEVER HAVE I EVER TURNED A FRIEND INTO THE COPS FOR POT. And Billie begins to countdown. Mitch admits it was him who told the cops about Adam because they both would have been in trouble otherwise. Adam is furious with Mitch and starts going berserk. Blaire messages Mitch privately to be careful with Adam because he has gone haywire before. Mitch points out only when he's drunk and Blaire tells him Adam is drunk now. Billie suggests: NEVER HAVE I EVER OFFERED JESS'S LIFE FOR MY OWN and counts down from 20. Finally, Adam admits it was him (apparently as an exchange between him and Billie/Laura Barns). Everyone begins fighting with each other. Blaire tells them that Billie is trying to make them all turn on each other and not to give in. Mitch then starts shouting out things: NEVER HAVE I EVER DRUGGED ASHLEY. NEVER HAVE I EVER FORCED ASHLEY TO HAVE AN ABORTION. To upset Mitch, Adam suggests one: NEVER HAVE I EVER HAD SEX. Billie counts down, repeating 5 over and over, until Blaire finally admits she has had sex (in the beginning of the film, she alluded to Mitch that she was a virgin and that formal is when she would finally have sex for the first time). Then Billie writes: NEVER HAVE I EVER CHEATED WITH MY BOYFRIEND'S BEST FRIEND. Mitch goes haywire. Blaire tries to explain that it was an accident, she was drunk, and it didn't mean anything; Billie begins to play a song on Spotify called How You Lie, Lie, Lie. Blaire tries to turn it off but the entire playlist is the song and it can't be clicked off. It plays as Blaire continues to defend herself, saying it was something quick. Blaire sobs and Mitch is furious. Billie says one of them is going to be the loser. Then all of a sudden, something prints on Adam's printer. He reads it to himself and then gets very uncomfortable and quiet. Mitch continues yelling at him but Adam is now stone-faced. They ask what the note says and he says he can't say. Mitch becomes paranoid. Then Blaire's computer sends something to her printer and she gets a piece of paper printed. She reads it and also gets very uncomfortable. Mitch begins to ask her questions, asking how deep their affair went. Blaire says they did it a second time for a few seconds just to see if there was anything between them. Billie begins to play a YouTube video on all their screens showing Adam and Blaire having sensual sex. Mitch begins to scream "What does the note say?" but they say they can't tell him. Mitch says: If you don't tell me, I'll hang up". Billie writes: "If he hangs up, I'll kill him". He is just about to hang up when Blaire finally shows him the piece of paper. It says: IF YOU SHOW THIS TO THE OTHERS, I KILL ADAM. Immediately, Adam shoots himself in the head. His piece of paper is revealed: IF YOU SHOW THIS TO THE OTHERS, I KILL BLAIRE.Billie hints that Jess is next. Jess is told to lock herself in her bathroom and she obeys. Mitch and Blaire begin to scream about what should be done while a pop-up video comes up, a variation of the I love cams pop-up ad selling software that allows you to record webcam videos. Blaire and Mitch don't notice that one of the girls shown getting undressed on a cam is Blaire from the beginning of the film. Blaire goes on Google and looks for sites where you can chat with strangers, to ask for help. She goes on Chatroulette but nobody takes her seriously. She connects with men in Russia, two guys who are high, people who quickly change to a new person after she screams she needs help. This goes on for a while but she finally connects with a nice girl in the USA who is willing to help her. She asks her to call the police in Fresno, California and tell them to go to her friend's house. She types the address and presses Send, but it does not show up (Blaire doesn't notice). The girl calls 911 and talks to them about the situation and the need for police assistance. She is asked the address and Blaire types it again, not realizing it had disappeared the first time. The girl reads the address to the police and they say they're five minutes away. It worked. But then Blaire goes back to the Skype and on Jess's webcam, she is being killed with a hair straightener hot iron in her mouth. Blaire gets a notification -- Jess was tagged in a new pic. Its a photo of Jess... dead, with the hair straightener iron in her mouth with the words: SOMEONE FINALLY GOT JESS TO STFU.Now Blaire and Mitch are alone on Skype. There is silence and they seem to be safe when a buzzing sound is heard. However, it's just an alert from her calendar telling her to GO TO SLEEP TEST TOMORROW. She laughs about this with Mitch. But then Billie comes back and tells them she has one last question. "WHO POSTED THE VIDEO?" She says if they don't admit who did it, they will die. They swear they don't know. Laura messages Blaire on Facebook asking why she is protecting him. Laura says "He didn't do anything. I promise." but then backspaces and says "He did it". Immediately, Mitch stabs himself in the face with the large butcher knife he was using to flirt with Blaire in the first scene. Billie227/Laura begins to play a song with a sarcastic title ('I Hurt Too').Laura/Billie227 messages Blaire on Facebook and tells her that was the right thing to do. Blaire sobs for forgiveness, loading their friendship page on Facebook and scrolling down to show Laura all the pictures of them together as young girls. Blaire apologizes for them drifting apart. Laura writes: "Drifted apart? Is that how you remember it? I think there's more to the story...." She tells Blaire that she's going to have to live with what she did and will never be able to live it down. Just then, a new YouTube video is posted on the RIP Laura Barns Facebook page, starting with Laura drunk on the ground covered in her own feces. But at the end, where it normally stops, the camera person films herself.... and it is revealed to be Blaire. She is laughing about what she just captured on camera and says: "I can't believe I just got Laura Barns on tape. We got her." ('We got her' is the message Laura originally changed the text to on the Facebook Memorial form).All the comments come flooding in from other students watching the video, telling Blaire that she's the reason Laura killed herself, she's a monster, and suggesting that she KILL URSELF. Blaire is now getting the same kind of hate that drove Laura to suicide. All of a sudden, demon hands shut the laptop shut and the lights go out in Blaire's house. Then, a demon-faced teenaged girl (Laura) appears out of the darkness and lunges at the camera.End credits.

Tags: revenge, murder, violence

Review: