MICHAEL LOMAX: ‘Unfriended’ is worth a few Likes

Horror films are a young person’s game. Not that an older generation can’t appreciate a well-made horror, but when you think of who gets the most out of them, it’s almost always young people. They roll into the theater with a couple friends, share a bucket of popcorn, crack jokes during the first few trailers. They’re the ones jumping back at scary scenes, and laughing together when they realize how terrified they are.

The crowd I watched “Unfriended” with was exactly this kind of group. The races and genders were all over the map, but everyone in the theater was definitely under the age of 40, and everyone seemed to have a good time. Which makes me wonder, where’s the older crowd?

On the one hand, most of them are busy with legitimate jobs. They have families to support and bills to pay, so the prospect of a Saturday afternoon spent watching a teen flick is more often than not completely out of the question. But if I had to take a guess, they’re probably just bored with the horror fare of the last two decades.

Genuine suspense (think: “Psycho” or “Rosemary’s Baby” or “The Exorcist”) has become a lost art. Today’s horror fare is too centered on blood and guts and jump scares, and after you’ve seen the film once, any subsequent viewing is unnecessary. There are typically variations in the story from one movie to the next, but not enough to keep you all that interested.

Instead, horror films today need something more than just plot twists.

I’m thinking about “The Blair Witch Project” and “Paranormal Activity”— two films shot for little money that made millions through brilliant viral marketing. These movies redefined the genre by dropping the audience directly into the world of the film. We’re forced to identify with the characters as people. What’s happening to them could easily happen to us.

This is what makes “Unfriended” a fun ride.

Taking place entirely on the computer screen of high schooler Blaire Lily (Shelley Hennig), the film follows a conference call among Blaire and four of her friends on the first anniversary of the suicide of classmate Laura Barns (Heather Sossaman). Laura shot herself after a racy online video led to relentless cyberbullying, and over the course of the Skype chat a supernatural force, presumably the ghost of Laura herself, terrorizes Blaire and her friends.

Like “Blair Witch” or “Paranormal,” “Unfriended” takes a relatively simple concept and runs with it. But while a ghost haunting your computer might not sound all that scary, like the aforementioned films, what makes this movie good is not what you can see, but what you can’t see. In confining yourself to such a small window, you leave yourself blind to everything else. And isn’t the scariest part of a horror film when the lights go low and the sound cuts off?

Of course, if terror is all you’re looking for, you’ll find better films. “Unfriended” is actually very intentionally funny for the most part. The characters have witty lines of dialogue, and the fact that all of them are fairly immoral keeps you from getting too invested in any of their deaths. In fact, you’re almost rooting for them. But it’s still a very creepy film, even if it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

More than anything else, “Unfriended” should be applauded for trying something new. It takes a standard horror concept and translates it to the modern technological world. I think anyone across generations can welcome this kind of daring. But if you’re going to the theater, prepare to sit with a lot of kids.

Michael Lomax is a writer-filmmaker currently at work on a film script to be set and shot in Albany.