Friend Request
| Friend Request | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Simon Verhoeven |
| Produced by |
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| Written by |
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| Starring |
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| Music by |
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| Cinematography | Jo Heim |
| Edited by |
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Production companies |
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| Distributed by |
Warner Bros. (Germany) Freestyle Releasing (USA) |
Release dates |
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Running time | 92 minutes[1] |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $5.9 million[2] |
Friend Request (German title: Unfriend) is a 2016 supernatural-psychological horror film directed by Simon Verhoeven. With a screenplay by Matthew Ballen, Philip Koch and Verhoeven, the film stars Alycia Debnam-Carey, William Moseley, Connor Paolo, Brit Morgan, Brooke Markham, Sean Marquette, Liesl Ahlers and Shashawnee Hall.
The film was released on 7 January 2016 in Germany by Warner Bros. Pictures, and is expected to be released in the United States and Canada in 2017 by Freestyle Releasing.[3][4][5]
Plot
Laura (Alycia Debnam-Carey) is one of the most popular students at her college and enjoys an active social life with many friends and family members. She is active on social networks and has over 800 friends on Facebook. She lives with three friends, Olivia (Brit Morgan), Isabel (Brooke Markham) and Gustavo (Sean Marquette). She is also close friends with Kobe (Connor Paolo) and is dating Tyler (William Moseley). Laura receives a friend request from a student at her campus, Marina. Seeing her talents in animation, she accepts the request and begins a friendship with the lonely girl. Laura is Marina's first Facebook friend and her profile is plastered in bizarre and disturbing images. Marina's obsessive behavior begins to make Laura feel uncomfortable. However, when Laura shares a picture of herself at her birthday dinner – to which Marina was not invited – Marina publicly and angrily confronts Laura at her college campus. In the quarrel, Laura accidentally pushes Marina and her hood falls off, revealing Marina's hairless head, and she runs away. Marina tries to apologize to Laura who unfriends her on Facebook. Seeing her number of friends down to zero, she angrily closes her laptop. That night, Marina records her suicide with her webcam, which automatically uploads the footage to social media.
Next morning, Laura receives a message from Marina containing the video of her suicide. Later on, it is posted to her Facebook page. Laura is unable to remove the video, and her friend count drops. Left with no choice, she tries to delete her account, but an unknown error occurs. When Kobe and Laura investigate Marina's Facebook page, they realize that the source code where it has been written in is not the normal code.
That night, Marina adds Gustavo as a friend and posts a distorted picture of his face. He is then terrorized by a spirit, while seeing things that were posted on Marina's page. He is soon killed by a swarm of bees. The spirit begins killing Laura's friends one by one, posting videos of each friend's death on Laura's Facebook page. Unable to delete the videos or deactivate her account, Laura's Facebook friend count continues to drop. Soon after, Laura finds that she is being stalked by Marina's vengeful spirit, who promises to make her "lonely".
Laura hunts down the place where Marina committed suicide in order to destroy the black mirror that turned Marina into an evil spirit. She and Kobe go to Marina's house which was burnt down and attempt to look for her. While there, Kobe sees an ethereal entity come out of the basement, but is saved when Laura bumps into him. She tells him that Marina is not there, but he suggests that they look in the basement.
Marina is not found in the basement, but while searching, Kobe is separated from Laura. She finds him staring into a black mirror. When she turns him around and asks what's wrong, he apologizes and says, 'You can't be lonely if you're dead.' He then stabs her, hoping to kill her in order to save him and Tyler. However, Laura overpowers him and manages to escape. She then realizes through one of Marina's posts that Marina committed suicide in one of the nearby factories. Meanwhile, Tyler finds a deranged Kobe looking for Laura. After getting a call, he and Kobe head to the factories as well. Once getting to the factories Laura starts looking for Marina's body. She receives a video call from her mother, who informs that she's been seeing Marina too, and is last seen walking away with a knife in her hand. Laura, seeing everyone she loved being taken away, cries. Tyler soon finds her, only to get stabbed in the throat by Kobe. Laura escapes Kobe once again but reaches a dead end. However, before Kobe could kill Laura, Marina's wasps start attacking Kobe, killing him.
Laura, feeling dazed, sees an apparition of a seven-year-old Marina. Marina leads Laura to her body and her laptop which transports Laura into one of Marina's earlier posts. Laura is then attacked by Marina.
Some time has passed and there are a fresh batch of students. Laura is seen looking at some girls in the same way that Marina saw Laura and her friends. Laura then faces her computer (previously Marina's computer), is shown to have zero friends, just like Marina before she met Laura. Then her new account – which shares the same dark and grotesque images as Marina's old account – is revealed. She then faces the camera and her eyes turn from green to blue, revealing that Laura has been possessed by the spirit of Marina.
Cast
- Alycia Debnam-Carey as Laura Woodson
- William Moseley as Tyler McCormick
- Connor Paolo as Kobe
- Brit Morgan as Olivia Mathison
- Brooke Markham as Isabel
- Sean Marquette as Gustavo Garcia
- Liesl Ahlers as Marina Mills / Marina Nedifar
- Shashawnee Hall as Detective Cameron
Production
Originally titled Unknown Error, the film was later renamed to Friend Request internationally, to avoid confusion with the 2014 film Unfriended.[6] In Germany, the film is titled Unfriend, since Unfriended was released as Unknown User in Germany.
Filming
The film was shot in Cape Town, South Africa. Though the film was produced by German director Simon Verhoeven and German production companies, the largely English-speaking cast required the film to be shot in English. Filming ended in March 2014.[7]
Release
The film was released in Germany on 7 January 2016.[8] The film was picked up by Freestyle Releasing in January 2016 and is scheduled to be released in the fourth quarter of 2016.[3] At first, it was scheduled for a October 7 release, then pushed to November 18, then again to December 9 and finally sometime in 2017.[9]
Reception
Critical response
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 40%, based on 15 reviews, with an average rating of 4.5/10.[10]
References
- ↑ "FRIEND REQUEST (15)". British Board of Film Classification. 15 March 2016. Retrieved 15 March 2016.
- ↑ "Friend Request (2016)". The Numbers. Retrieved 26 August 2016.
- 1 2 Busch, Anita (14 January 2016). "Freestyle Releasing Gets 'Friend Request'". Deadline. Retrieved 30 October 2016.
- ↑ "Friend Request, starring Alycia Debnam-Carey, coming in October". Retrieved 2016-07-26.
- ↑ "Friend Request". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 25 November 2016.
- ↑ Becher, Björn (8 July 2015). ""Unfriend" – Deutscher Social-Media-Horrorfilm kommt 2016 in die Kinos". filmstarts.de (in German). Retrieved 4 December 2015.
- ↑ "Dreharbeiten abgeschlossen". simonverhoeven.com (in German). March 2014. Retrieved 4 December 2015.
- ↑ "Friend Request Project Details". Wiedemann & Berg. Retrieved 4 December 2015.
- ↑ "Friend Request". boxofficemojo/. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
- ↑ "Friend Request (2016)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 22 September 2016.