Arts & Entertainment recaps “Unfriended,” discusses film with cast

Two courageous souls from the Cavalier Daily’s Arts & Entertainment section braved the Paramount for a night of horror on Apr. 3 for a pre-screening of “Unfriended,” a pioneer film of the Cyber Horror genre put on by the Virginia Horror Society and Universal Pictures at the University.

The film is centered around a haunted skype call and various bloodthirsty household objects. Initially skeptical about whether a movie that is basically one long Skype call could be executed, we found ourselves enjoying the witty humor and altogether too relatable situations of the movie. The plot unfolds through a teenager’s computer screen as she and her friends are stalked via Skype by an unseen figure seeking vengeance for an embarrassing video that led a vicious bully to kill herself a year earlier.

As in any horror movie, the characters frequently frustrate audience members with their negligence. Blair’s questionable decisions and the implausibility of her typing are particularly grating. A character that types messages in ridiculously exaggerated digital vernacular, for example, “ur lyke srsly freaking me out rn,” are hard to take seriously.

Indeed, one of the audience’s favorite moments occurred when an on-screen Skype call began to lag. Someone in the theater called out, “What are you scared of? This is what happens every time I call Pakistan.”

As for the movie itself, it is definitely worth watching. The first half-hour was light-hearted, with the audience chuckling occasionally. Once the Skype messages from alleged stalker billie227 started flowing in, it became one long battle between closing our eyes and trying to continue to watch the movie.

If ones judges a horror film by how scary it is, then “Unfriended” is definitely a success. Every death is chillingly believable and shockingly possible. The actors find the same emotional wavelength, inciting an eerie feeling of hopelessness and fear in the audience. Some of the most intimate and emotionally moving scenes were so wonderfully done and realistic that one almost wanted to comfort the characters on the screen, despite a few of the film’s more contrived portrayals of digital etiquette.

However, the last couple of scenes are terrifying and the best the movie has to offer. Viewers will not leave without shivering and wondering whether to deactivate all forms of social media. This film is a worthwhile total immersion experience.

Arts & Entertainment sat down with the cast of “Unfriended” to hear what they had to say about this new genre of horror and the filming process.

Arts & Entertainment: What kind of preparation did you have to do for this role? Was it strange seeing yourself on the screen, in the way that the movie is made?

Courtney Halverson: I think as far as preparation, we did a lot of rehearsal.

Jacob Wysocki: Yeah, group rehearsals, running the stuff, learning… the basic beats that we needed to hit to get our plot going and stuff like that. And it’s pretty trippy seeing yourself on screen.

CH: It’s so weird. I’ve never done anything that has like released in this big of a capacity so just seeing your face that gigantic is alarming.

A&E: Okay, so this is a bit of a silly question but I just want to know what your favorite scene from the movie is, personally.

JW: I really liked the first scene, between Moses and Shelley, because… if they weren’t on the computer and they were in the same room, it would be like a beautifully acted, nuanced, subtle scene between two people who were like slowly falling in love with each other.

CH: It’s so intimate. They did such a good job.

JW: It’s so honest and like so high school, like I can’t wrap my head around it...I could be watching an indie flick or “Crazy 2” right now.

CH: Yeah. And what’s so funny about it is while they were filming that, that intro piece, because we did this in real-time, the rest of us are all sitting behind our cameras watching it live, and it almost felt...too like personal, too voyeuristic to watch them because their performances were so… unbelievably intimate that we felt like we were watching something we shouldn’t.

A&E: So if you could change one thing about the movie, or your performance in it, what would it be?

Shelley Hennig: Nothing.

Moses Storm: Nothing. I think everyone did such a good job. I think the filmmakers and editors did an incredible job of making us look good, which was just a huge editing challenge, to have all these scenes filmed multiple times, and the conversations. It’s such a loose script… So you have to piece this together, and I think they did an incredible job.

Shelley Hennig: Yeah. So we had storytellers in the beginning, T. Moore and Nelson. Then we had the actors who were the storytellers. And then we had the editors who were the storytellers. It was really three movies into one. And I know we gave them a million different versions of the film, and the editors and the filmmakers were able to make the one that they did, which we’re really proud of.

A&E: What was the most challenging scene to film?

Will Peltz: The sex scene.

SH: Yes.

MS: Yeah those, and then some of the more emotional scenes towards the climax of the film. Those are definitely hard.

“Unfriended” will be released to the public in theaters on Apr. 17.

Arts & Entertainment recaps “Unfriended,” discusses film with cast