Film Review: Unfriended

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Unfriended. Rated MA15+ (strong themes, violence and coarse language). 83 minutes. Directed by Levan Gabriadze. Screenplay by Nelson Greaves.

Verdict: This ingenious little film packs a seriously big punch.

Having risen from anonymity to become the go-to horror flick of the year so far, Unfriended is a nerve-shattering cinematic experience that breaks all the rules in a way that hasn’t been done this brilliantly since The Blair Witch Project (1999).
 
Taking place entirely on Blaire’s (Shelley Hennig) laptop screen, Unfriended begins with Blaire watching a YouTube video of her good friend Laura Barns (Heather Sossaman) taking her own life. Laura had suffered extraordinary levels of online abuse and bullying, and the final, fatal decision she makes is brutally shocking.

In an effort to distract herself from the horror, Blaire hooks up with her boyfriend Mitch (Moses Storm) on Skype for a video chat. Their private conversation is soon interrupted by their friends Adam (Will Peltz), Jess (Renee Olstead) and Ken (Jacob Wysocki), and the group engage in some light-hearted banter. But when an anonymous caller joins the conversation, it quickly becomes apparent that this catch-up is not going to end at all well.

As the extent of the fear, panic and almost unbearable levels of tension and horror mount, Blair darts chaotically between the Skype video conference call with her friends, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Google in an effort to find out why the intruder is targeting them. Gabriadze’s is a supremely effective (and ridiculously simple) way of telling the story, and his ensemble of previously little-known talent respond with outstanding performances.

Powered by the devastating effects of cyber-bullying, Greaves’ screenplay refuses to side-step the issues associated with this disturbingly common phenomenon. That Unfriended is aimed squarely at the audience most likely to experience it makes Unfriended more than a terrific horror movie. It also makes it a timely and important one.

Lifeline 13 11 14 (24-hour telephone service)
crisischat.lifelinewa.org.au (online chat service)
Kids Help Line 1800 55 1800 (24-hour telephone service) www.kidshelp.com.au

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Paranormal Activity 4

Paranormal Activity 4. Rated M (horror theme, violence and coarse language). 88 minutes. Directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. Screenplay by Christopher Landon.

Verdict: It’s probably the last gasp for the Paranormal Activity franchise as it takes on Rosemary’s Baby – and loses.

The ghost of The Blair Witch Project (1999) has haunted just about every offering from independent filmmakers playing around with projects from the psychological horror genre. Famous for, among other achievements, cutting tyro filmmakers loose from big budgets and motion picture studio funding, Blair Witch made the ‘found footage’ and wobbly, jump cut, hand-held camera work its signature and raked in more than $250 million at the box office.

Film Review: Final Destination 5

Final Destination 5. Rated MA 15+ (strong violence, blood and gore). 92 minutes. Directed by Steven Quale. Screenplay by Eric Heisserer.

As much as I would love to be able to tell you all about this latest (and apparently final) installation in the celebrated Final Destination horror franchise, I can’t. It was just too scary for me – and the 3D only made it worse (or better – depending on just how much of a horror devotee you are). Chilling, thrilling and utterly terrifying – I guess I will be left wondering what happened after I fled.

This 'review' was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

DVD Review: Daybreakers

Daybreakers. 94 minutes. MA15+. Directed and written by Michael and Peter Spierig.

With Undead (2003), their marvellous, low-budget sci-fi/horror film about aliens who arrive to save the residents of a small-town from a zombie plague, the Queensland-based Spierig Brothers – twins Michael and Peter – launched their filmmaking careers. Here was a fantastically imaginative addition to the celebrated genre that literally sparkled with invention, broad brushstrokes of tongue-in-cheek humour and great affection for zombified chaos. What, genre aficionados eagerly anticipated, would they do next?

It’s 2019, and a mysterious plague has turned most of the world’s population into vampires. The remaining humans are hunted and farmed for their blood, but as the human race nears extinction, vampire scientists – lead by haematologist Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) – become involved in a race against time to develop a blood substitute before the vampires, themselves, become extinct.

While there is certainly a huge amount to enjoy about this occasionally clever, big-budget blood-fest, unhappily, all the sheer, unbridled creativity that defined Undead appears to have been shoe-horned into a slick, genre treatment that just ends up feeling disappointingly derivative and unoriginal. It’s not helped, either, by the miscast Hawke (Gattaca) or the unengaged performance from a sedate Willem Dafoe, who both appear uncomfortably ill-at-ease with the material.

On the other hand, Michael Dorman is great as Edward’s tortured, human-hunting brother Frankie, while Sam Neill has a field day scowling and prowling around all over the place as Charles Bromley, the head of his human-farming corporation. Isabel Lucas feasts on her cameo as his activist daughter Alison – and there’s a strong sense that this much more interesting relationship was somewhat strangely abandoned in the scriptwriting process.

Ben Nott’s steely grey cinematography, George Liddle’s (Evil Angels) production design and Bill Booth’s (The Proposition) art direction stylishly account for the handsome, sleek, futuristic science-fiction environments. Matt Villa’s editing manages to ensure that the script’s obvious fractures and structural flaws don’t seriously derail the whole affair – even if you do get the feeling that, particularly in the ultra-gory, blood-soaked sequences, it’s all getting a little too indulgent and out of control.

Ultimately, however, it is Steven Boyle’s superb, Nosferatu-inspired ‘Subsiders’ design (with Bryan Probets, Sahaj Dumpleton and Kellie Vella turning in memorable ‘Subsider’ cameos) that steals the show – and it is this sub-plot concerning near-death vampires turning into marauding, cannibalistic savages (together with some particularly gruesome scenes of their extermination) that really lifts Daybreakers into genre-defining territory.

It’s just a real shame that the comparatively boring human characters (including Claudia Karvan as a stereotypical heroine) keep getting in the way of all the action and real excitement – to the point where you end up wishing they’d just drive off into the distance a lot sooner than they do, never to be seen again.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Midwest Times.

DVD Review: Zombieland

Zombieland. 88 mins. Rated MA15+. Directed by Ruben Fleischer. Written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick.

Since 1932’s White Zombie, the ‘living dead’, in their many ghoulish incarnations, have been staples of the horror genre – largely thanks to George A. Romero’s … of the Dead films: Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985) and Land of the Dead (2005) starring Australia’s Simon Baker (The Mentalist).

Considered the ‘Zombie Master’, Romero’s films have deservedly won themselves a cult following and are celebrated worldwide, not only for the way in which they push every single one of the celebrated horror genre’s buttons, but for how they can be enjoyed as satirical commentary on the worst of human excesses: consumerism, greed and blind-sided military aggression respectively.

Comedy, too, has been increasingly integrated into flesh-munching, zombie scenarios – no more successfully than Shaun of The Dead (2004), in which Simon Peggs’s charming, nerdy shop assistant ‘Shaun’ becomes a hero by taking on the local zombie community in order to win back his ex-girlfriend.

Zombieland is the story of Columbus (Jess Eisenberg, pictured) – a phobic young man who, with the help of a set of rules for withstanding the zombie apocalypse, has managed to survive. When he sets off to try and find other survivors, he meets Tallahassee (Oscar-nominated Woody Harrelson) who is in search of Twinkies – a particular brand of American cream-filled cake. When their vehicle and weapons stash is high-jacked by the resourceful Wichita (Emma Stone) and her young sister Little Rock (Oscar-nominated Abigail Breslin) who are on their way to a theme park, the men must chose between going their own way or following the girls.

While it certainly has its moments (the opening budget-draining few minutes are extremely promising), Zombieland rapidly disintegrates into a cheap, tedious, half-baked road movie with self-conscious pretensions to comedy, social commentary and relevance. Bill Murray (Ghostbusters) has a moderately (and momentarily) appealing cameo as himself, but Harrelson (The Messenger, The People vs Larry Flynt), Eisenberg (The Squid and The Whale), Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) and Stone, just flounder haplessly all over the place in one unengaging, undirected and unfulfilling scene after another – all tacked together with the strength of a daisy chain by editor Alan Baumgarten (Meet the Fockers).

When, minutes from the end of the muddled and predictable theme park sequence, you realise that the same particularly insipid and uninspiring line of dialogue (“nut up or shut up” … whatever that’s supposed to mean) has been repeated more times than you care to remember, you know that the scriptwriters have really hit a brick wall. Hard.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Midwest Times.