UNFRIENDED – The Blu Review

“Never Have I Ever… spread the rumor that Blaire has an eating disorder.”

When Melissa Howland reviewed UNFRIENDED here at We Are Movie Geeks, she wrote that the film: “…..felt fresh. They didn’t rely on just using jump scares to horrify the audience. Instead, they also used a relatable story theme, and created tension throughout the film. Director Levan Gabriadze did a great job of creating a natural flowing, fun film. The same goes for the cast. A lot was riding on their shoulders since most of their script was improvised. They were in charge, in a way, of how they looked on camera since they really did have a makeshift skype-type of chat screen in front of them, and really moving the script along.” (read all of Melissa’s review HERE)

As you probably know by now, UNFRIENDED all takes place over video chat while all the characters, who are never in the same physical location, are multi-tasking. Text chat windows are open next to the Skype screen and Youtube videos. Music is playing in the background. If nothing else, UNFRIENDED does an outstanding job portraying the on-line frenzy that is modern teen interaction. I found UNFRIENDED not only fun, but surprisingly scary. Innovative movies like this either go one or the other. There’s the occasion like last year’s OPEN WINDOWS where it just falls completely flat on its face, but then there’s something like we have here with UNFRIENDED where the results are just an absolute treat. The entire film is seen on a laptop screen? Sounds like it could be a little dull? That’s what I worried would be the case at first, but it didn’t shake out that way. What we got with UNFRIENDED was a suspenseful and effective horror movie that used intensity and mystery to scare rather than cheap shocks.
Behind the facade of a horror film, UNFRIENDED actually contained a lot of sad and very real themes such as cyber-bullying. There’s a clever scene in the film where the characters play a game of ‘never have I ever’ and find out some horrible things they have each done to one and other resulting in some real pain and devastation. UNFRIENDED is well-written, well-directed, and has to be considered something of a masterpiece of editing.

Now UNFRIENDED has been released in blu-ray by Universal Studios and We Are Movie Geeks has had a peek.

The UNFRIENDED 1080p transfer is a bit hard to judge since the entire presentation is a series of desktop graphics, some on less than high-definition platforms. Some of this footage is intentionally lo-fi looking, so there is a wide disparity in sharpness and clarity throughout the presentation, as well as with color reproduction. Noise creeps into some of the darker material, but that may have been intentional as well, so all things considered, the transfer is excellent in everything it does.

The sound mix is hard to judge for the same reasons but is a pretty engaging one. The more intense scenes really benefit from the depth of the lossless mix and the added clarity it provides. The movie is devoid of directional effects, but the dialogue stays clean when it is supposed to and is easily discernible.

UNFRIENDED contains no extras, though the package does include a DVD copy of the film as well as a voucher for a UV/iTunes digital copy.