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| | language = English | | language = English | ||
| | budget = $9.9 million<ref name=BOM>{{cite web|url=http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=friendrequest.htm|title=Friend Request (2017)|publisher=]|accessdate=19 September 2017}}</ref> | | budget = $9.9 million<ref name=BOM>{{cite web|url=http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=friendrequest.htm|title=Friend Request (2017)|publisher=]|accessdate=19 September 2017}}</ref> | ||
| | gross = $ |
| gross = $9.7 million<ref name="NUM">{{cite web |url=http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Friend-Request#tab=summary |title=Friend Request (2016) | website=The Numbers | accessdate=13 October 2016}}</ref> | ||
| | production companies = {{plainlist| | | production companies = {{plainlist| | ||
| * Wiedemann & Berg Film | * Wiedemann & Berg Film | ||
Revision as of 17:28, 1 November 2017
Not to be confused with Unfriended. 2016 German film
| Friend Request | |
|---|---|
 American theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Simon Verhoeven |
| Written by |
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| Produced by |
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| Starring |
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| Cinematography | Jo Heim |
| Edited by |
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| Music by |
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| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
| Release date |
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| Running time | 92 minutes |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $9.9 million |
| Box office | $9.7 million |
Friend Request (released overseas as Unfriend) is a 2016 English-language German supernatural-psychological horror film directed by Simon Verhoeven and written by Verhoeven, Matthew Ballen, and Philip Koch. The film stars Alycia Debnam-Carey, William Moseley, Connor Paolo, Brit Morgan, Brooke Markham, Sean Marquette, Liesl Ahlers, and Shashawnee Hall. It was released by Warner Bros. Pictures on 7 January 2016 in Germany and 22 September 2017 in the United States by Entertainment Studios Motion Picutres.
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. However she soon notices that Marina's Facebook profile is plastered in bizarre and disturbing images and her obsessive behavior begins to make Laura feel uncomfortable. When Laura shares pictures of herself at her birthday dinner – to which Marina was not invited – Marina publicly and angrily confronts her at her college campus. During the quarrel, Laura accidentally pushes Marina and her hood falls off, revealing her bald spot, causing Marina to run away. Marina tries to apologize to Laura who unfriends her on Facebook. Seeing her number of friends once again down to zero, Marina angrily closes her laptop. That night, Marina records her suicide with her webcam, which automatically uploads the footage to social media.
The 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 wasps. 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 vows to exact revenge on Laura by making 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 to Laura and says that Marina can't make her lonely if she died. Kobe suddenly stabs her in the stomach, hoping to kill her in order to save himself and Tyler. However, Laura manages to overpower Kobe by hitting him with flashlight and flees. 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, a wounded Laura starts looking for Marina's body. She receives a video call from her mother, who informs that she's been seeing Marina too. Laura's video call suddenly glitches out, as her mother begins to act strangely. Laura's mother takes a knife from the table, and goes to the other room, presumably killing herself. Laura begins to cry after seeing everyone she's loved being taken away. Tyler soon finds her, only to get stabbed in the throat by Kobe. Laura attempts to escape Kobe once again but reaches a dead end. However, before he could kill Laura, Kobe is viciously attacked and soon killed by Marina's wasps.
Laura, feeling dazed, sees an apparition of a seven-year-old Marina, along with two boys (who had bullied Marina in the orphanage). Laura yells at Marina what does she want from her, Marina says that she wanted to be friends with her as she 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 laptop (presumably Marina's laptop), is shown to have zero friends, just like Marina before she met Laura. Then her new account – which shares the same dark, grotesque images and renamed as Lau Ra – is revealed. She stares the screen as her eyes turn from green to blue, indicating that Laura has been possessed by the spirit of Marina and the credits roll.
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. In Germany, the film is titled Unfriend, since Unfriended was released as Unknown User in Germany.
Filming
The film was shot in Cape Town at the University of 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.
Release
The film was released in Germany on 7 January 2016, 20 April 2016 in the United Kingdom and in the United States on 22 September 2017.
Box office
As of 1 October 2017, Friend Request has grossed $3.5 million in the United States and Canada and $6 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $9.5 million, against a production budget of $9.9 million.
In North America, the film was released alongside Kingsman: The Golden Circle and The Lego Ninjago Movie, and was initially projected to gross around $5 million from 2,569 theaters in its opening weekend. However after grossing just $750,000 on its first day, weekend projections were lowered to $1.5–2 million. It ended up grossing $2 million, finishing 7th at the box office, and passing Victor Frankenstein for the worst opening gross for a film playing in over 2,500 theaters.
Critical response
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 17% based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 3.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Friend Request's attempts to update old-school teen horror for the digital age do not, sadly, include memorable characters, fresh scares, or novel storytelling twists." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 31 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.
Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film for being "visually stylish and imaginative" but criticized it for becoming less interesting as the film went on. Jessica Kiang of Variety was impressed by the practical effects, but criticized the way the film had little to do with the "technology that it ostensibly exists to critique". Ally Wybrew of Empire gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, praising Debnam-Carey, who " out otherwise mediocre performances" in contrast to the poorly written character of Marina. Wybrew went on to criticize the clunky lines, overenthusiastic score, and the protracted final act.
References
- "FRIEND REQUEST (15)". British Board of Film Classification. 15 March 2016. Retrieved 15 March 2016.
- "Friend Request (2017)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
- ^ "Friend Request (2016)". The Numbers. Retrieved 13 October 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.
- "'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' and 'Lego Ninjago' will battle 'It' for box office victory". Los Angeles Times. 20 September 2017. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
- ^ D'Allesandro, Anthony (23 September 2017). "'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' Ropes $38M+; 'Ninjago' Dulls Sword To $21M; 'Friend Request' A Loner With $1.8M". Deadline.com. Retrieved 23 September 2017.
- "Friend Request (2017)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 29 September 2017.
- "Friend Request reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 29 September 2017.
- "'Friend Request': Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
- Kiang, Jessica (21 September 2017). "Film Review: 'Friend Request'". Variety. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
- Wybrew, Ally. "Friend Request". Empire. Retrieved 24 September 2017.