Unfriended
All actors and roles (10)
Short description
Six high school friends gather for their usual evening video chat, only for a seventh user to join the call. The intruder claims to be a classmate, Laura Barns, who took her own life a year earlier after an embarrassing video of her circulated online. At first the friends dismiss the messages as a prank, but the unknown account begins exposing their private secrets and threatens them if they try to disconnect. What started as an ordinary night online turns into a fight to survive against a presence that seems able to reach them through their own devices.
Unfriended was directed by Levan Gabriadze, following his 2011 feature Lucky Trouble as the second film he directed, from a screenplay by Nelson Greaves. Shelley Hennig plays Blaire, with Heather Sossaman as Laura, and Renee Olstead, Matthew Bohrer, Moses Storm and Will Peltz among the friends on the call. Produced by Timur Bekmambetov and Greaves, the film was made for about 1 million dollars and earned roughly 64 million dollars worldwide, an unusually large return for a Blumhouse and Bazelevs production of that size.
The film has an IMDb rating of 5.6 out of 10 from around 87,000 votes and a TMDB rating of 5.6 out of 10 from roughly 3,600 votes, while critics gave it 6 out of 10 across 183 reviews, slightly above the audience scores. Its story unfolds almost entirely across the characters' screens, with the whole film running 83 minutes.
What's left behind the scenes
- When Laura posts a photo of Jess, the date indicates the photo was uploaded in November, while the film's events unfold in April.
- The filmmakers specifically created a mock-up of the Skype interface to avoid potential technical glitches during filming.
- When Blair searches for police codes, she states the code "5250", while the code 5150 is highlighted on her screen, which is the one she should have said.
- When Blair's last Facebook messages are shown, the date on these messages is different in different frames. Sometimes it's 11/20/13, and sometimes 12/3/13.
- Towards the very end of the film, among Blair's Facebook messages, you can notice a message from Nelson Greaves, who is the screenwriter of this film.
- Initially, actor selection proceeded as with a normal casting call, but it soon became clear that applicants needed to be seated in front of a computer screen. After that, the casting process took place simultaneously in two rooms, and candidates communicated with the film's creators via video chats.
- The film is based on the stories of the real suicides of Amanda Todd and Audri Pott.
- Initially, the film was titled “Offline,” then “Cybernatural,” but ultimately it was renamed “Unfriended.”
- When billie227 is counting down for Blair, the countdown appears as pop-up messages in the upper right corner of the screen. However, when Blair opens Skype, there are completely different messages from billie227.
- Production lasted 16 days, including six days of principal photography with 12-hour days.
- At the beginning of the film, when Blair is communicating with Mitch, two messages in a row disappear while they continue to write to each other. Later, these messages reappear in the same place where they were.
- In scenes featuring YouTube videos, the total video length and current position indicators can be seen changing.
- To make the film more believable, changes were made to the script on the fly during the shooting of each take, resulting in the actors improvising in response to unexpected alterations.
- Crista Hartsock, who plays the girl who agrees to go to the police, appears in the film with her own dog.
- All Facebook and Skype accounts shown in the film actually exist.
- On Blair's (Shelley Hennig) computer screen, an open page of the series "Werewolf" (2011), in which Hennig herself starred, is visible.
- When Blair checks her relationship status with Laura Barnes on Facebook, it indicates they have been friends since February. However, this is impossible, as the film's events take place a year after Laura's death, meaning Blair added Laura as a friend after she was already deceased.
- The majority of scenes from the trailers and television commercials were not included in the final version of the film.
- The entire film was shot in one house, with all the actors located in different rooms.
- On Blair's Facebook page, the icon of her friend Tony changes to an image of a completely different person when the page is shown for the last time.
- Heather Sossaman revealed in an interview that seven different versions of her character Laura’s suicide scene were filmed. One of the versions involved death by hanging, and filming this version was the most frightening for the actress. However, the final version of the film included a scene where Laura shoots herself, which, according to the actress, was the easiest version.
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