Friend Request
Short description
Laura is a popular college student who shares much of her life on Facebook with hundreds of friends. When Marina, a shy classmate she barely knows, sends her a friend request, Laura accepts it, but Marina's attention soon becomes overwhelming. After Laura removes her from her friend list, people close to her begin dying, and she is left trying to understand the connection between Marina and the deaths before anyone else is harmed.
Friend Request is a 2016 horror thriller directed by Simon Verhoeven, who wrote the screenplay with Philip Koch and Matthew Ballen. It was Verhoeven's first feature as director, followed later by Nightlife, Girl You Know It's True, Old White Man and Ach, diese Lücke, diese entsetzliche Lücke. The film is a German-South African production from Wiedemann & Berg Film, Seven Pictures and Two Oceans Production. Alycia Debnam-Carey plays Laura, with Connor Paolo, William Moseley, Brit Morgan, Brooke Markham and Sean Marquette in supporting roles.
Made for about 10 million dollars, the film took roughly 11 million dollars worldwide, a modest return. Audiences rate it 5.2 out of 10 on IMDb from more than 27,000 votes and 5.5 out of 10 on TMDB from over 1,300 votes, placing it among the lower-rated titles in the director's filmography. At 92 minutes, it fits the standard length of a mainstream horror release.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film was shot in Cape Town, South Africa. It was directed by Simon Verhoeven from Germany and produced by German companies; however, the cast was primarily English-speaking, so the film was shot in English. Filming concluded in March 2014.
- The entire plot revolves around the social network Facebook, yet its name is never mentioned once throughout the film.
- Marina's nickname is Nedifar, which is an anagram of the English word "friend".
- At the end of the film, when Kobe is in a narrow space with brick walls and is attacked by wasps, you can notice the walls shaking from the impacts as if they were made of cardboard.
- The film was originally planned to be titled "Unknown Error," but the name was later changed to avoid confusion with the film "Unfriend" (Levan Gabriadze, 2015).
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
