3) Unfriended
When you think Unfriended, I bet you immediately think of Jason Blum and his production company, Blumhouse – right? Truth is, Blum had very little to do with the making of this film, since he snatched it up after seeing a screening of its then-title, Cybernatural.
This is the brainchild of director Leo Gabriadze and writer Nelson Greaves, who create a modern urban legend through the death of Laura Barnes. The horror genre is always evolving, and Unfriended takes the genre to new technological lengths by capturing all the action on a laptop scree. It’s been done before, in movies like Open Windows and The Den, but not like this. Not. Like. This.
What’s most impressive is the way that Unfriended interjects scares through simple methods, like screen glitches and cut video feeds. The deaths creep under your skin, especially Jacob Wysocki’s blender mishap, and despite sometimes grainy feeds, the characters are able to convey fear in their own ways. There’s also attention to detail, like actually using Google versus some made-up “AskSteve” fake-out, which emphasizes the little things.
Unfriended is a 21st century nightmare, and as an avid internet user, I stand by that statement.