By Jose Alvarez | Staff Writer |

“Unfriended” is a low budget film that has been making a lot of noise around CSUSB lately.
The movie was released on April 17 with what seemed to be low expectations from everyone.

 
If you ask me, the movie was pretty decent. What’s unique about the film is that we, the audience, view it as if it were a Skype call.

 
The screenwriter, Nelson Greaves, used an unknown spirit that invades the Skype transmission.
The plot goes as follows: Laura Barns was a victim of cyber-bullying after a video was posted online of her passed out at a party.

 
After the embarrassing video was uploaded on YouTube, another video was posted of Barns ending her life by shooting herself.

 
The movie takes place completely inside the computer screen of the main character Blaire, we can only see what she is doing on her computer in real time.

 
Blaire and her boyfriend Mitch are having a Skype chat when they receive a group call from several of their friends.

 
When they answer the call they notice that someone else is in the chat with them but dismiss it as a glitch.
As the movie progresses they learn that the other call is not a glitch.

 
They begin to suspect that it is a spirit of some sort, Barns being the main suspect.

 
The spirit tries to play games with the characters that led her to her own death; they are instructed to not log off or they will pay for it with their lives.

 
I felt that “Unfriended” was a movie that severely dramatized the negative outcomes of cyber-bullying.
“I honestly didn’t have a problem with the movie,” said Diego Ruiz, student and regular moviegoer.
“But it did seem that they were forcing the anti-bullying idea down our throats,” continued Ruiz. The acting throughout the movie did not seem fake or mediocre, the actors seemed natural.

 
“I was actually expecting some terrible acting from this movie, but they all did a pretty good job and kept me entertained,” said Ruiz.

 
The music in this movie is mainly ambient noise used to keep the audience uneasy throughout the entirety of the film.

 
“I never feel that these kinds of movies are scary, they just have loud jump scares that keep you on edge,” said student Luciano Madrigal.

 
“The movie was surprisingly enjoyable to some degree, I would not mind watching it again with a friend,” Madrigal continued.

 
Overall the movie is different, considering the limitation of what you can see, but also very original incorporating the idea of spirits on the Internet.

 
It’s just nice to see a change from the typical horror films like “Annabelle”, “Ouija”, and “Paranormal Activity”.