Laura is a popular girl in high school, with lots of likes and friends on Facebook. She meets Marina, a new girl at school who’s an outcast with no friends. She feels sorry for her, and decides to befriend her online. What was originally supposed to be a good deed towards someone she felt pity for, soon turns into something darker as Marina becomes obsessive over her new “friendship”. Marina starts sending tons of messages if Laura doesn’t reply within minutes, and very much acts like a creepy stalker. Laura tries to convince herself that Marina is just lonely and desperate for a friend, but in the end it gets too much for her and she decides to unfriend her on Facebook. And that is when all hell breaks loose…
“Friend Request” is what you could probably call a modern-day horror movie, especially nowadays when social media is something a lot of people feel very attached to, and often use it to compare themselves to others: always a hunt for more likes, more followers, more “friends”. Laura is depicted as the “normal” girl of modern times: socially competent at school, and a personality and looks that automatically brings in both likes and followers on Facebook. Marina, on the other hand, is that classic “creepy girl” dressed in black who is socially awkward, and on top of that she is making moody and dark illustrations. Their “friendship” is something that’s not prone to survive, and yes – we’ve seen that story before. But that doesn’t mean it’s not exciting, and the performances by both Liesl Ahlers (Marina) and Alycia Debnam-Carey (Laura) makes the story believable and thrilling.
The illustrations by “Marina” adds a great additional tone to the movie, as they also include a bit of animation and works to set a certain understanding of Marina’s mindset, and the supernatural occurrences that’s caused by her. The movie also provides a back-story for Marina, which explains a bit about her behaviour. The movie does have a fair amount of suspense and even some decent scares, and the social-media theme is not such a large part of the plot that those of us that doesn’t use Facebook (yes! There’s still some of us left!) won’t feel estranged from the story. The ending, albeit a little predictable, is kind of interesting as well.
Director: Simon Verhoeven
Country & year: Germany | USA, 2016
Actors: Alycia Debnam-Carey, William Moseley, Connor Paolo, Brit Morgan, Brooke Markham, Sean Marquette, Liesl Ahlers, Shashawnee Hall, Susan Danford, Lee Raviv, Nicholas Pauling, David Butler, Julian Katz, Kiano Janse van Rensburg, Dorothy Ann Gould
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3352390/
Kaslan Products have invented a brand new toy: Buddi, the interactive doll that is the most high-tech product available that can also connect to all other Kaslan products and smart home devices. These dolls are produced at a factory in Vietnam, under terrible working conditions. The movie starts off showing us one of the depressed workers getting harassed and fired, and before finishing his final Buddi doll, he removes all safety precautions before he commits suicide by throwing himself off the roof of the factory. Of course, no one knows that the latest doll he worked on was been tempered with, and it is shipped off together with all the others…
Haley is a young woman who is struggling to become a champion swimmer, and her competitive nature keeps her always trying to reach her best potential. When her sister calls and informs her that their father won’t answer his phone, she decides to drive to his house and check for him. The problem is that a Category 5 hurricane is arriving, and after finding her father unconscious in the basement of an old house he’s been renovating, they both find themselves fighting not only against the hurricane and a flooding house, but also against a bunch of hungry alligators.
Dr. William Benson is driving late at night to reach a patient, and stops at a mansion to ask for directions. He learns that he must drive a huge detour and that the roads there are bad, and the man at the mansion offers him shelter for the night. As the conscientious doctor he is, he declines the offer and continues on. A lady in white suddenly stands in the way, and this forces Benson to swerve his car which makes it bump into a mountain wall. When he is going to check for the mysterious lady in white, she is nowhere to be to seen, but another lady suddenly crashes in front of him and lies unconscious in the car with a white blouse…which suddenly turns black in the next clip. Just five minutes in and a continuity error already. Impressive. Anyway, he carries her away and brings her back to consciousness by patting her on the cheek, like the doctor he is. But unfortunately he does not manage to start the car, and sees no other way than to return to the castle to ask for help. When he enters the castle the place looks abandoned, with trash, rats and covered furniture.
In this third “Annabelle” horror movie, we follow the doll to its final destination: the Warren’s occult museum, which houses all kinds of cursed and possessed items. After the Warrens bring the doll back home with them, they quickly realize that the doll has the ability to possess and control the other things around her, and so they put it inside a glass case and lock it, containing the evil presence and prevents its influence on the other items around it. When a teenage girl is babysitting Ed and Lorraine’s daughter, one of the babysitter’s friends decide to invite herself in order to check out the place for its occult items. Having recently lost her father in a terrible accident which she blames herself for, she wants to use the place to get in contact with him…and takes a peek inside the occult museum after finding the keys. She is immediately drawn to the Annabelle doll in the glass case, and uses the key to open it…and soon, the evil presence in the doll is awakened.
