Friend Request (2017)

Considering other recent releases in this teen-horror sub genre, my expectations of this one were not high. This film delivers pretty much as advertised, but I’m not sure that is saying much. Friend Request makes its intentions known early on with some run-of-the-mill jump scares and a very familiar setting and look. Somehow it exceeded said expectations, but is still a middle of the way supernatural horror, playing the same old tricks as its predecessors.

In its defense, it seems that the film does try to make some kind of social commentary about issues such as internet addiction and public persecution on the basis of online postings without checking for any explanation or evidence, but those pack little punch.

Director Simon Verhoeven (Men in the City 1&2, Welcome to Germany) does a good enough job with the material he is given. Alycia Debnam-Carey (Into the Storm, The Devil’s Hand, TV’s The 100, Fear the Walking Dead) does an admirable job carrying the film, while William Moseley (The Chronicles of Narnia films, Run, The Silent Mountain), Connor Paolo (World Trade Center, Stake Land, Stake Land II: The Stakelander), Brit Morgan (The Frozen, TV’s True Blood), Brooke Markham (Dying to Kill, TV’s Foursome, Cassandra French’s Finishing School), Sean Marquette (Resurrection Mary, TV’s The Goldbergs) and Liesl Ahlers as the menacing Marina, all do an adequate job in their respective roles.

Unfortunately, even with the commentary on the pitfalls of social media, the uninspiring and unoriginal script left me unaffected. In the end, this ends up being too much of the same type of unchallenging material we are constantly served. Unlike some similar films of late, it seems that this one was not well received at the Box Office, bringing in under US$4 million on an almost US$10 million budget. For this kind of budget, this should have been a better film.

Some flash, not enough substance. 5.5/10.