Unfriended: Dark Web (2018)★★★★☆

This was a better movie than the original Unfriended, and also not a direct sequel (which makes sense, as the original didn’t really leave room for a direct sequel). So this was better, but also almost a totally different kind of scary movie.

In fact, this one reminded me a lot of The Den (which might be kind of a spoiler already?), which isn’t a bad thing!

(More spoilers ahead) To start, in contrast to the original, the characters are mostly more likable here. At the very least, they’re not all terrible friends to each other, so it’s a little easier to root for them. They all do a bunch of incredibly stupid things, though.

I think maybe my favorite stupid thing is when the friends all say “Oh, Damon’s in London, they won’t be able to get him!” as if the internet isn’t global and there aren’t shady people around the world. This group is CLEARLY very organized and CLEARLY competent…what a dumb assumption.

Despite the predictability of the story, especially as things get more and more explained, there’s a lot of tension here and the stakes are pretty high. I thought they made better use of the “everything on computer screens” concept than the original, and while the tech know-how wasn’t perfect (they kept getting notifications for signed-out accounts, for example), it was a bit more believable than in the original.

There’s some pretty dark stuff in here, but if you can hack it (ha ha, pun intended), you might be pleasantly surprised with this film.