MovieChat Forums > Friend Request (2017) Discussion > Surprisingly, initially a lot to like......

Surprisingly, initially a lot to like...and then not so much...

posted 8 years ago by mariusar
2 replies | jump to latest

Some spoilers ahead - be advised.

I feel as if this was two separate films - and IMO, it should have stayed on its original course, moving forward to its conclusion as a straight drama/thriller. I honestly think it would have worked out better, at least to me.

I am historically a huge fan of horror films and generally do enjoy those that depict subversions of our mundane reality through supernatural elements, especially when they are well-done. No shortage of quality films and books in this vein.

Perhaps its the core mechanism in Friend Request that, for whatever reason, I just did not "connect" with when the film took its radical left turn into the supernatural world.

There was quite a lot of good stuff in FR, especially in the opening act.

The film is extremely polished, with authentic looking locations, props and quality production values throughout. More importantly, I found the cast to be quite strong with believable acting chops and I very much enjoyed that they all looked like "real" people - not everyone looked like they just walked off the pages of Cosmo. There was a commendable and fairly realistic diversity to the ensemble, although they could have improved on racial diversity. Still, nothing about this group of friends screamed "BS" to me. Good job by all the actors. This group was extremely likeable to me.

I did especially enjoy the manner in which they folded their Facebook analog into the story and the polished manner it was portrayed on screen. Quite realistic looking I felt, something missing from many other films which try to go this route. The on-screen comments and friend like counts when things started to go crazy for Laura were spot on and also tastefully done.

So I really did enjoy the first 20-30 minutes or so.

After the nuttiness starts to occur, I was less thrilled. To be fair, while the scares were all pretty pedestrian as others have noted here, most were still fairly well-done. I thought the first death sequence of Gustavo was notably strong, with some standard but still quality imagery and camera work.

I don't really want to ramble too much here, but maybe you folks get my point anyway.

IMO, FR would have been better served pursuing a more conventional drama/thriller course - the entire first act proved the crew was able able to tell a convincing, compelling story, without moving into the realm of witchcraft and the supernatural.

I think what I am trying to say here is that FR would have been better served as a more realistic film about obsession, loneliness, insanity and human-levels of evil versus what it became.

Not really conveying my thoughts effectively here but maybe this will clear things up - think Stephen King's novel Misery versus King's more obvious supernatural horror works like Salem's Lot or It.

In this case, I personally wished FR went the way of Misery instead.

For horror, I do love both types. But to me, the scariest horror of all is the depths of depravity and insanity real humans are sadly all too capable of.

FR gets a modest 7 from me for good, believable acting, writing and overall production for 20-30 minutes of straight-up drama/thriller. As a genre horror film, it gets a 5.

So split the difference and FR gets a definitely watchable 6.

Oh, can't forget - yet another depiction of truly incompetent, shoddy police work.

cheers and thanks to those who actually read this!
-mariusar

--
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

[–] prelude_zen 8 years ago

I was surprised to, but not like you and, it appears, many others. I expected to like it OK. Many horror movies in the 5-6 range on imdb are harshly judged, and I like campy over the top horror and even bad horror movies as long as they know they're bad and don't take themselves too seriously. The fact is I often find horror judged a little unfairly so I take imdb with even more salt than I would with other genres.

This one is slightly worse than the imdb ratings. Which is frankly, rare. I can only assume it has a lot to do with the millennial crowd and the fact that this isn't officially out in the US yet. I preface this with the fact that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a millennial. I am technically one as well so please don't think I say this with any form of malice. But if you are a teenager or college age individual who uses Facebook so much that you deem it a necessity for your social life, then this movie is going to appeal to you more right away and you will have a better chance of getting into the storyline as a whole. I am not a someone who really cares about Facebook so perhaps that takes me a bit away from it, but I don't think for a minute that this is why I didn't like the movie. I just didn't get anything else out of it.

Some of the acting was OK and even good. The slightly large chick and her boyfriend in the elevator was actually hilarious. Her acting career is over I bet, that reaction was just, really funny is the only thing I can think of to describe it. Many other such moments as well. There were maybe one or two creepy scenes but certainly nothing scary, and not creepy like IT Follows that is excellent btw. Just not scary and not memorable at all. For me at least.

4/10

[–] mariusar 8 years ago

Hey, thanks for taking time to reply :)

Tthis may surprise you - I am actually what some folks would consider an "old fart". Let's just say that I am old enough to well remember seeing Star Wars in the theaters during its initial run.

This movie didn't appeal to me necessarily for the reason[s] you mention. As a matter a fact, despite being a corporate technology manager for more than two decades, while I have a FB account, I assure you I can count on 2 hands the number of times I have actually logged into FB over the last 5+ years.

So, I don't FB. Ever. :)

Lots of reasons for this, not the least of which is that I never, ever felt the need to artificially try and "connect" with people through such a shallow, personally invasive and to me, wholly unsatisfactory medium. If I really want to interact with you, my order of preference has always been: call, email, text/messaging app, although recently the actual order may switch positions, depending on what I want to communicate with people and the time of day.

I totally hear what you're saying about horror films and I also love those campy, not-so-serious B flicks as well as those I find that are truly polished and "scary" or chilling.

I think the reason I [mostly] enjoyed this one was that I found, overall, the film felt kind of realistic, at least in the initial act. And I definitely found the overall production values to be pretty strong and as I mentioned, I did find the cast to be likeably diverse.

My comment was hopefully more about my desire that this film should have stayed in the straight-up drama vein, rather than shoehorning in the witch/supernatural element. Just my own 2cents.

cheers and thanks!
-mariusar

--
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."