Friend Request


Friend Request is a 2016 German English-language supernatural psychological horror film directed by Simon Verhoeven. It is loosely based on the novel of the same name by Laura Marshall.

Plot

Laura is a popular college student with over 800 friends and family members on Facebook. She lives with Olivia, Isabelle and Gustavo, Isabelle's boyfriend. She is also close friends with Kobe and is dating Tyler.
Laura receives a friend request from her classmate Marina. Noticing that she has no friends, Laura accepts and the two begin hanging out, but Laura is soon uncomfortable with her obsessive behavior and sees that her Facebook profile is full of dark and disturbing posts. Marina wants to attend Laura's birthday dinner but Laura lies and tells her only she and Tyler are going out. Later that night, Marina sees pictures of Laura and all her friends on Facebook, and she angrily confronts Laura the next day in college. During their quarrel, Laura accidentally reveals Marina's bald spot, a result of hair pulling disorder. Laura then unfriends Marina on Facebook.
That night, Laura notices the mirror in her hallway has turned black and it then shows a forest where a dark figure is seen walking. A terrifying demonic face appears behind Laura but quickly disappears when Olivia turns on the light. The next morning in class, it is announced that Marina committed suicide. Laura feels responsible but tries to forget about it, until Marina uploads a video showing her burning a sketch of Laura before committing suicide by hanging herself. Later on, it is somehow posted on Laura's own page and she is unable to remove it or delete her account. Laura goes to Kobe for help and he investigates her page, discovering the source code has been compromised.
Marina adds Gustavo as a friend then posts a distorted picture of his face. The lights suddenly cut off and he is then terrorized by a demonic spirit. Gustavo rushes into the elevator for safety, only to be attacked by a swarm of black wasps, and as the elevator doors opens, he is seen smashing his face against the elevator walls by an unseen force. Discovered by Isabelle, she is sent to the hospital and refuses to see Laura, blaming her for Gustavo's death. A video of the elevator attack is posted on Laura's page and once again, she is unable to delete it.
Laura's friends and family members begin to turn against her. Determined to know more about who Marina was, Kobe helps her break into her dorm room and they find an old class photograph from an orphanage. Laura visits the orphanage and discovers Marina's real last name is Nedifar, and she was bullied and tormented by two boys when she was younger. The boys were later murdered, with their faces mutilated and swarmed by black wasps, by an unknown assailant. Meanwhile, Kobe does research on black mirrors and learns that they were mostly used by witches.
Olivia finds out that Marina added Isabelle as a friend. Isabella begins hallucinating and horrified after seeing two men with mutilated faces coming toward her, she rushes into the hospital bathroom and locks herself in, finding the dead body of herself before being confronted by Marina. Later, a video of Isabelle killing herself, is posted on Laura's page. Olivia prepares to move out, unwilling to die if she continues to hang around Laura.
Laura discovers that Marina added Olivia as friend. Laura and Tyler rush to save her but Olivia has already been attacked by Marina, hurled out of her window and hospitalized. In the night, Olivia suddenly springs back to life and lunges at Detective Cameron's officer, taking his gun and shoots herself. Meanwhile, Laura finds the place where Marina committed suicide in order to destroy the black mirror that turned Marina into an evil spirit. While there, they search the basement. Kobe is separated from Laura, who finds him staring into a black mirror. He attacks her with knife, hoping to kill her and save himself.
Laura manages to escape from the basement. She later realizes, by looking at the video of Marina's suicide, that she died in a nearby factory. Tyler finds a deranged Kobe looking for Laura, and they head to the factory as well. Inside, Laura is searching for Marina's body, when she receives a call from her mother, Caroline, who says she has been seeing Marina. The call suddenly glitches out, Laura watches helplessly as Caroline takes a knife from the kitchen and goes into another room.
Tyler finds Laura, but Kobe appears and kills Tyler. Laura attempts to escape again, but reaches a dead end. However, before he can kill her, Kobe is violently attacked and killed by the swarm of wasps. Dazed, Laura sees an apparition of two men. She yells at Marina, asking her what she wants, and the spirit of younger Marina appears and says that she just wanted to be friends with her. Laura is then lunged at by a demonic Marina.
In the epilogue, Laura is seen looking at some girls in the same way that Marina looked at her in the beginning.

Cast

Originally titled Unknown Error, the film was later renamed to Friend Request internationally, to avoid confusion with the 2014 film Unfriended. In Germany, the film is titled Unfriend, since Unfriended was released as Unknown User in Germany.

Filming

The film was shot in Cape Town at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Though the film was produced by German director Simon Verhoeven and German production companies, the largely English-speaking cast required the film to be shot in English. Filming ended in March 2014.

Release

The film was released in Germany on 7 January 2016, 20 April 2016 in the United Kingdom and in the United States on 22 September 2017.

Reception

Box office

, Friend Request has grossed $3.7 million in the United States and Canada and $7.5 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $11.3 million, against a production budget of $9.9 million.
In North America, the film was released alongside and The Lego Ninjago Movie, and was initially projected to gross around $5 million from 2,569 theatres in its opening weekend. However, after grossing just $750,000 on its first day, weekend projections were lowered to $1.5–2 million. It ended up grossing $2 million, finishing 7th at the box office, and passing Victor Frankenstein for the worst opening gross for a film playing in over 2,500 theatres.

Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 16% based on 73 reviews, with an average rating of 3.42/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Friend Requests attempts to update old-school teen horror for the digital age do not, sadly, include memorable characters, fresh scares, or novel storytelling twists." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 31 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.
Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film for being "visually stylish and imaginative" but criticised it for becoming less interesting as the film went on. Jessica Kiang of Variety was impressed by the practical effects, but criticised the way the film had little to do with the "technology that it ostensibly exists to critique". Ally Wybrew of Empire gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, praising Debnam-Carey, who " out otherwise mediocre performances" in contrast to the poorly written character of Marina. Wybrew went on to criticise the clunky lines, overenthusiastic score, and the protracted final act.