Cybernatural 2014

Critics score:
62 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Christy Lemire, ChristyLemire.com: If you can give yourself over to the idea of Unfriended,you'll find it's surprisingly engrossing and really quite clever. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: You feel some mild critique of lives lived through web applications. What you don't feel is sustained visceral fright. Read more

Hazel Cills, Grantland: It's not the B-movie gore death scenes that make Unfriended squirm-inducing, it's how it taps in and holds on tight to how annoying the Internet and computers can be, especially when they're being tinkered with. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: "Unfriended" starts wearing out its welcome about 10 minutes before the end. But it's clever enough about social media to keep an audience engaged until then ... Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: Simultaneously clever and exasperating. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: The filmmakers here completely commit to their gimmick, turning its limitations into benefits and exploiting the chosen technology for maximum effect. In the process, they hit the refresh button on the entire found-footage format. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: It's interesting to wonder how the film will age, given the short shelf life of technology. In two years all this might seem as dated as a dial-up modem, technology not nearly advanced enough to support the action here. Read more

Peter Keough, Boston Globe: You might want to take along your smartphone to keep yourself entertained. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: You might find yourself rooting for the murderer. Read more

Adam Graham, Detroit News: If it has a point about the way we treat people online, it's lost in an illogical ghost story that never bothers explaining itself. Read more

Clark Collis, Entertainment Weekly: Though not particularly ground-breaking-last year's Elijah Wood-starring Open Windows pulled the same trick, and much more ambitiously-we're still going to "like" the result. Read more

John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter: In the end one would rather be back at one's own computer, tending to the tedious details of digital life, than watching this clique get pinged to death. Read more

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times: As a harangue about cyberbullying, it's purely exploitative, but when "Unfriended" zeros in on the whiplash mixture of freedom and torment we get from multitasking our online lives? It's srsly fun, imo. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Give this movie credit for trying something new - and flat-out committing to it. But just because no one's tried an idea before doesn't mean it's a great one. Read more

Andrew Lapin, NPR: The efficient exposition is entirely composed of a LiveLeak video and half a YouTube clip. It's supremely goofy and not scary in the slightest, but the movie is speaking the right language. Read more

Jacob Hall, New York Daily News: Although directed with technical finesse by newcomer Levan Gabriadze, "Unfriended" starts shrill and only gets louder as it goes along. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: The best thing about "Unfriended," beyond its funny-nasty title, is that it doesn't play as remotely dull as it sounds even if most of the drama takes place inside shifting, overlapping windows. Read more

Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer: A horror pic with a new gimmick that likely will spawn an entire subgenre of more substandard rubbish. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: I'll admit the film held my attention but I left the theater unsatisfied, which I think will be a common reaction among those not within the demographic niche for which the production was mounted. Read more

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: Perhaps director Gabriadze and writer Nelson Greaves intended to create a Social Media "Scream" and a commentary on cyber-bullying, but "Unfriended" comes across as disdainful of millennials. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: It's basically Friday the 13th on a laptop, but the gimmick works like gangbusters. One request: Please Hollywood cybergods, no sequels. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: I kept hoping a power outage would hit their neighborhood, or some sort of natural disaster. Aren't the movies supposed to be a break from being online all the time? Read more

Michael Ordona, San Francisco Chronicle: The inevitable meltdowns feel unearned because of predictable, yet unmotivated, character turns. There's no one to root for, not even the dead girl. Nothing seems important enough. Read more

Brad Wheeler, Globe and Mail: If death invented the telephone, it probably invented the Internet infernal, too. Disconnect? The scariest thing is that we can't. Read more

Bruce Demara, Toronto Star: Younger audiences in particular are likely to enjoy this entertaining and fast-paced chiller. And who knows? They may even absorb the film's underlying message ... Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Neither as silly as it might look nor as terrifying as its "Titus Andronicus"-via-Mark-Zuckerberg set-up promises, it takes a high-concept yet bare-bones premise and milks it for all the jolts it can. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Even though Unfriended begins to cheat, springing loud noises and gory cutaways that can't be explained, there's a rigor to its dopey, blood-simple conception that you might smile at. Read more

Bruce Kirkland, Toronto Sun: It could have been better. Unfriended at least has an original premise and an interesting, claustrophobic physical setting. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Fresh and fearsome fun. Read more

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: Unfriended is the one movie from 2015 you'll always be able to look back at and feel something of what life was like back when, even if you're not a cyberbullying white teen. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: It's a mean, potent little movie. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: At times, "Unfriended" really clicks - but ultimately, it's a drag. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: A movie to be seen, if you can endure it-as a shrewd commercial venture, as an online opus that undoes your self-composure and, last and foremost, as a window on a mode of thinking that equates to a state of being. Read more