Friend Request (2016)

In my quest to write more, and consequently take more time for myself, I find myself stowing away to my bedroom on a Saturday afternoon, armed with cheese and crackers and my laptop.  My son squeals with delight in the living room as he plays Madden with his dad and I know it's good to step away every once in a while.

So, onto Friend Request aka Facebook IS gonna kill y'all.  Laura (Alycia Debnam-Carey) is a beautiful and popular college student. I mean, I don't really remember my college years being seaside apartments, cocktail dresses and fancy birthday dinners, but okay.  Shy loner Marina (Liesl Ahlers) friends her on Facebook, and feeling bad for her and admiring her animation talent, Laura accepts.  However, Marina soon becomes obsessive and exhibits disturbing behavior, and Laura unfriends her.  Shortly after, she learns Marina committed suicide. 

Unfortunately, it doesn't end there for Laura.  A video of Marina's suicide appears on her page, and she's unable to remove it, and she also seems to be permanently friended to Marina.  Her friends begin to die mysteriously, as more disturbing videos get posted to her profile, which she is still unable to delete.  Digging deeper into Marina's background, she uncovers a disturbing past.  But as much as she doggedly pursues clues, it may be too late to reverse the course that Marina started. 

So I think this movie had a lot of potential, but the character development was seriously lacking.  Right from the start, Laura and her friends were vapid and unrelatable, having nothing resembling the actual life of a typical college student.  It was hard to feel sympathy for Marina, who tried to be friends with exactly one girl and almost immediately flipped out on her.  Her background story is kinda disjointed and all over the place, and consequently creates more questions than it answers.  All in all, an okay watch, but could have done a lot more with the story.