In the wake of last year’s superior Unfriended comes another teen-frightener about social-media stalking. Many of the plot co-ordinates are the same; an online suicide, a creepy cyber-spirit, a collective inability to log off etc. Predictably, things work best when rooted in the “real” world; it all falls apart when we move from the spectre of the computer screen to a gothic witchy backstory. Despite an overreliance on loud bangs, director Simon Verhoeven pulls off a couple of chills, even as dialogue such as: “Unfriend that dead bitch!” keep things snarky rather than scary.
Friend Request review – social media rustles up a few scares
More terrified teens are stalked online in a cyber-horror that gets lost once the supernatural takes over