Unfriended: Dark Web (2018)

Unfriended: Dark Web turns the everyday glow of a laptop screen into a pressure cooker, delivering a horror-mystery that feels unnervingly plausible because it’s built out of the same apps, chats, and casual clicks you use every day. Director Stephen Susco makes the “screenlife” format not a gimmick but a trap: suspense tightens in real time as friendships fray, windows multiply, and the sense of being watched becomes suffocating. It’s brisk, nasty in a grounded way, and genuinely unpredictable, tapping into modern fears like swatting and digital surveillance with a topical sting that lingers after the credits. Fair warning: it’s bleak and intense, and the disturbing implications won’t be for everyone—but if you want a smart, propulsive thriller that weaponizes the internet’s banality, this one grabs hard and doesn’t let go.

Unfriended: Dark Web is trying to turn everyday screen life—group chats, video calls, tabs popping open—into a real-time nightmare about surveillance and online cruelty, and the format does deliver a few tense, cleverly staged moments. The problem is the story leans hard on a pretty ridiculous premise and then doubles down on bleak, mean-spirited shocks without adding much depth beyond “the internet is scary.” If you want a smart mystery or satisfying horror payoff, the script and ending may leave you feeling like you sat through a lot of nastiness for not much reward. But if you’re in the mood for a fast, nasty, screen-based thriller where the vibe is relentlessly grim and you don’t need plausibility or catharsis, it can still scratch that itch.