Movie Review Friend Request

Friend Request (2017) 

Directed by Simon Verhoeven 

Written by Matthew Ballen, Phillip Koch, Simon Verhoeven 

Starring Alycia Debnam Carey, William Mosely, Connor Paolo, Brit Morgan 

Release Date September 22nd, 2017 

Published September 23rd, 2017 

Friend Request is yet another failed attempt to combine social media and horror. It really shouldn’t be that hard to combine the two when you consider the daily horrors that social media enacts upon us when we simply pick up our phones, but filmmakers have thus far made the combination look impossible. Social media has numerous innate existential horrors that could be exploited by a smart filmmaker, but the question seems to come back to how you can exploit that for a body count and so far, no one has been able to pull that off.

Friend Request stars Alycia Debnam-Carey as Laura, a popular college student with a strong group of close friends. How do we know that Laura is popular? Because we see her Facebook friend number flashed on the screen in scenes where she is not on Facebook. The film very much wants us to know that Laura’s friend count is super important to the plot.

Laura’s life of accepting friend requests from internet strangers is upended when she meets Marina (Liesl Ahlers) an unpopular loner who has no Facebook friends until Laura takes pity on her and accepts her friend request. Marina is of the belief that if you become friends on Facebook then you become friends in real life, but when she is not invited to Laura’s birthday party, her illusions are shattered, and she takes her own life.

Things aren’t over from there, however, as it turns out that Marina was a witch and has used her laptop as a portal into the online world where her magic gives her control over Laura’s Facebook account where she posts a video of her own suicide and causes Laura to lose friends from her friend count. Not kidding, the film pauses to give us a graphic of Laura’s friend count going down.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal. 

Movie Review On the Air

On the Air (2022) 

Directed by Romuald Boulanger 

Written by 

Starring Mel Gibson, William Mosely, Alia Seror O'Neil

Release November 5th, 2022 

Published November 4th, 2022 

Separating the art from the artist is a concept that has been in vogue in the past several years. The question being address and opined upon is: How do we treat the art created by people accused of or guilty of doing awful things. Whether it is being accused of abuse or being convicted of a crime, what do we do with the art of terrible people. J.K Rowling is a good example. The Harry Potter creator has used social media to attack trans people and it has caused a reckoning for Potter fans who want to keep enjoying the Potter books but don't want to support Rowling's hate toward the trans community. 

Another example of this concept is actor Mel Gibson. More than a decade ago the actor known for the Lethal Weapon franchise and as the director of Braveheart and The Passion of the Christ, was caught on tape verbally abusing and threatening his then girlfriend. He was also captured by Police while drunk and is accused of having made horrific anti-Semitic remarks and making misogynistic remarks toward a female Police Officer helping to place him under arrest. How can we consume the art of Mel Gibson ethically? We can't. Simply put, if you choose to pay to see a Mel Gibson movie, you are putting money in his pocket and tacitly telling him that you excuse his behavior. 

This lengthy intro brings us to Gibson's latest movie, a low rent thriller called On the Line. The film stars Gibson as a man named Elvis, a Los Angeles radio host with a proclivity for saying things you can't legally say on the radio. Elvis 'tells it like it is,' to borrow a cliche, and his fans love him for it. Elvis's life and career is turned upside down when he's confronted by a caller to his radio show. This caller claims to have broken into Elvis' home and taken Elvis' wife and daughter as hostages. 

The unknown caller claims that Elvis is responsible for the death of a former employee of the radio station. The woman killed herself after having spent several months being berated on the air and off by Elvis as part of his edgy persona and his private Assholery. The caller wants Elvis to make things right by leaping to his death from the top of the high rise where the radio station is located. Naturally, not all is as it seems. The call is not coming from Elvis' home, it's coming from inside the radio station. Sinister stuff eh? 

I didn't forget to say spoiler alert, I just don't want you to bother seeing this movie so I told you want happened. I haven't mentioned the ending but you can probably figure it out just from my description. On the Line is not exactly trying to redefine the thriller genre. The direction and action of On the Line is dull and derivative as is Gibson's tough guy act. It borders on comic when the known bully Gibson is trying to play for our sympathies. His persona robs the movie of any sympathy it attempts to generate. Not that I wanted to see the man's family killed, I shouldn't have to say that's wrong, but I could not empathize with a character played by Mel Gibson on almost any level. 

Click here for my full length review of On the Line at Geeks.Media