In a sea of typical slashers and ghosts haunting houses for decades, it's nice when a horror movie is fresh and different. The 2015 film Unfriended is one of the most interesting of the last couple of years, as audiences watch everything take place on a computer screen. The 2018 follow-up, Unfriended: Dark Web, uses the same storytelling device and creates an even more terrifying situation.
Both films were made on a $1 million budget and fascinated fans with a new way to tell a scary tale. Should there be a third film in the Unfriended franchise? It's definitely something worth thinking about and the possibilities seem totally endless.
Both Unfriended movies are entertaining, fun, and have totally fresh premises, which is why it would be great to see a third film. The 2015 horror film Unfriended has an inventive, interesting horror approach as audiences watch the whole story on a laptop screen as Blair Lily (Shelley Henning) and her friends chat online and realize that the spirit of Laura Barns, a girl who Blair was friends with and who they all bullied, is in the chat too. The sequel, Unfriended: Dark Web, was released in 2018 and focused on Matias O'Brien (Colin Woodell) who discovers a laptop and becomes a pawn in a game led by a weird, terrifying figure named Charon VI.
Jason Blum shared in an interview with The Verge that after seeing a cut of Unfriended, he knew that he wanted to produce it. Blum said that he really liked the way that the movie told the story. Blum said, "No, it was the execution of the concept that appealed to me. Because I think the concept could be really boring. And I found myself really, like, very wrapped up into what was happening on that screen. And that’s hard to do, you know? I found myself really involved. I saw the movie, and I was actually going on a vacation. … I went from watching the movie to the airport, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the movie. So I guess that’s when it really grabbed me. Because it made me think."
Unfriended was a financial success, which seems like a good reason to make a third film. According to Box Office Mojo, the movie made $62,882,090 and the budget was $1 million. It opened in 2,739 movie theaters and grossed $15,845,115. The sequel, Unfriended: Dark Web, was also made for $1 million and grossed less at $16,024,987. It's not the highest-grossing Blumhouse sequel but the film still made more than its budget. Since this type of movie can be made for $1 million, it seems like a third entry would be feasible and a great idea.
Both Unfriended and Unfriended: Dark Web have amazing characters who audiences want to keep watching. Ultimately, they are both friendship stories, with Unfriended featuring great horror movie friendships. Blair and Matias have a large group of friends who they really care about. While Blair is dealing with more drama reminiscent of a teen horror movie, as she was unfaithful to her boyfriend and her friends constantly tease each other, Matias has close friends Serena (Rebecca Rittenhouse) and Nari (Betty Gabriel), who share the good news of their engagement with him. This opens up the possibility of a third film because it's always going to be fascinating and scary to watch friends put in these strange and unique situations. The characters really make the concept come alive.
Unfriended: Dark Web raises the stakes of the first film, as Matias becomes part of a deadly game where a group of people called The Circle are playing with him, taunting him and killing off the people who he cares about. The Circle likes to act like other people have committed their crimes and they are anything but sympathetic horror villains. It's amazing and impressive that this type of story can be told completely on a computer screen. Both films excel in sharing a lot of detailed information with audiences, which makes this storytelling feature work when it could be confusing and lackluster.
Unfriended feels like a supernatural and a slasher film, and the sequel deals more in the real world, as The Circle commits crimes and kills people and then pins it on strangers. There are so many possibilities for a third Unfriended film and so many settings beyond just the screen of a laptop, from a character on a college campus, waiting for a flight at an airport (or even delayed and stuck on the plane), or at work and discovering something terrible. Horror fans would love an Unfriended 3 and time will tell if it will happen.