![]() "Unfriended" took on the issue of cyberbullying, featuring the ghost of a deceased victim haunting a group video chat, while "Dark Web" probed the depths of the more sinister corners of the internet for horror. ![]() The breakthrough films in the genre were definitely 2014's "Unfriended," directed by Levan Gabriadze, and the way-better-than-it-had-to-be 2018 sequel "Unfriended: Dark Web," directed by horror writer Stephen Susco. That is available for a $3.99 rental on Amazon/YouTube. It could be argued that the first proper computer screen horror flick was likely the 2013 "The Den," directed by Zachary Donohue and starring Melanie Papalia in the role of the computer user, a woman studying webcam users who witnesses a brutal murder during the course of her research and is subsequently targeted. ![]() Screen films initially seemed gimmicky, but we're living more and more of our lives online, and the computer screen thrillers and horror films have been getting better and better (and even more relatable). It's a swift and spooky achievement in horror filmmaking for this moment, but it also fits right in with the "computer screen" film genre, a subset of the found footage genre. ![]() It's genuinely scary, eliciting many jumps and screams as the haunting escalates. There's even some excellent gags and scares with the Snapchat add-on filters and the digital background feature. ![]() The film was shot and edited from conception to release during the shutdown and makes ingenious use of the Zoom features we have come to know all too well: the waiting room, the dropped calls, watching your friend carry around their laptop or their phone topple off a table. A group of friends convene for a Zoom seance, and soon, incredibly spooky and terrifying things start to happen in each of their spaces, the danger only magnified by their isolation. "Host," directed by British filmmaker Rob Savage, takes place entirely on Zoom, the video-conferencing application that has taken over our lives since the COVID-19 shutdown in March. This week, the most popular movie on the film social networking site Letterboxd is a 57-minute horror film called "Host," available to stream on the horror-specific streaming service Shudder (take it for a spin with a weeklong free trial). ![]()
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