Friend Request

A popular college student (Alycia Debnam-Carey) accepts the social media friend request of a freaky loner (Liesl Ahlers), but soon finds herself in the clutches of an evil force killing off all her friends (Sean Marquette, Brooke Markham, Brit Morgan, Connor Paolo) one by one. As usual with this kind of garbage, the only suspense comes from wondering who’ll get it next, and how. Written in a cliche flurry by Matthew Ballen, Philip Koch and director Simon Verhoeven (whose pacing is as limp as his writing), the movie is an unacknowledged ripoff of 2014’s Unfriended—which may explain why it sat on the shelf for months before finally being released (or escaping) into theaters. As with its predecessor, the cast and crew here are all hungry nobodies looking for their big break. They should keep looking. J.L.