We were lucky enough to see Unfriended: Dark Web at SXSW, back when it was just called the “Untitled Blumhouse/Bazelevs Film” and when it was sprung on to unsuspecting audiences, and we really liked it!
We didn’t figure just how hard of a sell it would be to audiences, especially given how the first one seemed to shove expectations out of the way and find both major financial and minor critical critical success, but seeing this first preview gave us some doubts that the success of the first could be replicated again. And we even know that the movie is good!
This trailer has been showing in theaters for a little bit (being in front of, amongst other things, Hereditary), but it was finally put online by Blumhouse on Thursday. It won us over, but boy, this isn’t a great first look for audiences not in the know.
Take a look for yourself:
Again, we want to stress this to you: this is a good film, and a really worthy successor to the first one, even if it kind of forgoes the supernatural shit that defined the original. Part of the fun of these films is just watching how they unfold, and you get an abridged version of that here, which just manages to strip the nuances out of everything in favor of getting to that one shocking image. The whole reason we’re worried about how this trailer is playing is because of how hard audiences in our theater laughed scornfully at it, and we’re just slightly nervous that folks won’t go see it. Dark Web really is a ton of fun, and we can’t wait to see it again. We just hope people aren’t seeing this to hate watch it, is all.
Unfriended: Dark Web hits theaters on July 20.
Featured image by Kevin Stewart via BH Tilt.