Critic Reviews

It's the highest praise to describe Friend Request as "a hoot" — the kind of midnight movie best seen with a large crowd laughing and screaming along, offering words of advice or encouragement to the naive characters on screen.

Obvious and sometimes aggravating no doubt, but still effective in raising blood pressure given a backstory so instilled with old-school cultism.

Friend Request keeps up the pace and throws in a few neat twists to keep the plot from stagnating.

Social media has never been so scary.

Friend Request packs some fun scares and twists, but it’s a film best saved for a late-night Netflix binge when nothing better is on.

CGI wasps and coloured contact lenses aren’t as terrifying as director Simon Verhoeven seems to think, and all the loud bangs in the world can’t hide the lack of tension.

It’s slickly made but shoddily scripted, with sub-reality TV dialogue...and a range of unengaged, soapy performances. There is some fun to be had from the loud and nasty death scenes though, which allow us the pleasure of seeing self-absorbed Facebook addicts get gruesomely murdered.

Although visually stylish and imaginative — the short bits of animation on display wouldn’t be out of place in a Tim Burton film — Friend Request gets less interesting the more it goes on.

Sadly, Friend Request is not even the first movie to travel that harrowing Dead Girl Who Still Maintains an Active Facebook Presence road.

When she least expects it, the face of the cat transforms into a monstrous one, with sharp, pointy teeth and a roar. Yes, this is going to be one of those horror movies.