"Friend Request" Trailer Proves Facebook Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

The trailer for Friend Request, the new Facebook-based horror flick, is here and it seems checking social media is becoming very dangerous these days. If this trend continues, pretty soon it’s going to be safer to investigate a strange noise in the woods or disrespect a Native American burial ground. Whatever you do, just stay the heck away from your laptop or smartphone.   

At the start of the trailer, we learn from perhaps the college-iest of college professors that a student has committed suicide and filmed it on her webcam. The video eventually turns up, unbeknownst to her, on the Facebook profile of our heroine, Laura (Alycia Debnam Carey). No matter what she does, she can seem to un-share or delete the video. She can’t even delete her profile. Cryptic messages warning extreme loneliness begin turning up and then Laura’s friend count – both in real life and on Facebook – start dropping. Will she figure out the mystery of the suicidal college girl before all of her flesh-and-blood friends end up dead and all her Facebook friends abandon her?   

Friend Request hasn’t yet secured a US release date, but if you happen to be in Germany this January 7, you’ll be able to catch it in theaters then. The film was directed and co-written by Simon Verhoeven, who co-wrote it with Matthew Ballen and Philip Koch.