Alycia Debnam-Carey accepts a horrific Friend Request on September 22nd

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Director Simon Verhoeven's horror film FRIEND REQUEST was originally supposed to be released in theatres last October. That didn't happen, the movie ended up missing the 2016 Halloween season, but now it's gearing up to reach theatres just in time for Halloween 2017.

FRIEND REQUEST stars Fear the Walking Dead's Alycia Debnam-Carey, along with William Moseley (not Bill Moseley), Connor Paolo, Brit Morgan, Brooke Markham, Sean Marquette, Liesl Ahlers, and Shashawnee Hall. Written by Matthew Ballen, Philip Koch, and Verhoeven, it has the following synopsis: 

Popular college student Laura (Alycia Debnam-Carey) has tons of friends, both on Facebook and IRL. She graciously accepts social outcast Marina's (Liesl Ahlers) online friend request, until Marina crosses the line and Laura unfriends her. To everyone's shock, Marina takes her own life in a ritual meant to torment Laura, which appears in a video posted on Laura's profile. Even though it wasn't Laura who posted the video, or other creepy content that begins appearing on her page, her Facebook friend count begins to dwindle as a result. When her real-life friends start dying mysterious, cruel deaths, Laura must figure out how to break the deadly curse before it's too late.

Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures will be sending FRIEND REQUEST to theatres on September 22nd, and have released a trailer for the film online to entice potential viewers to accept it.

Social media based horror stories are sort of off-putting to me, but I'm willing to give them a chance and have been pleasantly surprised by some of them. FRIEND REQUEST could be a decent supernatural film. There is already a pleasant surprise contained within the trailer: the fact that this movie, which is obviously aimed primarily at teenagers, has earned an R rating.