History YMMV / Unfriended

** Laura may have been an AlphaBitch ([[UnreliableNarrator or so claimed to be]]) and murdered all of the teens, some in horrific fashions, but some may feel the fact she committed suicide due to being harassed for an embarrassing video makes it hard to not feel sorry for her. Based on a few things, like a FreezeFrameBonus on Laura's obituary and a brief comment that Blaire types out but doesn't post to Mitch, it's discovered Laura had dealt with an eating disorder, she'd attempted suicide once before, and it's implied Laura was abused by her uncle as a child, all of which may have helped her become an Alpha Bitch.

** If Mitch's accusations are true, and it's implied that they are (given how angry Adam gets and he puts his fingers down, that Mitch hasn't lied once in the entire movie, and that Laura includes them in the game) Adam certainly crossed this when he [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil date raped a classmate]] and then [[KickTheDog forced her to get an abortion.]] You're really rooting for [[JerkWithAHeartOfJerk this guy]] to die by the time all of this is revealed.]] Alternatively, he crossed this by attempting to trade Jess’s life for his own.

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** Another theory is that Laura either never came back to life and instead the teens were killed by The Circle impersonating her or her relatives enacted revenge on her behalf. A final theory features Laura having faked her death, joining The Circle and enacting her revenge on her "friends." All theories are based on a BlinkAndYoullMissIt moment at the end of ''Film/UnfriendedDarkWeb'' when the main hacker is revealed to have a copy of this film.

** Both options are negative, but when Blaire said [[spoiler:Mitch posted the video.]] Based on what we see moments later, [[spoiler:that Blaire was the camera person,]] this means one of two things: 1) she was simply lying, or 2) she was attempting to get off on ExactWords because [[spoiler:she let Mitch post the video after she shot it.]] The fact that Laura didn't reject it immediately as a lie hints at the second.
** There are a few implications throughout the film that Blaire isn't the most computer-savvy person outside of basic social networking, including that she didn't even know what a troll was. [[spoiler:She may have shot the video, but uploading it to a sock puppet Website/YouTube account might have been something she would have passed off to somebody else because it was beyond her ability]].
** [[spoiler:Did Blaire really not know what a troll was, or was she just acting in order to hide how familiar she was with the concept?]]
** [[spoiler:Either Laura killed Blaire out of revenge for recording the video or [[MercyKill just to spare her from the pain of being hated by others]] because she was the one who caused Laura's death in the first place.]]
*** [[spoiler:Did Blaire feel any remorse for what she did to Laura but was just too cowardly to own up to it, or did she feel absolutely none?]]
*** Was Laura actually trying to save [[spoiler:Blaire? Consider how the "Don't respond to messages from dead people" post kept showing up Blaire's searches even when not relevant. Was Laura just as bound by the rules of her existence as her victims and while she gleefully slaughtered everyone else she tried, again and again, to get Blaire to confess, showing her how so that she might be spared? Blaire never did, and hence Laura was forced to kill her by the rules of her existence.]]

** [[spoiler:Were Blaire's many acts (Cheating on Mitch with Adam, crashing Jess' mother's car) done out of sheer malice and sociopathy or just mistakes? While Blaire lies a lot about what she did, most of them were really to cover her own ass. Adam himself also agreed that both he and Blaire were drunk the first time. Admittedly, cheating and coming clean about it isn't something most people normally do; same with wrecking a friend's car.]]
*** [[spoiler:Speaking of Blaire and Adam, was Blaire telling Mitch to lay off Adam during the beginning of the Never Have I Ever game because she was trying to keep everyone from turning against each other like Laura wanted, or was she just trying to stay on Adam’s good side so he wouldn’t expose their affair to Mitch?]]
** At the end of the movie, [[spoiler:Blaire seems genuinely shocked when she's revealed to have filmed the video that caused Laura's suicide. Is it because she's shocked that Laura managed to get ahold of the complete tape and not the edited one that Mitch uploaded, or did she genuinely forget? If she did forget, is it because she's such a sociopath that [[ButForMeItWasTuesday the act didn't even seem significant to her]] or because she was drunk?]]

*** What little we know of Val ([[spoiler:She doesn't last long after we meet her]]) shows her to be quick-tempered, and requiring very little imagination to picture her as an AlphaBitch herself. We only catch a snippet of the fight between her and Laura, so we don't get much context as to who started it or what the backstory was. Were we watching Laura in the act of bullying Val or was Laura standing up to Val's bullying?

** The ending, specifically [[spoiler:the last few seconds of the movie where Laura's ghost attacks Blaire via jump-scare. Some feel it added to the atmosphere, while others felt the inclusion of a last-minute JumpScare ruined what could've been a subtle ending.]]
** Leading on with that, [[spoiler:there are some who felt that Laura ''shouldn't'' have killed Blaire, and that it would be more fitting that Blaire would left alive with the same consequences that led Laura to her own suicide.]]

* CrossesTheLineTwice: Anytime Laura acts like a {{troll}} to the main cast, such as posting smiley faces when someone dies or posting videos and playing [[SoundtrackDissonance music at the most inappropriate times]]. [[spoiler:Jess's death]] however, deserves special mention as she decides to ''[[BlackComedy post a meme about it]]''.

* HesJustHiding: [[spoiler: A popular fan theory is Blaire survived her encounter with Laura. Both because we don't actually see her die, and having been exposed as the horrible person and finally forced to take accountability would be a far worse fate. See TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot below.]]
** [[spoiler: Another theory is that Laura either never came back to life and instead the teens were killed by The Circle impersonating her or her relatives enacted revenge on her behalf. A final theory features Laura having faked her death, joining The Circle and enacting her revenge on her "friends." All theories are based on a BlinkAndYoullMissIt moment at the end of ''Film/UnfriendedDarkWeb'' when the main hacker is revealed to have a copy of this film.]]

** Laura may have been an AlphaBitch ([[UnreliableNarrator or so claimed to be]]) and [[spoiler:murdered all of the teens, some in horrific fashions]], but some may feel the fact she committed suicide due to being harassed for an embarrassing video makes it hard to not feel sorry for her. Based on a few things, like a FreezeFrameBonus on Laura's obituary and a brief comment that Blaire types out but doesn't post to Mitch, it's discovered Laura had dealt with an eating disorder, she'd attempted suicide once before, and it's implied Laura was abused by her uncle as a child, all of which may have helped her become an Alpha Bitch.

* JerksAreWorseThanVillains: The vengeful spirit of supposed-AlphaBitch Laura Barns is the main villain, who puts the six main characters through horrible torment and bloody deaths. However, it's quickly made apparent that she's the most sympathetic character in the movie as most of the hatred goes to the main characters, who were the people who bullied Laura to the point of suicide. The worst ones are Adam, who roofied and raped a girl and slept with his friend's girlfriend, and the main character Blaire, who [[spoiler: was the one who recorded the humiliating video in the first place.]] It's often said that the [[TeensAreMonsters behavior of the teens]] was more horrifying then the supernatural deaths.

** [[spoiler:Blaire was the one who shot the video and may have been the one to put it online, not to mention she cheated on her boyfriend with his best friend ''twice'', and ended up getting both of them killed.]]
** If Mitch's accusations are true, and it's implied that they are (given how angry Adam gets and he puts his fingers down, that Mitch hasn't lied once in the entire movie, and that Laura includes them in the game) Adam certainly crossed this when he [[spoiler:[[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil date raped a classmate]] and then [[KickTheDog forced her to get an abortion.]] You're really rooting for [[JerkWithAHeartOfJerk this guy]] to die by the time all of this is revealed.]] Alternatively, he crossed this by attempting to [[spoiler:trade Jess’s life for his own.]]

%% ** For that matter, [[spoiler:Val's sudden death and rather unconvincing yelp as she falls to the floor.]]
%% ** Laura shooting herself at arm's length.

** Imagine some''thing'' not only having access to your Skype, Facebook, and e-mail, but having access ''to your entire computer and your house'', taking control of your computer, and then [[spoiler:forcing you to kill yourself]] if you don't comply with its demands, no matter how hard you try.

* RootingForTheEmpire: The film seems to be actively aiming for this. Our villain is the spirit of an AlphaBitch who was tormented by cyberbullying and committed suicide. Our "heroes" are not very good people. [[spoiler:Blaire betrayed her former best friend and boyfriend; Jess spread a false rumor about Blaire, stole $800 from Adam, and desecrated Laura's grave; Adam slept with his best friend's girlfriend twice, is implied to have roofied a girl and forced her to get an abortion, and tried to trade his implied girlfriend Jess's life for his own; Mitch sold out his friend to the police for pot; Val cruelly rejected an apology from Laura and continued tormenting her, and Ken openly said that Laura deserved the bullying. All of them openly show no remorse for how they treated her]]. By the end of the movie, you're begging Laura to kill them and delighting in her taunting whenever she does.
* SpecialEffectFailure: [[spoiler:If you look closely during the moment where Blaire's laptop is pushed down, you can see a figure that looks ''nothing'' like Laura Barns, which is also given away per the apparel.]]

** Ken's death is the most gruesome in the film: [[spoiler:he shoves his hand into a blender, then uses the blender to slit his own throat.]]
** Jess' death is just as bad, if not worse: [[spoiler:she is forced to put a heated curling iron down her throat and writhe as it slowly roasts her to death from the inside out.]]

--> ''"One way to take this premise - the entire movie it's [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane kept entirely ambiguous whether this is a ghost or just a hacker]] messing with the main characters. But no, all horror movies ever nowadays drop any subtly and subtext because they want to be "LOOK AT OUR SUPER AWESOME AND SCARY CGI MONSTER!" A lot of this movie is spent going "yes this is real" which is the exact opposite of what you should be doing in a good horror story like this. Fear of the unknown is a very powerful thing, and when we know what the fuck the monster is and what the fuck it wants, we're stuck with characters idiotically willing to die for selfish reasons."''
** A lot of fans on Dead Meat's WebVideo/TheKillCount video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTvcgdeq4xc&ab_channel=DeadMeat Unfriended]] believe that the ending would have been a lot stronger if [[spoiler: Blaire]] ended up surviving, as then she would have to live with the consequences of not only getting her friends killed, but being exposed for her part in Laura's bullying and suicide, leaving her with her life ruined - much like she ruined Laura's. Not only would it make the ending less cliché than the last minute jumpscare, but it would also be a stronger commentary on the affects of cyberbullying.

*** What little we know of Val ( [[spoiler:She doesn't last long after we meet her]]) shows her to be quick tempered, and requiring very little imagination to picture her as an AlphaBitch herself. We only catch a snippet of the fight between her and Laura, so we don't get much context as to who started it or what the backstory was. We we watching Laura in the act of bullying Val or was Laura standing up to Val's bullying?

** How much of a bully was Laura Barnes in real life? So much of the evidence we have that supports her being a bully comes from characters who clearly have strong mean streaks themselves. Were the cruelties they inflicted on Laura grotesquely DisproportionateRetribution or somewhat justifiable individual cases of TheDogBitesBack?