YMMV / Unfriended: Dark Web

• Complete Monster: "Charon IV" is a member of the Circle, a group of sadistic hackers who prey on innocents for their own amusement. Charon IV spends his time stalking and spying on potential victims using surveillance and web cameras. After other members of the Circle see video footage of the victims, Charon IV kidnaps, tortures, and eventually kills the victims upon the members' requests, filming himself committing the murders. In order to prevent interference from law enforcement, the Circle conspire to frame Matias and his friends for the various murders they committed. Charon IV leaves his laptop for Matias to find, and later threatens to kill Matias's girlfriend, Amaya, if he doesn't give the laptop back. After Matias and his friends are all killed and framed for Charon IV's murders, Amaya is kidnapped, implying that the Circle and Charon IV will continue torturing and murdering people.
• Contested Sequel: The movie isn't exactly better than the previous one, but it's not worse either since the first film was divisive to begin with (it's only a few points lower than Unfriended on Rotten Tomatoes, and has a "C" rating from CinemaScore just like the first film). While this movie did improve on how likable the characters were, thereby avoiding Too Bleak, Stopped Caring, the film's biggest detriment is that it's clichéd and also doesn't have any of the themes that the first movie had.
• Cliché Storm: A main character stumbles across something dangerous, and instead of getting rid of it early on (and at his friends' requests), he holds onto it until it's too late, and inevitably puts his life and his friends' lives in danger. Predictably, everyone in the film (except Amaya, maybe) is killed off one by one.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Damon and AJ seem to be the most popular of the characters.
• Improved Second Attempt
  • Possibly the one thing that even the film's fiercest critics will defend is that the main cast is full of likable characters you want to see survive. Contrast this to the last film, where everyone was a Jerkass at best who deserved everything they had coming to them.
  • The ending of the previous film was criticized for throwing away the Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane aspect for a cheap Jump Scare. This film excises the supernatural elements altogether in favor of more Realism-Induced Horror.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Comments predicting the next Unfriended sequels, ranging from Unfriended 4: DeviantArt, Unfriended 3: Bin Weevils and the list goes on.
  • The fact that the Main Characters are using Skype...in 2018.
• Moral Event Horizon: The Circle cross it when they force Serena to chose between the life her sick mother or her girlfriend Nari. When Serena chooses none of 'em the Charons kill them both and then kill Serena, too.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • In the alternate ending only available on the DVD/Blu-Ray, Matias and Amaya are allowed to live, after Charon IX reminds The Circle of Matias's bold move to attempt to extort them with their own money in exchange for Amaya's safety. It's such a ballsy move that it earns Charon's respect, and he lets them go.
  • Matias makes some pretty good decisions, such as telling Amaya to take the subway, knowing that the Charon following her would drop out of the Skype call due to lost signal. Additionally, holding the Circle's own bitcoin as insurance was a pretty ballsy move.
• Narm:
  • While it can be seen as a Tear Jerker scene, the face that one of the main characters makes when they see their mother in the hospital, showing off their lower row of teeth and slightly shaking with her eyes half-closed, can be seen as this.
    • In the same vein, Mathias's crying, while realistic, can come off as downright goofy-looking as the movie wears on.
  • Charon IV writing in all caps is meant to look threatening, but he just comes off like your basic whiny internet troll.
  • The fact that the cursor icon for one of the Charon’s, shown when they’re about to kill AJ, is Flipping the Bird.
    • While the method used to kill AJ is horrifically cunning, the audio they do give to 911 at the end is so poorly and unbelievably spliced together that it's incredible that the dispatcher took it seriously at all. Though the ending shows that one of the responding officers was part of the Circle in the end, so who knows how he influenced the course of events.
  • Compared to the first movie, the acting has purely become Large Ham at best.
  • The idea that anyone could be part of the hacker conspiracy is an unnerving one. The idea that everyone is in on it can be ridiculous and harder to take seriously.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • The files on the laptop show very gruesome things.
  • Erica having some kind of welt on her forehead as a result of the trephination...and then she peels it off, revealing the gaping hole in her skull.
• Paranoia Fuel: Imagine finding a laptop only to discover it belongs to some of the most sadistic, monstrous people imaginable...who find you, know exactly where you are and fully intend to torture you and everyone you love because they can. Worse yet, all those things in the videos? That kind of stuff actually exists on the dark web. While it'd be rare to find a group as horrifically malignant and omniscient as the Circle on the actual dark web (given how many federal agents monitor it, few pages actually go unnoticed and many who access the dark web are disappointed to find it's populated with mostly "boring" content), there are plenty of stories of downright evil groups who specialize in snuff films of both adults and children. Worse yet is the film's reveal that one of the members of the Circle is a member of law enforcement, adding even more fuel.
• Tear Jerker: Serena having to choose between her mother or her girlfriend Nari's life. The actress' desperate expressions are very convincing.
• The Woobie: All of Mathias' friends but Mathias himself takes the cake especially by the end.
  • All the Circle's victims are this given how cruel and sadistic their deaths are.

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