'Unfriended: The Dark Web' spins smart, efficient online horror tale

<h3 class="briefHead">"Unfriended: The Dark Web" - ★ ★ ★ </h3>

The first 25 minutes of "Unfriended: The Dark Web" dutifully roll along like one of those spinning wheels of death on your computer screen.

Then, an insidious twist of events sets up a diabolical online conspiracy rife with paranoia and danger before the plot careens into a convoluted thriller involving mysterious, omnipresent and omniscient evil forces.

"Dark Web," like its 2014 original "Unfriended," adapts the "found footage" format of 1999's "The Blair Witch Project" for the internet age and marries it with a favorite 1960s device, the split-screen.

Terrorized, whimpering young people stare into skin-pore-close cameras as dark powers knock them off in vague and savage ways during a virtual real-time experience.

In 2014, the spirit of a high school student, spurred to suicide because of online bullying, created her own email account and used it to extract revenge against the five pupils responsible for her demise.

"Dark Web," written and directed by Stephen Susco (taking over from Nelson Greaves), plays out on a computer screen as young Matias (Colin Woodell) joins a group video chat with his deaf girlfriend Amaya (Stephanie Nogueras) and four friends for a rousing game of Cards Against Humanity.

Soon, Matty must confess that he took his "new" computer from a lost and found department. Now the unknown and persistent emailing owner wants it back, but not before Matty hacks into the unit's Dark Web files and discovers a gruesome series of "snuff" videos involving terrified young women.

Oh, oh.

"Dark Web" can't be classified as great horror, but Susco has constructed a smart and efficient tale that does for chat rooms what "Ring" did for VHS video players and "Poltergeist" did for the TV set.

Susco, taking a lead from "Unfriended," constructs nerve-jangling countdowns made all the scarier because we have no clue what will happen when they get to "zero."

This movie actually respects audience intelligence by never dumbing-down the information as Hollywood films do when characters read messages out loud to nobody as they write them.

Here, the doomed characters sound like real chat room pals, and their posts come at lightning pace, yet we understand what's happening.

At least most of the time.

Besides, what's the last horror film you saw that requires speed reading to keep up with the action?

<b>Starring:</b> Colin Woodell, Betty Gabriel, Rebecca Rittenhouse, Andrew Lees, Connor Del Rio

<b>Directed by:</b> Stephen Susco

<b>Other:</b> A BH Tilt release. Rated R for language, sexual references, violence. 88 minutes