#FollowFriday

2016
Story by Marie Bertonneau, Anna Rasmussen, and Micho Rutare
Screenplay by Marie Bertonneau
Directed by Micho Rutare

The Internet once again has come to kill us all, but shockingly this isn’t a Lifetime Network film, nope! This joint from The Asylum debuted on SyFy of all places! There ain’t any spaceships or crazy monsters, heck #FollowFriday (the hashtag is part of the name) could happen in the real world. And judging from how incompetent Twitter is in getting rid of problem accounts (let’s just be honest, Twitter love nazi accounts), Twitter would be powerless to stop a killer form using their service were it to happen in real life.

#FollowFriday actually uses Twitter, complete with real Twitter accounts (all of which are now suspended, lol, I guess Twitter can ban movie accounts but not nazis) and screenshots of the twitter accounts running amok. The film takes place in a pocket universe where Twitter is the dominant social media tool to the point where all others are ignored or barely mentioned. There is a good sense of the chaos that the non-stop stream of social media opinions brings, as a constant barrage of voiceovers proclaiming their opinion on events as they happen or society in general (and even making lame jokes) plays in the background as characters sit around, type away on their devices, or stare in horror at the Twitter feed. As an active Twitter user, staring in horror at Twitter is a pretty common event.

Many of the characters are introduced by voiceovers of their tweets, which immediately gives you a fix on which archetype their characters are. There is a nerdy Young Republican, the young politician, the computer nerd, the health nut, the alpha male, and the outraged feminist. No need to set them up, we just know what they are and let them interact. And slowly get bumped off, as a killer is a-stalking them, each week whichever one is the biggest on trending, they get #dead.