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| “ | Tell me who posted the video... or someone dies. | „ |
| ~ billie227 demanding who posted the video in YouTube. |
| “ | GUESS WHO!?! | „ |
| ~ billie227 questioning the characters. |
| “ | You're all going to hell. | „ |
| ~ billie227 threatening the characters with death. |
| “ | Uh oh, that's not your boyfriend... | „ |
| ~ billie227 revealing Blaire and Adam having sex in a video in YouTube. |
| “ | ...Lights Out! | „ |
| ~ billie227 turning off the lights on each room of the characters |
Billie227 a.k.a Laura Barns is the main antagonist of the 2015 horror film, Unfriended.
Summary
Unfriended is a film about a group of friends simply talking on Skype, and are haunted and tortured by an unseen entity that seems to have hacked into their Skype call and forces them to commit suicide one by one until one of them confesses to posting a humiliating video of a high school student, which had resulted in her suicide.
The trailer strongly implicates that the identity of Billie227 is the spirit of the girl who committed suicide in the first place, Laura Barns, as he/she hacks Laura's account and her profile picture distorts whenever Laura is mentioned. It appears that this entity is able to attack and possess people, as well as do just about anything on the internet, such as post tweets, send messages, and upload distant files onto the internet.
Though Billie227 (also known as Laura) brutally kills her victims through sadistic methods, she also offers them a chance to redeem themselves many times in the film but the haughtiness of the characters, especially Blaire Lily, is the main reason why they anger Laura and ultimately pay the price of death, though the ghost threatens the characters death if they did not confess, though Laura herself has no intention of sparing innocent people.
Background
Originally, Laura Barns was a high school student in Fresno, California and she had a childhood best friend named Blaire Lily, the main protagonist of the film. Blaire knew that she had a troubled relationship with her uncle and it was assumed that he sexually abused her. Though they were best friends, Laura was known to be a bully by her classmates and she even admitted herself that she was a bully.
One night after being intoxicated at a party, Laura suddenly passed out and was covered with feces, which was secretly filmed by an unknown cameraman. The video was then uploaded onto YouTube without her consent, which made Laura a victim of cyberbullying and humiliation. Laura saw the video and noticed that there were many hate comments that targeted her and she probably became traumatised since the video reveals her anus, which probably made her remember about the sexual abuse she received from her uncle.
On April 12 2013, Laura had enough of the cyberbullying and decided to commit suicide in a public area by shooting herself. Her suicide deeply affected everyone who knew her and witnessed it and her Facebook account became a memorial and dedication page. However, little did they know that the vengeful spirit of Laura Barns returns to this world after she accessed a mysterious Skype account called Billie227, which she used to exact her revenge by killing those who didn't confess about posting the embarrassing video on YouTube.
The film begins on April 12 2014, exactly a year after Laura's suicide. Blaire watches the suicide video on LiveLeak before she closes the screen and goes on Skype to talk to her boyfriend Mitch. Their sexually intimate Skype chat was interrupted by their four other friends. However, they also notice an unwanted user in their Skype chat, which was Billie227.
Unfriended
In the film, after everyone notices the account, they make several unsuccessful attempts to get rid of the user.
As the night wears on, Billie227's/Laura's Facebook account starts sending cryptic messages to the friends, which makes them suspect that another girl, Val Rommel (Courtney Halverson), whom they all despise, is simply pranking them. When she is invited to the chat, Laura hack's Jess' Facebook with repulsive and compromising pictures of Val at a party, some of which show Val drunk to the point of vomiting and passing out and smoking a bong.
After Val scolds Jess for posting the pictures Jess, proclaiming her innocence, attempts to delete the photos, but they continue to reappear. After Jess finally deletes them, Billie227 hacks Adam's account and posts the photos on his Facebook. Billie227's control over the group grows even tighter after sending insulting text messages, leading to massive arguments. Billie227 then aggressively taunts and threatens Val, causing her to call 911 to report online abuse, but not before accusing Ken of harassment, and signing off.
Ignoring her threats, Ken states that he never liked Laura saying she was a bully and deserved everything that she received from the embarrassing video of her, stating that Laura bullied Ken before her suicide.
Val's Death
Billie227 e-mails Blaire an Instagram picture of an email that Laura sent Val a year earlier, begging her to remove the embarrassing video and offering friendship. Val rejected the plea and told her to kill herself. When multiple Instagram users scold Val for her cruelty, Billie227 possesses Val's computer and calls the group, causing Val's corpse to be suddenly brought back into the chat.
Val is seen silently sitting in her laundry room, next to an open bottle of bleach, motionlessly staring at the camera. As the group watches with confusion, they notice the mirror is shattered. Concerned, Blaire calls Val to check on her, and Val's phone is seen vibrating across her counter. Suddenly, her computer abruptly is knocked to the ground. While Blaire speculates that Val is suffering from a seizure, the police arrive and shout out police codes. The group try to work out Val's death using those codes, which is eventually labelled as a suicide. Though it is not explicitly stated, it is heavily implied that Laura possessed Val and forced her to drink the bleach.
Ken's Death
Following Val's death, Laura fully manifests herself by abandoning her Billie227 alias and supernaturally attacking her friends directly.
She begins by sending photos to the rest of the group, some of which are of Blaire and Adam having sex. As the group finds themselves besieged by their hidden secrets, Laura forces them to play a game. Meanwhile, as the panic begins to set in, Ken tries to undermine Laura by emailing the group Trojan malware programs to forcibly remove Laura from their chat session. After much struggle and arguing, the malware is effective and Laura is removed.
Their efforts are short lived, however, as immediately afterward Laura returns and opens a camera feed behind one of the users. After much confusion, when Ken stands up, he and the remaining friends realize in that the camera is in Ken's room.
When Ken finds the source of the camera, he looks directly into the camera, frozen in shock his for a few minutes before his feed cuts out. When it resumes, Ken is seen standing up in a trance like. Having fully possessed Ken, Laura begins attacking Ken, by throwing him down onto his desk, mangling his hand in a blender, and then killing him by pressing his neck on the blades of a blender to slice his throat, disconnecting the webcam in the chat room.
Adam's Death, and Secrets Revealed
With Ken's death, Laura asserts total control over the remaining survivors. She begins to manifest herself in Adam's house by knocking on his door 5 times. As he goes to investigate, she turns off the lights in his house and forces him to retreat into the living room.
As the group is at her fully attention, she then demands to know to who posted the video that made her kill herself. When the group assert they don't know what she means, she possesses Blaire's laptop and floods her screen with pop-ups of the video, then shows her messages replied by hurtful Facebook users that commented on her video.
With no other options, the group fearfully agrees to play a game. In playing Laura ultimately forces the four remaining friends to play Never Have I Ever, threatening to end the loser's life. It is then through this game, that Laura then reveals secrets that put the friends at odds with each other:
- Jess spread a rumor about Blaire having an eating disorder;
- Blaire drunkenly crashed Jess' mother's car;
- Mitch kissed Laura behind Blaire's back;
- Adam bargained with Laura to trade Jess' life for his;
- Mitch ratted Adam out to the cops for selling marijuana;
- Jess hacked Adam's bank account and stole $800 from him.
When a heavily intoxicated Adam becomes enraged at the game and furious to learn that Mitch ratted him out, he then uses the game to force Blaire to reveal that she is no longer a virgin, having had sex with him twice behind Mitch's back, and an enraged Mitch retaliates by revealing that Adam gave a girl roofies at a party and had sex with her while she was unconscious, then forced her to have an abortion when she later discovered she was pregnant.
Using his rage to both her advantage and to further possess him, Laura uploads Blaire and Adam's sex tape on YouTube to prove it. Then, to solidify her total possession of an emotionally unstable Adam, she purposely sends both Blaire and Adam messages from their printer, threatening to kill them should they reveal their messages.
By now, Mitch, angry that Blaire and Adam are apparently sending "secret messages", threatens to log off, to which Laura responds that if he does, he will die. In a high moment of stress, Blaire shows her note: "If you reveal this note, Adam will die." Fully possessing Adam, Laura then kills him immediately by forcing him to shoot himself in the face with his father's gun flashing her message to him as his screen shows his note: "If you reveal this note, Blaire will die."
Jess's Death
Despite Adam's death, Laura says the game has not ended. And further possessing the groups computers, Laura then takes an even more direct approach to her friends.
Continuing the game, she demands to know who has ever defaced her grave. After Jess refuses to admit she was the one who vandalized it, Laura fully manifest in Jess's house and turns all the lights off in her house. While a frightened Jess hides in her bathroom, Blaire goes on Chatroulette and successfully gets someone to call the police. Meanwhile, Laura's ghost invades Jess's room and siphons her Internet connection.
Laura then jams Jess's Wi-Fi, causing Jess' feed to cut off. When it resumes, it briefly shows Jess screaming and crouched at the foot of her bathroom door as an unseen force attempts to break it down, before getting cut off again. Seconds after, her feed resumes, showing a dying Jess choking to death on a burning electric hair straightener.
She then confirms her latest kill by then posting a pic on her Facebook account showing Jess's immortalized murder with the emboldened words "Looks she finally STFU", and then sends it to Blaire.
Mitch's Death and the Final Secret
With Jess dead, the only two remaining friends left alive are Blaire and Mitch.
When Blaire and Mitch subsequently apologize to each other, thinking that it's all over, Laura manifests herself again by physically by turning off the lights in their houses. She then immediately messages them, demanding to know who uploaded the video of her humiliation on YouTube.
When Blaire and Adam instinctively proclaim their innocence, Laura private chats Blaire, while counting down on Skype. While Blaire continues to console Laura, Laura materializes in Mitch's room and then fully possesses Mitch. After Blaire finally admits that Mitch was the one who did it Laura forces a possessed Mitch to commit suicide by stabbing himself in the eye, leaving Blaire alone in the chat room.
Blaire's Death, Laura's Revenge Granted
With Mitch's it is implied that Blair is the last living friend who is now Laura's final target.
As Blaire breaks down crying, Laura thanks her for the help, and shares a brief condolence with her. After, Laura decides to reward her, but tells her that she must confess to one more thing. Possessing Blaire's laptop, she begins counting down, shocking Blaire and increasing her panic.
Blaire, now realizing that Laura is now after her, tries to placate Laura by showing her past photos of when the two were friends. In response, Laura retorts that there's more to the story than what Blaire is willing to admit.
Hacking her account and Blaire's, Laura uploads the embarrassing video of her on Facebook, but in this video, which she dubs "the extended edition", where Blaire is revealed to be the laughing cameraman saying "I got her".
Dumbstruck, a remorseful Blaire attempts to tearfully apologize, but instead of forgiving her, Laura simply tells her that her mistake will live on the Internet forever. As Blaire's Facebook account becomes flooded with angry Facebook users blaming her for Laura's death, Laura tells Blaire that she wishes she could forgive her, then signs off Skype. Finally manifesting herself for her best friend, Laura invades Blaire's house. Meanwhile, Blaire, in a state of shock, sits silently when Laura opens her bedroom door. Creating silhouetted hands that appear and suddenly close Blaire's laptop (revealing the movie to be in first person), Laura's ghost jumps out and presumably kills Blaire, who unleashes one final scream.
Laura's vengeful ghost moments before killing Blaire.
Trivia
- Its commonly theorized among fans that the true identity of Billie227 may be the parents of Laura Barns.
- The original title of the film was Cybernatural. However, this was changed so that they hide the obvious from viewers of the film.
- Billie227 is highly similar to The Observer:
- Both psychologically torment their victims via hacking.
- Both are never seen face to face, they are both only seen via the internet or are not seen at all.
- Both send messages to the protagonists while they are talking online to people.
- Both attack the protagonists when they are in their home on camera.
- Billie227 is also very similar to Carmen Winstead as both are high school students who were relatively popular before being backstabbed by their friends and eventually bullied by other classmates, which eventually led to their deaths, although Carmen was actually murdered whilst Laura committed suicide. After their deaths, they return to the world as vengeful spirits, who mainly haunt others via the Internet, and kill those who don't know the truth behind their deaths or didn't confessed that they know the exact details of their deaths.
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