The Den 2013 | Unfriended: Dark Web 2018 | Spoiler Free Video Review

Before Unfriended, before Searching, before e-Demon, there was The Den.

This came out back on 2013 and it was the first video chat found footage full length movie that I saw. When I saw the trailer for Unfriended Dark Web it reminded me of this movie, so I decided to revisit it.

If you are new to my site, welcome and yes I have already reviewed Unfriended and I paired it with Friend Request.

Who knew back then that it would become a full-fledged subgenre of found footage?

The Den is about a woman named Elizabeth, who gets a grant to study human behavior on live chats. She plans to do this by living with her web chat on 24/7. She starts off mostly using “The Den” a chat roulette type site. Her interactions on there are super realistic.

She is another person with a messy desktop – files just scattered all over. I said in my review of e-Demon how much I can’t stand a messy or cluttered desktop.

BTW, is chat roulette still a thing that exists? I just googled it and it still exists. MySpace is still up too. I should log in and post on Myspace. I never did delete my profile, just stopped logging in.

Not all of the movie takes place on video chat. There are parts that use cell phone cams as POV shots. Those bits took me out the movie momentarily, but if you don’t think too hard about justifying it, it’s passable.

The whole subplot of people being harmed or killed for real and for others paid entertainment is something that The Den and Unfriended Dark Web have in common.
That’s not an entirely new concept. This was explored in Videodrome back in 1983.

Another commonality is having some unknown person controlling your computer, and setting you up. As well as the coercion aspects of the plot. I won’t give specifics so as not to spoil either movie.

Towards the end they also make use of a head mounted camera. This added some suspense and ratcheted up the tension.

There is a bit of gore. Not too much but what they did give you looked very realistic. The practical effects were executed very well. It looks like this was all done in camera.

This was pretty engaging for the most part. There is a little bit of gore and it looks realistic.

There isn’t a soundtrack but there is some really subtle sound cues and orchestration used very sparingly in the score.

One downside is that the movie is supposed to take place entirely via webcams, but it looks like it was shot with movie cameras and then edited to look like video chats.

I liked how Elizabeth’s character was written. She didn’t make the usual stupid horror movie decisions. She immediately notified police, purchased a fire arm, learned how to use it etc. She was proactive in trying to protect herself.

Did it help? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out. I enjoyed The Den and I recommend it for found footage and cyber horror fans.

Want more video horror movie reviews? Visit What Did I Just Watch? on YouTube!