Friends Forever (2023)

-Written by Kyle Bain. 

A group of friends in the 80’s throw a party at an abandoned house with a haunting past. As the night drives forward, they begin to understand that this may be the most important party of their lives. Friends Forever sees these young adults confronting the harrowing reality in which they’ve found themselves. 

It’s established in the early going that this film would exist within the walls of the horror genre–and that viewers should expect something terrifying and potentially eerie as a result. We don’t quite get that. Friends Forever is reminiscent of those campy horror films from the 1980’s, and as a result of that, the film is sort of charming. There is no high-level dialogue, no riveting plot points, and Friends Forever seemingly just exists in some moments. The film relies heavily on the campiness of the dialogue and the performances of nearly every actor in order for it to find success. So, while the film still exists within the confines of a horror film, what it had initially promised viewers doesn’t come to be. 

Throughout the majority of Friends Forever viewers get more and more campiness in nearly every facet of the film. It rarely extends itself beyond this niche pocket of film, but there are some instances of prowess present as a result of Director of Photography Thomas Angeletti’s filmmaking expertise. There are a couple instances of tracking shots from inside the house that are beautifully developed, and they add a level of intensity to Friends Forever that I felt had been missing. Viewers are dizzied in these moments, and we are, even if only for a brief moment, able to put ourselves in the shoes of the partygoers. Friends Forever peaks in these moments, but it can’t hold onto that intensity for long. 

It feels like every step of the way introduces us to a new storyline, many of which are never explored beyond a simple mention. In one instance Friends Forever promises to travel down an interesting path, further exploring one of the film’s main characters–but that quickly-mentioned tertiary story exists only as a red herring, not to help develop this film. Layer after layer, viewers are given an exorbitant amount of information in such a short amount of time. There simply isn’t enough time for everything to be fleshed out.

Friends Forever feels like an incomplete thought, like this team was on the brink of a good idea but was incapable of fully developing it into something thoughtful and effective. By the conclusion of the film not much had really resonated with me, and much of what had transpired over the course of the past twenty minutes had already begun to escape me. There are moments of cinematic brilliance, but they are surrounded and drowned out by a lot that felt underdeveloped and ineffective. Friends Forever may temporarily quench a thirst for something campy and silly that exists in the horror genre–but it’s not a film that will leave a lasting impression. 

Directed by Thomas Angeletti. 

Written by Jared Acker, Paige Hoover, & Thomas Angeletti. 

Starring Ashlee Lawhorn, Colleen O’Morrow, Mark Murtha, Paige Hoover, Julei Carney, Timothy J. Cox, Christy Carson, Kevin Rife, etc. 

5/10 = WORTH THE RISK, BUT YOU’VE BEEN WARNED