'Unboxed' is a horror film that follows Laura – a young up-and-coming influencer who is getting ready for her bug Halloween livestream giveaway. Unknown to her, a mysterious stranger manages to trap her in his game, as he has switched out the giveaway items from Laura’s sponsor with his own twisted prizes.
The film opens on Laura and her friends, Kody and Jess as they enjoy the afternoon outdoors and plan to go to a Halloween party. Laura departs as she has to get ready for her special Halloween livestream giveaway and is surprised by Blake, her boyfriend on her way home.
On arriving home, the sponsor giveaway items have already been left for her and Laura sets up for the livestream. At the same time, Blake is shown to be knocked out and his Halloween getup taken by an unseen assailant.
Laura starts the livestream and has an AMA session with the viewers, giving away prizes for correct answers. She is then frightened to see a user giving oddly personal answers to her questions and soon receives a message from Blake’s number, with the assailant forcing her to play his game, threatening to hurt Blake, who he has kidnapped. Laura is forced to open the boxes that the attacker had left for her, making her do odd and demeaning acts, such as kissing a random trick-or-treater, eating raw fish and applying nail polish that burns her skin off.
A police officer then shows up to Laura’s house, leaving without picking up on any misdoings. After a while, Laura is attacked by the unseen assailant, wearing Blake’s Halloween costume. In trying to evade him Laura hides around the house, until she picks up a knife and stabs the attacker. Unknown to her, she unintentionally stabs Blake, as the attacker had dressed him up in his costume and sewn his mouth shut, rendering him unable to call for help. The film closes on the police officer from earlier walking away from the house, revealing him to have been the attacker.
‘Unboxed’ is a low-budget c movie that ekes by and forces itself into the horror genre. At the core of the story is Katherine Diaz’s Laura, who has to overcome increasingly complicated and demeaning tasks as she is toyed with by the unseen attacker. The premise of the film is simple, yet the execution and low production budget can be felt immediately, overshadowing the actors and diminishing any attempts at suspense or horror.
If the simple plot of the main story had been the sole focus of the feature, perhaps it would have been more impactful. Instead, there are a few scattershot threads that seem to lead nowhere, such as the b-plot involving Kody and his feelings towards Laura, or her friend/business associate Dawn who keeps stressing the importance of the success of the livestream, yet does little to facilitate the smooth running of things once she gets wind of foul play. Rather than intermittent cuts to the peripheral characters, a tight focus solely on Laura could have provided for a more intense and intricate story, exploring the terror that befalls her.
Katherine Diaz does what she can within the confines of her character, - she delivers a believable livestream and the characters attempts to cope with the increasingly unnerving challenges. Ultimately, Diaz’s Laura is left shattered on discovering that she had accidentally killed her boyfriend, yet it leaves little to no impact on the viewer, as the film doesn’t quite manage to establish an imposing sense of threat or danger, and had done little by way of the relationship between Laura and her boyfriend.
‘Unboxed’ broaches on cyber-bullying and stalking, touching on the threat that seems more prominent for women online, especially for those who choose to build a career on putting themselves out there on livestreams and in hosting AMA’s. The film had the perfect set-up to establish a serial attacker on women, as the sole focus of the film is Laura, and the film had opened on another woman being poisoned during a recording for her audience. Instead, that premise is not explored and the film chooses to take a more familiar path and spends its runtime on increasingly more gruesome gross-out gags.
‘Unboxed’ has the look and feel of a student film. Initially it tries to deliver a simple premise, but the further along it goes, the more it becomes crammed with unnecessary or confusing turns, making the experience perplexing and unenjoyable. Low budget films have the potential to push creators to their limits in trying to deliver inventive and distinctive effects for their features. Unfortunately, ‘Unboxed’ is not one of those films. With plot lines that seem to lead nowhere and a final reveal that is disappointingly predictable, ‘Unboxed’ is not worth unpacking.
Score: 0/4
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