So, I had high hopes for this one. It’s billed as a horror/comedy/thriller where the ‘real horror’ is social awkwardness. The story is about Pete, a paranoid guy who hangs out in a house with his ‘friends’, and starts suspecting that they’re all out to get him (hence the title). The premise in and of itself is great, but I found the movie incredibly lacking.
Unfortunately, that’s by design. Without getting too into spoilers, the premise genuinely boils down to: the real horror is social awkwardness. The twist isn’t a supernatural one. This isn’t like Coherence or The One I Love, where the people in the house deal with a mind-bending sci-fi anomaly.
Nor is it like Carnage or Krisha, which are so electric with everyday tension and insane pacing/dialogue that they don’t need anything supernatural to heighten it. It’s probably closest to The Gift, because they both mine a lot of tension from the unspoken discomfort of socializing with awkward people.
But The Gift is far superior in terms of building drama and atmosphere, and also in utilizing jump scares. It feels like an actual thriller (and a fantastic one at that). In contrast, All My Friends Hate Me lands in an awkward middle ground: some moments are tense, others are dull, and most of the time I felt like nothing was happening.
I honestly couldn’t even recommend it at all, except for the intro and the ending. The first 10 minutes had some great moments of awkward comedy, and the final 10 minutes were excellent. But it’s really not worth sitting through the rest of it.
That’s all. Watch something else. Like the Oscars ceremony (just kidding – that’s an even bigger waste of time).
Rating: 5.8/10
