"Dude! This is darknet!"

That quote, taken from new low-budget horror film Unfriended: Dark Web, might be all you need to decide whether to buy a ticket. Indeed, this film's obsession with technical legitimacy inevitably falls into Hollywood pitfalls, because there's no getting around the trickiness of pacing an entertaining, cheesy film while simultaneously getting the computer details correct.

In spite of a few silly quotes, however, U:DW does a decent job stitching its computer and Internet content into the general plot—which is good, since the whole film is seen from a single Macbook's desktop POV. This clever conceit returns from the original and surprisingly solid Unfriended, and at its best, U:DW does an even better job of showing how to frame a film from this unique perspective.

Making a likable film, however, is another matter.

You couldn’t even get wardriving right?

The rest of this review contains plot spoilers, because criticizing the film means giving away its logical failings. We still leave a few of the scares and surprises unspoiled, but we reveal a ton of stuff at the "Even bigger spoilers from here on out" mark.

The only returning aspect from the 2014 film is its desktop-perspective gimmick. The film opens with a classic Apple startup tone and a MacOS Mojave login screen, along with someone trying, trying, and eventually logging in. The laptop's previous owner has left plenty of credentials and saved passwords on this machine, which new owner Mattias (Colin Woodell) eventually decides to spy on.

The previous owner is discovered to have lived quite the life, which is revealed in humorous fashion by a series of pop-up Facebook notifications from women asking about promised plane tickets and other wild plans. Mattias juggles this information at the same time as a Facebook video call with his deaf girlfriend (Stephanie Nogueras), a Skype "game night" video call with other friends, and tests of his new text-to-sign-language app that his girlfriend inspired him to develop.

Before long, Mattias starts playing along with this new alternate identity, who apparently puts together dangerous and messed-up deals via darknet transactions. Proof of these deals can be found in nearly a terabyte of videos that this laptop has pulled off of unwitting webcams, which one of the game-night players, the tech-obsessed conspiracy theorist, says are the result of "wardriving." (Not quite the right term, guys.)

The film's logic, sadly, is already toast at this point—why is Mattias entering his personal credentials into some laptop he acquired without wiping its existing contents to orbit?! Yet U:DW still flexes its "technical consultant" muscles whenever possible. Eventual malware on this laptop mimics existing programs' takeover abilities and interfaces; Mattias runs terminal commands and DaisyDisk when he faces hard drive issues; real (and disturbing) darknet marketplaces are name-checked. When it comes to basic technical questions, U:DW answers them with clear and accurate representations on Mattias' desktop. (The biggest exception is how the Macbook in question juggles multiple Facebook accounts without having credentials cancel each other out or requesting any two-factor authentication. I wish U:DW had ended with some form of PSA reminding viewers to use the heck out of 2FA.)

But most of this 90-minute film will elicit more "how" and "why" shouts over characters' logic. Why do Mattias and his deaf girlfriend continue to change conversational approaches (and thus muddy their chats, with disastrous results) when typing is clearly their only rapid and accurate method? Why does the group of game-night friends not immediately realize its every move is being traced and instead walk directly into its unfortunate demise? Why does Mattias decide to fake like a darknet arms dealer when he's promised thousands of bitcoins in a strange pop-up window, in spite of his clear idiocy about how cryptocurrencies work?

Even bigger spoilers from here on out

Eventually, we come to learn that the game night's participants have been set up. A hacker has somehow left a valid login for more than $10 million in easily transferable bitcoin and a terabyte of incriminating, murder-filled videos sitting at a coffee shop's lost-and-found bin for more than three weeks. This hacker then predicted that someone would come along and do the following: steal the laptop; figure out the laptop's password; and screen-share its darkest contents to a group of friends who had planned to enjoy a Skype version of Cards Against Humanity—all so the hacker in question could pin the crime spree on these dumb kids.

And then—and then—a larger hacking network broadcasts this unwitting Skype group's interactions to a darknet-fueled betting ring, complete with a network of real-life murderers showing up at these people's houses at just the right time. Yahtzee!

(News eventually emerged that this film is reaching theaters with two endings, which viewers will be randomly assigned. At least one member of the cast has alleged that this might be inaccurate. Either way, I cannot imagine an alternate ending could redeem anything about how the film concludes.)

I really do wish this bonkers plot was married with giddy, tongue-through-cheek silliness, with every actor clearly laughing along and skewering social-media norms along the way. Instead, sadly, we have to wait until the film's final minute for this bigger-picture reveal. Worse, we're dragged along by the apparent villain, a hacker named Charon IV, who, for whatever reason, makes any webcam feed explode with artifacts and glitches whenever he appears. He's as boring and unsatisfying a boogeyman as humanly possible, and his supernatural abilities take center stage by the half-hour mark.

All of the clever Web-satire stuff from the original Unfriended is cast aside in favor of presenting Charon IV as a monster, and that, more than the swiss-cheese logic, is the worst part of this sequel. Its only saving grace is to remind viewers that the first Unfriended is still out there, still fun, and still clever. This sequel, on the other hand, is better off being cast into the darkest of nets.