The Skype-centric horror film which turned many heads, including ours, at film festivals last year under the original title, Cybernatural, is finally hitting the street this summer. Now, retitled as Unfriended for North American audiences, is one of the first in a new generation of found-footage thrillers coming to Digital HD July 28, 2015 and Blu-ray, DVD and On Demand August 11, 2015, from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.

Like I said, we saw this fine film last year in Montreal at Fantasia with our own bloody eyes and gave it 4 skulls out of five (review here). We even had a chance to interview Leo Gabriadze, the director behind this genre redefining thriller, who strongly believes there will be lots of sequels to come.

I believe there will be a lot of sequels, said Gabriadze. Because of the world we live in it is impossible that people will not tell the stories that happen to them on the desktop. This is a very democratic time. If you have a computer and you know how to edit, if you have a couple friends who can play actors, there will be even more than with just a video camera, so film is a little bit more democratic. I encourage everybody to get their Skypes on and to tell their stories no matter which genre.

Those who still haven’t seen Unfriended, give a shot next month. We promise you’ll love it!

FILMMAKERS

Cast: Shelley Hennig, Moses Storm, Renee Olstead, Will Peltz, Jacob Wysocki, Courtney Halverson, Heather Sossamon
Directed By: Leo Gabriadze
Written By: Nelson Greaves
Produced By: Timur Bekmambetov, Nelson Greaves
Executive Produced By: Jason Blum
Director of Photography: Adam Sidman
Editors: Parker Laramie, Andrew Wesman
Production Designer: Heidi Koleto
Costume Designer: Veronika Belenikina

TECHNICAL INFORMATION BLU-RAY™:

Street Date: August 11, 2015
Copyright: 2015 Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Selection Number: 61168942
Layers: BD-50
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Rating: R for violent content, pervasive language, some sexuality, and drug and alcohol use – all involving teens.
Languages/Subtitles: English SDS
Sound: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Run Time: 1 hour, 23 minutes

TECHNICAL INFORMATION DVD:

Street Date: August 11, 2015
Copyright: 2015 Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Selection Number: 61168935
Layers: Dual
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Rating: R for violent content, pervasive language, some sexuality, and drug and alcohol use – all involving teens.
Languages/Subtitles: English SDS
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Run Time: 1 hour, 23 minutes

The day after screening Cybernatural‘s World Premiere on July 20th at Fantasia 2014, we had the chance to speak with the film’s director, Leo Gabriadze. The interview about the genre-redefining film, written by Nelson Greaves, was enlightening and interesting. Coming away from it, after learning that Leo was initially attracted to the project because of the bullying aspect, we have a sneaking suspicion that the soft-spoken Russian commercial director (who bears a physical similarity to Jean Reno) has a closer relationship to being bullied than he lets on.

Leo raised some good points about why Cybernatrual feels so familiar, despite its supernatural elements. We could tell that he also had some theological opinions that he wanted to express, but we didn’t feel it necessary to pursue that angle.

To set the scene, after having our Fantasia coordinator call Leo’s room and waking him from a siesta, we met up with Leo in his hotel’s courtyard under a blistering sun. As he smoked his slim cigarettes, we had to strain our ears to hear his words and we had to help him with his English in some spots, but in the end we came away with a great interview.

So, see Cybernatural whenever you can get the chance, and enjoy our interview with Leo Gabriadze.

Cybernatural made its World Premiere last night; how did you feel about the audience reaction?
I was surprised. It was very good, I thought. There were a lot of reactions, a lot of laughing, it felt like they were scared. It was good. [The audience] was very young, a lot of students, young professionals, it was closer to our demographic, maybe we could go younger a little bit.

What’s the rating on the movie?
We don’t have a rating. There’s a lot of cursing there, so I guess an R. I don’t know how it’s done in America, but there’s a lot of “fucks.”

The subject matter, it’s very close to what school teenagers go through at this point, so it would be a pity if they don’t get to see it because it is for them I guess because it’s very much what’s hurting them… of this epidemic that’s happening right now.

With cyberbullying?
Yes, cyberbullying. We all, more or less, went through that ourselves. We witnessed it firsthand. It’s scary, it’s ugliness… sometimes bullies themselves become bullied. Anybody can be a bully; it’s so easy to fall into that crack to become a bully. It’s out of control. I said from the stage yesterday, when I was a kid we had in school proper bullies; we knew them, we were scared of them, we lived around them, we knew that the guy could come and be really rough. Now they’re hiding everywhere and I can be one myself, that’s the most dangerous part about it.

When we were kids it was more of physical thing and now it’s psychological…
Yeah, it’s psychological. It used to go away. One week you’d walk around with this pain in your heart, you would wish nobody knew about it, now it never goes away. It’s there. And what happened now with Google being sued by the Spanaird that he had the right to be forgotten. Generally, for humans the ability to forget is a big thing to be happy. So much stuff happens in life with everybody that if we weren’t able to forget about it, we would be really unhappy people. And now with computers, because that thing doesn’t know how to forget, it’s all there and we’ve lost the ability to forget.

Also, the Q&A session after the film was partially held via Skype; was that the first time something like that has been tried?
Yeah, I never participated in anything like that. But it was somehow appropriate (laughs).

Will there be a Cybernatural sequel? Find out after the jump…