In a completely different and exciting story, where that story began with a teenager named William Opens. One day, William opened an online chat room where he met four other teenagers to manipulate them for his own purposes. Things change quite a while later, as William tries to get them to share their secrets and use that knowledge against them, which may be boring by young teens.
Unfortunately the scenes set in the real world (the locations include Camden Lock and the London Zoo) are stilted and unconvincing, while those in the chatrooms become increasingly tedious.
The gimmick is so poorly conceived that we spend most of the film converting what we are being shown into what is actually going on. It isn't worth the effort.
Plausible chills are offset by the film's clumsy youth-movie trimmings, which, through lurid visuals and ripe overacting by its largely unknown cast, drain most of the suspense and interest...
Nakata - here making his English language debut - fails to drum up much in the way of tension from the plot's hoky attempt to exploit fears about the existence of online suicide clubs.
Poorly written and badly acted, Chatroom squanders its only decent idea early on and rapidly descends into a shallow-minded, lifeless thriller that fails to engage on any level whatsoever.
'The Social Network' and 'Catfish' prove there are ripe films to be made on the dark side of web connectivity, but this is the rotten apple of the bunch.
