Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
A young woman studying the habits of webcam chat users from the apparent safety of her apartment witnesses a brutal murder online and is quickly immersed in a nightmare in which she and her loved ones are targeted for the same grisly fate as the first victim.
The Den is a competent screenlife horror that uses its webcam/chat interface conceit effectively for its era, predating the bigger wave of screenlife films like Unfriended. The premise of witnessing a murder through an online chat platform and being drawn into a conspiracy is engaging enough to sustain tension through much of the runtime. However, the acting is fairly uneven, with the lead carrying more weight than the supporting cast can match. The ending leans into nihilism in a way that feels more mean-spirited than earned, undercutting the tension built earlier. Novelty is modest — the screenlife format was not entirely new in 2013, and the underlying slasher/conspiracy mechanics are fairly generic, but the specific execution through chat-roulette culture gives it some distinctiveness for its moment.