Laura Barneveld (January 4, 1996 - April 12, 2013) is the main anti-heroic antagonist of the film Unfriended. She was a high school junior who died by suicide after shooting herself in the head on April 12, 2013, after an embarrassing video was posted online by her friends. One year later, she returns for vengeance as a malevolent spirit.
She is portrayed by Heather Sossaman
Biography[]
Laura Barns was born on January 4, 1996, in Fresno, California. She was seen as a nerd among her classmates, and was a victim of sex-bullying which led to her dying by suicide on April 12, 2013, after an embarrassing video was taken of her being drunk, and eventually passing out, excreting herself beforehand. An anonymous person posted that video to YouTube soon after.
After unfortunately ending her life, her suicide went viral, with stories across the news and several websites documenting the story, most prominently LiveLeak, which had a video of her suicide. Her Facebook memorial page was also famous, having over 80 likes during the events of the film. Before her suicide, she had a Skype account named "billie227," which she femininely named after her twin brother, Billy Barns. It has also been implied (but never confirmed) that Laura was sexually harassed and molested by her uncle.
Although she has a seemingly nice and charming personality, Laura is seen taunting Val at a party, and Ken later states that she was a bully who deserved what she got, a comment others such as Mitch agreed with. Laura also posted a hate-video where she holds up messages to her bullies, insulting them. As a demon she is completely morbid and merciless; leading to her killing off her former friends in extremely violent and gruesome ways, often with slow, excruciatingly painful results.
Before the events of "Unfriended," it was known she had been best friends with Blaire Lily since childhood. According to Blaire they were like "sisters', however in their first two years of high school, the two drifted apart as Blaire became more popular, while Laura became a sort of bully.
Appearances[]
Unfriended[]
On April 8, 2014, exactly one year after she commits suicide, she logs onto her Skype and Facebook as a demon and begins tormenting her former friends, forcing Blaire, Mitch, Ken, Adam and Jess into a Skype chat (with Blaire inviting Val into the chat later on). Her friends at first assume her presence in the Skype chat to be nothing more than a glitch, until, in Val's words, "the glitch just typed", revealing her presence.
At first, the attacks are fairly mild; they include sending Skype/Facebook messages on somebody's behalf, posting pictures of Val being drunk and smoking out of a bong, and disabling the "Forward" option in an e-mail. The attacks progressively get worse, and eventually she kills her first target, Val. After Val calls 911, Laura sends a threat and a screen grab that implicates Val in Laura's suicide, she forces her to drink bleach. Val's mirror is also broken, implying Laura may also have forced her to cut herself with broken pieces of the mirror; Val's death is concluded as a suicide by the police.
Laura tells the others that she wishes to play a game. Shortly after, Ken gets everyone to mute their microphones (which Laura is able to turn back on moments later) and takes advantage of the situation by sending a Trojan Anti-Virus program to "uninstall Laura". Finally, after everyone deletes their files, she is banished from the group chat. However, she comes back after Adam attempts to call 911 for help, before killing Ken by forcing him to destroy his arm and neck with his own blender. It is unknown as to whether this was because Laura had a grudge against Ken and/or if it was purely because of Ken's computer skills posing a threat to her scheme.
She then slowly kills off everyone in the group chat one by one, taunting and tormenting them, while also destroying their friendships beforehand with a game of Never Have I Ever, with the added difference that the losers die instead of taking a drink.
At the end of the film, when it is revealed that Blaire was the one that filmed the video that caused her to commit suicide, she reveals this new information on her Facebook account, with people posting comments that Blaire is responsible for her death. Laura's final words in the film is that she wishes she could forgive Blaire for what she did and she then logs off of Skype, but she didn't. Blaire sits in front of her laptop, horrified by what has happened, until her bedroom door suddenly creaks open, after which her laptop is violently closed before she is then attacked, and presumably killed by a demonic-looking Laura.
Abilities[]
As a malevolent spirit/demon, Laura was able to manipulate electrical/electronic devices in a variety of ways, such as sending messages from other's people social media accounts and turning on and off lights and microphones despite never being seen anywhere near the vicinity. She could also take control of people's bodies, allowing her to force others to hurt and/or kill themselves while they could only watch and feel the pain of her actions.
While it is never confirmed as to how she knew many of the facts she forced to surface or how she obtained the video of Blaire filming the video that led to Laura's suicide, it's possible that as a spirit/demon she had the ability to go back and forth in time and witness these events. This would be supported by how unlikely it would be for someone to film/witness Blaire filming the video and staying quiet after Laura's suicide.
Trivia[]
- Her death mirrors the real life suicide of Audrie Pott:
- Both were humiliated across the globe because of photos and a video that had spread across social media showing them in an intoxicated state.
- Both were harassed and mocked by her best friends.
- Both events and suicides happened in California.
- Both were very popular at their respective schools.
- All of Laura's kills involve using the main characters personal attachments as a form of irony:
- Val was revealed to be a stoner; she is killed by being forced to drink bleach.
- Ken constantly brags about his new blender to his friends. Later, both his right arm and throat were both forcefully shoved into the blender.
- Adam was an alcoholic and loved guns. He carried his father's revolver and would carelessly fling it around. He is later forced to shoot himself in the head with it. Interestingly enough
- Jess was obsessed with her hair and its appearance. She is killed by choking on a scalding hot curling iron.
- Mitch liked to use his hunting knife to roleplay as he and Blaire have cyber sex. Later, he is forced to shove the knife deep into his eye.
- Blaire was obsessed with keeping her good-girl image, while hiding a nasty side of herself. Her good-girl image is destroyed and her dark secrets are revealed to the public forever.
- It is implied that Laura went to Hell after she died. She possesses several demon-like abilities, and also says things like "You wouldn't like it here, Val" after Val threatens to find her and beat her up. Laura was also a Jewish Catholic, and the Jewish Catholic Church has the belief that those who commit suicide are sent to Hell.
- Her zodiac sign is Capricorn.Actually. due to the main cast bullying Laura.
- Val: She was born and raised in Fresno, California. After Laura possesses the Skype chat, she forces Val to drink bleach. Since the mirror behind her appears to be broken, she could have been forced to also cut her wrists. The police later label her death as suicide.
- Adam: He had an affair with his best friend, Mitch's girlfriend Blaire twice and didn't tell him. At the party where the Laura suicide video was filmed, Adam was there and date-raped a girl named Ashley Dane. He also gave drugs to Laura while at the party. Three days later, Laura Barns killed herself by shooting herself.
- Ken: Also known as Kennington in his Skype account, he was a high school student and a protagonist of Unfriended. He was one of the invites of the Skype chat that Laura Barns entered to get revenge .
- Blaire: She had devils tango with her boyfriend's best friend named Adam and later had more physical intimacy with him to see if it was "something more." She filmed the video of Laura collapsed with fecal matter decorating her inner thigh and made hateful comments that led to Laura's suicide of stabbing.
- Jess: She is one of the main characters in Unfriended. She was one of the causes of Laura Barns' death, by defacing her grave and cyberbullying her after the video was posted.
- Blaire receives comments of the video of what she did to Laura. Blaire, who was the true culprit of taking the video, adamantly refuses to confess that she was responsible for the video and watches as her friends die one after another. She causes the death of Adam after she reveals a note from Laura that reads "If you reveal this note, Adam will die," and tries to save herself by blaming Mitch for the video, causing him to kill himself by stabbing himself in the eye, kind of how Laura killed herself with stabbing. But it turns out, she was just guilty for posting the video. When all the others are dead, she tries to reason with Laura, but Laura tells her she cannot forgive her for what she did. She posts a video on Blaire's Facebook page, showing that she was the one who filmed Laura collapsed and gleefully declared to the camera "I got her!" Angry comments start pouring in, blaming her for Laura's death when she stabbed herself. Laura tells Blare that her crime will live on the internet forever.