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The Den: Paranoid Internet Activity

The Den: Paranoid Internet Activity

Last updated on: September 12, 2026 at 2:12 pm by Chase Padusniak

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The Den: Paranoid Internet Activity 2026-09-12T14:12:12-04:00 Chase Padusniak

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The Russian poster for the film
Source: Wikipedia
Fair Use (for identification of film at the top of the review)

The Den (2013) is an amazing artifact of a time when we first realized the internet could be dangerous. I remember it well. As a child who played MMORPGs and spoke to people I shouldn’t have online, it felt like a moral panic. There was the Slenderman stabbing, that case in Canada where a child was cyberbullied and killed—both true, yes. But adults acted as if touching a computer meant you’d immediately go insane or be killed.

Funnily enough, they turned out to be right, though then blissfully unaware they’d be as much the victims of the brain-cooking machine as their grandchildren. But movies about this idea at the time—especially horror movies—had to take things to the extreme. And so, it’s hard to say The Den offers meaningful commentary on life online without serious exaggeration. This, however, does not mean it has nothing to say.

We All Live Inside the Den

In fact, its premise tells us substantially more about the time it came out than its execution. The Den follows Liz Benton (Melanie Papalia), a grad student obsessed with the Den, an Omegle rip-off. She wins a grant to record herself using the service. Her goal: investigate the ways in which the internet offers potential for intimate human connection across vast differences. I was chuffed to find that the movie does not shy away from the obvious: half the people she meets are naked, abrasive, and sexist. Anyone who has ever used a service like Chat Roulette will know how true to life this is.

But these slices of life do not, in the end, make up the majority of her work and research. Liz witnesses a murder live on the Den. Terrified, she solicits help from a friend, her boyfriend, and the police, all of whom doubt this was anything more than a troll. Soon, however, it becomes clear that the killer is hacking her computer, tormenting her with footage of her being intimate with her boyfriend, and threatening those around her.

The Den’s twist brings to mind Videodrome (1983), another (and much better) film about how technology shapes and mediates our desires. The gist is that Liz gets the sense of personal connection she hoped to find but in a substantially sadder, more soul-destroying way. And, for all the movie’s problems, it’s hard to argue with it on that front: for all the linkages we’ve formed, we’ve unleashed a hell of a lot of evil into the world. We all know too much about each other’s business. And the darkest corners of human desire are both more accessible and more marketable than ever.

Not a bad first outing in this screenlife series. Not too shabby. More to come.

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