Not all wars are fought with guns and bombs. The latest weapon in information warfare is social media. Russia may have hacked emails of political operatives, it was social media where the information was disseminated and weaponized. On the personal scale, social media is weaponized on a daily basis and can be used as a means of character assassination. That’s the central concept behind writer-director Sam Levinson‘s Assassination Nation, which premiered earlier this year to rave reviews at the Sundance Film Festival.
A quartet of teenagers — Lily (Odessa Young), Bex (Hari Nef), Em (Abra) and Sarah (Suki Waterhouse) — have never lived in a time before the internet, and most of their lives have been broadcast through social media. When their town is rocked by a massive phone hacking operation that leads to a dump of embarrassing information, the denizens of the town seek answers and retribution for the act. Eventually, blame falls upon Lily and it’s up to her and her friends to clear their names and stand up against a mob that has formed outside the confines of the internet.
Check out the red band trailer for Assassination Nation (NSFW, obviously) ahead of its release into theaters on September 21, 2018 from Neon
The official synopsis for Assassination Nation:
High school senior Lily and her group of friends live in a haze of texts, posts, selfies and chats just like the rest of the world. So, when an anonymous hacker starts posting details from the private lives of everyone in their small town, the result is absolute madness leaving Lily and her friends questioning whether they’ll live through the night.
