AFRAID Review

Well I hate that title. It's a horror movie about AI, what's wrong with it? I dunno Buggnutz, it just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe because of the way the pun is formatted. Looks dumb. Otherwise, I only got the trailer once, and my opinions was, "It's a horror movie Blumhouse is making a movie about the dangers of AI... Huh." Trailer looked alright. I like that the director is also the writer. I heard it was stupid from my coworkers and the reviews were bad, but this wouldn't time I've disagreed with both of those group of people about Blumhouse specifically in the past, so maybe this movie will be another Imaginary. I'm not exactly optimistic, but it could be something.

What's The Movie About?

A family gets chosen to host an AI called AIA (No way. Yep. Look at the poster.) and it slowly forces it's way into every aspect of their lives. But is it for the better? (No way. Yep. As in you are correct to say it isn't.)

What I Like.

I dig the premise, actually. To risk a spoiler, the story heads in a very Mommie Dearest direction with AIA's motivation and how she manipulates the family. I think it's a whole lot more realistic than the "Robot decides humans a weak/detrimental to their development/the real problem for the earth and so they will kill all humans" angle, anyway. I also like how AIA manipulates the kids, it was incredibly creepy and would absolutely work. They don't, like, try to stab their parents or anything so it's not ridiculous, AIA just bribes them and gaslights them into putting themselves in danger. The ending is pretty damn dark and I was there for it. There's actually a pretty interesting mystery about what AIA is specifically and I kinda dug where it ended up, it seemed like a pretty cool bit of satire. Speaking of which, the way that AIA takes over the main characters' lives was just the extreme of what AI is doing now, which was incredibly smart. I felt like the writer was doing the classic dystopian focus-on-one-aspect-of-society-and-make-it-absurd this which was pretty cool and scary. There were some pretty tense moments over all, especially when AIA is able to convince the younger kids into basically walking into danger. All the acting was good too (except the younger kids, which I will not hold against them or the movie), as well as the cinematography. Nothing too crazy cool, but there's some fun focus shots and I liked the actors who played the parents. 

What I Didn't Like.

The characters are kinda dumb. Almost all of them seem to flip flop on a dime on whether or not AIA is cool or totally evil, and none of them give a second thought to the AI taking over their phones until like, the end of the movie. The younger kid was fine, but the two other kids' plotlines my eyes were glazing over during. The older daughter's would have been fine as it's own separate movie, because it is weirdly horny! It's not just the teen's plotline, there's a couple other moments that I felt had out of place sex jokes. Prude. I mean, I guess, but the jokes weren't particularly gross or anything. They just felt out of place when the main plot is this very sterile, tech-corporate futurist atheistic. Also, while I liked the ending, it does feel like it jumped the shark a little bit. There's like five twists back to back and while none of them are particularly outlandish, it did make some parts of the climax seem absurd until I thought about it a little bit. And as tense as some scenes where, there was an equal amount that were trying to be scary and were either bland or silly.

My final point is that I can't figure out of this movie uses AI art or not. It seems like they do, but it's purposefully bad and uncanny because it's supposed to part of the message of the movie. They credit a company for the digital images, and when I looked it up all the articles where about how the story of the movie talks about the dangers of AI images. (Which, I don't need to say this, but the images aren't strictly speaking the problem. Most sensible people can tell they are fake. The problem is that people will use an AI generated images instead of hiring an artist, thus giving money to a big tech company than a flesh and blood human being.) But isn't it on theme to use AI art in this movie? It's all about how dangerous AI is. Read my aside closer. Can you guess what I'm about say? *Sigh* To pay an artist to fak- PAY AN ARTIST TO FAKE IT, YES. Give no quarter everyone. Read my Late Night With Devil review or listen to the Video Brews podcast about the Borderlands to see what I mean about this. Man you've really sold out Roan. I'M SELF PROMOTING. Also I don't get paid for any of this shit.

Final Summation.

This movie's aight. It's biggest failing is that it tried to bridge the gap between a sterile horror sci-fi dystopia, and a some-what grimy slasher modern 'splotation movie that creates tonal dissonance. I'm annoyed it's not better to be perfectly frank. The movie is a great idea, but tries to spread itself too thin. Still, worth a watch. But not worth a "How I'd Fix It'? Nah. I'd have to rewrite the whole movie, not just a few parts. And if I'm gonna do that I need to get a writer's credit, got it?