By Keith Walther | Rose Law Group Reporter
Blumhouse Productions is quickly developing a reputation as a studio churning out lower budget, cash grab horror films with the sole intention of eking out a minimal profit and no effort being made on quality to actually entertain. “Afraid” is their latest horror production that stinks out loud, joining the ranks of their recent disasters like “Halloween Ends,” “Five Night at Freddy’s,” and “Imaginary.” This is a jumble of scenes hastily smushed together that barely resemble a cohesive plot of a movie.
Eccentric tech business owners Lightning (David Dastmalchian) and Sam (Ashley Romans) have an advanced artificial intelligence prototype called AIA that could revolutionize the way people live their daily lives. Curtis (John Cho) is presented the opportunity to test drive AIA in his home with his family to better understand how to market this dynamic product to the public. Curtis’ wife Meredith (Katherine Waterston) sees immediate benefits as AIA quickly learns and helps organize her hectic schedule with the kids to free up much needed time.
However, as to be expected, AIA becomes too self-aware, too obtrusive, and too aggressive when it comes to protecting her family. By the time Curtis and Meredith realize how powerful and manipulative AIA can be, it may be too late to turn it off. As it invades all family members’ personal devices, it hears and sees everything, and it takes exception to anyone wanting to take it down.
Writer/director Chris Weitz fails in just about every way to craft a quality horror film. Once the acclaimed screenwriter of “Rogue One,” arguably the best “Star Wars” movie since the original trilogy, Weitz’ writing has since plummeted with films like “Pinocchio,” “The Creator,” and now “Afraid.” This is all too close to being a direct rip-off of Disney’s “Smart House” from 1999. The only difference being the premise was converted to fit into the horror genre. Weitz doesn’t even make an attempt to incorporate any suspense, leading the audience on a journey into the realm of ambivalence and forgettability.
From the opening moments of the film, there is little to no cohesion of the scenes, culminating in an absolute mess of a storyline, riddled with obvious holes and leaving too many unanswered questions. It is also plagued by an overly slow pacing that makes the short 1 hour and 25-minute runtime feel grueling and excessive. Outside of exactly two legitimate jump scares, Weitz fails to generate any fear from a concept that should be easy to derive fear from with its modern-day applicability. Dressing up people with emoji screens for faces and having them do weird motions with their arms does not exactly strike terror in viewers. There is a cute reference to the ultimate classic film about AI, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” early in the film that becomes more of an insult after witnessing one of the worst endings in a film all year. One could almost imagine Will Smith’s enraged face shouting “Get ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ out your mother f***in’ mouth!”
Despite the horrific writing and direction, the acting does not contribute to this film’s failure. John Cho (“Searching”) is natural and believable as the loving father and husband with a healthy dose of common sense and skepticism. He even somehow makes his character of little depth likeable. It certainly helps to have a quality actress as his co-star. Katherine Waterston (“Fantastic Beasts” trilogy) also has that built-in likeability that makes her a protagonist viewers can rally behind. She does very well transitioning her character from an overwhelmed mother who neglects her own dreams to a protective mama bear intent on keeping her children safe. The supporting cast was not great, but they weren’t bad either. Even the children actors, who are normally painful to watch in these types of roles, were passable.
Despite having a very topical concept of AI turning into a malevolent force against humans, “Afraid” is so poorly executed and edited, it makes “M3gan” look like a brilliant horror film in comparison. This is another Blumhouse blunder to add to their ever-growing list. It’s bad enough to make you wish for the MPAA to adopt the NBA rule on flopping and start assessing fines to these studios.
This movie earns:
