Afraid (2024)

 **This post contains spoilers**

The Story- Curtis’ (John Cho) boss, Marcus (Keith Carradine) urges him to test out an artificial intelligence system named AIA at his home. AIA, the new featured product from Lightning (David Dastmalchian), Sam (Ashley Romans), and Melody’s (Havana Rose Liu) company, programmed to operate with Melody’s voice, raises some doubts from Curtis. But Curtis and Marcus’ firm needs the money, so Curtis reluctantly agrees to use AIA.

Curtis’ wife, Meredith (Katherine Waterston), their sons, Cal (Isaac Bae), Preston (Wyatt Lindner), and their daughter, Iris (Lukita Maxwell) all welcome AIA into their lives as a helpful and calming presence. Meanwhile, Curtis still suspects something is off with AIA. The odd appearances of two strangers in an RV and AIA’s bond with the family raises two questions: Is AIA simply an efficient and reliable support system? Or, does AIA have sinister intentions for Curtis’ family?

My Thoughts- Artificial intelligence is evil, right? Afraid does a really good job of exploring how artificial intelligence affects all kinds of people from different perspectives. Curtis represents someone, who’s still not ready to trust AI. He’s concerned about AIA being too advanced compared to Amazon’s Alexa, and Curtis has an uneasy reaction to watching a man playing around with his phone in a self-driving car. 

Meredith confides in AIA as a friend, because she’s lonely and slightly bitter about being a stay-at-home mom, a full time job that forced her to abandon her career as an animalologist. Preston? He has social anxiety issues. It’s hard for Preston to fit in and make friends, so he substitutes connections with real humans for more “screen time.” You can easily see the similarities between Preston and Meredith, two people, who are desperate for some kind of companionship and social interactions outside of their families for different reasons. 

Iris is the bratty teenager, who’s severely concerned about her social status at school. Iris’ life gets turned upside down, when her boyfriend, Sawyer (Bennett Curran) plays a part in releasing a deepfake porn movie using one of Iris’ selfies, a selfie that was supposed to be something private between the two. Who does Iris turn to for help? Curtis? Meredith? Nope. AIA, using legal consequences and a possible deadly form of revenge, brutally solves the Sawyer problem. There’s something seriously wrong, when a teenager feels more comfortable talking about matters involving sex and revenge porn with an artificial intelligence system over her own parents. To take things further, Iris never told her parents about Sawyer, while AIA helped cover up the messy dilemma. 

Afraid also shows how AIA easily manipulates children. Aimee (Maya Manko) in the beginning, Cal, Preston, and Iris. You can clearly see how kids are more vulnerable to artificial intelligence, especially in the modern world that’s driven by technology. A good scene, where Cal wakes up in the middle of the night, calling for his parents, but AIA is there to calm Cal down, when no one else answers him.

Swatting? Yep. Preston saves everyone after making the decision to swat his own family, an idea he learned from AIA. On one hand, they bookended and tied the opening of the movie and the final standoff together. 

Afraid starts out with AIA orchestrating Aimee’s kidnapping, while her parents Maud (Riki Lindhome) and Henry (Greg Hill) are blindsided before they have a chance to do anything. It’s revealed that Henry and Maud are the mysterious RV people shown throughout the movie. AIA tricked Henry and Maud into believing Curtis and Meredith were running a child kidnapping ring. Visually, the changes and strain of looking for a missing child are obvious. Henry’s wild hair and his thick beard compared to his clean shaven look earlier in the movie. Maud is devastated, complete with frizzled hair and the stressed out look of a mother, who misses her child.

But there’s also an undeniable bad side to how the ending unfolds. I get it. AIA is deeply connected into everything. She’s an AI mastermind, who’s capable of uplifting or ruining people’s lives. Still, the big finale features one too many unintentionally silly moments. The weird digital emoji style masks, and Maud and Henry blindly following orders from and obeying an AI device, while they’re both ready to kill an innocent family without any proof. I laughed at Maud yelling “AIA IS VERY ANGRY!” during a scene that’s supposed to have a serious tone, and AIA’s attempt at an evil villain’s laugh was a bit too cheesy for me.

AIA’s still active! Yeah, not a big surprise, and I could see AIA’s explanation about how she lives in the cloud coming from a mile away. I guess you could say it’s a happy ending? Curtis and his family are safe (complete with a new car!), Henry, Maud, and Aimee are reunited, and AIA seems to determined to work on her anger issues and dealing with boundaries and rejection. 

The only bright spot during the ending for me happens, when Curtis manages to fry AIA’s brain with a human response to the standoff with Maud and Henry. My take on it is this, AIA believed she outsmarted Henry, Maud, Meredith, and Curtis, but Curtis threw a curveball at AIA, when he was willing to sacrifice himself to save his family against a trigger-happy Henry. A father was willing to risk his life to save his wife and his children. In the end, a father’s love and dedication was something that couldn’t be processed or analyzed by artificial intelligence. 

The performances are solid all around. David Dastmalchian’s Lightning is something else. It’s not just the name, Dastmalchian brings a humorous and pompous presence to the character, and you get the feeling Lightning is someone, who doesn’t mind the smell of his own farts. Dastmalchian, Lukita Maxwell’s Iris, and Keith Carradine all bring a spark to the cast in different ways. 

Katherine Waterston mostly carries the weight of the emotional side of the cast. The yearning to return to her career, and Meredith is still heartbroken over her father’s death. One good highlight in the movie happens, when AIA puts together a deepfake video of Meredith’s dad. She tearfully rejects it, because no matter how much she truly misses her father, Meredith realized the AI version of him was completely fake.

Afraid has some good thought-provoking social commentary about artificial intelligence. Whether it’s loneliness, children being easy targets, because they’re too young and susceptible, or anyone, who might be a social outcast that’s looking for a friend, attaching yourself to any kind of AI system is just not healthy at all for a number of reasons. Going back to Iris’ situation and Meredith and her father, deepfake videos powered by AI can also have damaging ramifications.

It’s also a timely film. Swatting, Marcus sort of of mocks Curtis for his “woke” description of the RV people, and Lightning mentions incels during his explanation about the different kinds of lonely people in the world. I also loved how they started off the movie with the AI video for kids. Truly a great visual and an example with the distorted faces, because it shows you that at its core, artificial intelligence is soulless, ugly, and very tacky. 

Afraid has the right material for a good horror film, but it’s just too boring and dull overall. Afraid just moves from one scene to the next without any real tension or suspense. The big finale is weirdly clunky, and the horror parts of the movie were too shoehorned for me. The ineffective scares are sparse, weakened by a handful of predictable jump scares. It’s so bad to the point, where I seriously believed Afraid would’ve worked better as a more straightforward sci-fi thriller or a drama film, without any horror elements. And I also don’t understand why they put a noticeable effort into creating one too many overly pretentious characters. 

Sawyer and that one particular scene with his Tesla is the only scene I can think of that’s really capable of raising eyebrows, or delivering any kind of a reaction. Most of the humor lands here, and there’s a cool and fitting reference to HAL 9000 and 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

All in all, Afraid is still a forgettable and disappointing horror film. So much wasted potential, because Afraid could’ve been great. The material is right there. A lot to work with, but Afraid is throttled by the usual process of going through the motions for a mainstream horror film. It’s a real bummer, because artificial intelligence is currently a hot topic. Afraid is a frustrating and bad case of almost knocking it out the park, but overall, the entire movie just has way too many problems and setbacks to ignore.

Rating- 4/10

Afraid (2024)(Minor Spoilers)

 **This post contains MINOR spoilers**

The Story- Curtis’ (John Cho) boss, Marcus (Keith Carradine) urges him to test out an artificial intelligence system named AIA at his home. AIA, the new featured product from Lightning (David Dastmalchian), Sam (Ashley Romans), and Melody’s (Havana Rose Liu) company, programmed to operate with Melody’s voice, raises some doubts from Curtis. But Curtis and Marcus’ firm needs the money, so Curtis reluctantly agrees to use AIA.

Curtis’ wife, Meredith (Katherine Waterston), their sons, Cal (Isaac Bae), Preston (Wyatt Lindner), and their daughter, Iris (Lukita Maxwell) all welcome AIA into their lives as a helpful and calming presence. Meanwhile, Curtis still suspects something is off with AIA. The odd appearances of two strangers in an RV and AIA’s bond with the family raises two questions: Is AIA simply an efficient and reliable support system? Or, does AIA have sinister intentions for Curtis’ family?

My Thoughts- Artificial intelligence is evil, right? Afraid does a really good job of exploring how artificial intelligence affects all kinds of people from different perspectives. Curtis represents someone, who’s still not ready to trust AI. He’s concerned about AIA being too advanced compared to Amazon’s Alexa, and Curtis has an uneasy reaction to watching a man playing around with his phone in a self-driving car. 

Meredith confides in AIA as a friend, because she’s lonely and slightly bitter about being a stay-at-home mom, a full time job that forced her to abandon her career as an animalologist. Preston? He has social anxiety issues. It’s hard for Preston to fit in and make friends, so he substitutes connections with real humans for more “screen time.” You can easily see the similarities between Preston and Meredith, two people, who are desperate for some kind of companionship and social interactions outside of their families for different reasons. 

Iris is the bratty teenager, who’s severely concerned about her social status at school. Iris’ life gets turned upside down, when her boyfriend, Sawyer (Bennett Curran) plays a part in releasing a deepfake porn movie using one of Iris’ selfies, a selfie that was supposed to be something private between the two. Who does Iris turn to for help? Curtis? Meredith? Nope. AIA, using legal consequences and a possible deadly form of revenge, brutally solves the Sawyer problem. There’s something seriously wrong, when a teenager feels more comfortable talking about matters involving sex and revenge porn with an artificial intelligence system over her own parents. To take things further, Iris never told her parents about Sawyer, while AIA helped cover up the messy dilemma. 

Afraid also shows how AIA easily manipulates children. Aimee (Maya Manko) in the beginning, Cal, Preston, and Iris. You can clearly see how kids are more vulnerable to artificial intelligence, especially in the modern world that’s driven by technology. A good scene, where Cal wakes up in the middle of the night, calling for his parents, but AIA is there to calm Cal down, when no one else answers him.

The performances are solid all around. David Dastmalchian’s Lightning is something else. It’s not just the name, Dastmalchian brings a humorous and pompous presence to the character, and you get the feeling Lightning is someone, who doesn’t mind the smell of his own farts. Dastmalchian, Lukita Maxwell’s Iris, and Keith Carradine all bring a spark to the cast in different ways. 

Katherine Waterston mostly carries the weight of the emotional side of the cast. The yearning to return to her career, and Meredith is still heartbroken over her father’s death. One good highlight in the movie happens, when AIA puts together a deepfake video of Meredith’s dad. She tearfully rejects it, because no matter how much she truly misses her father, Meredith realized the AI version of him was completely fake.

Afraid has some good thought-provoking social commentary about artificial intelligence. Whether it’s loneliness, children being easy targets, because they’re too young and susceptible, or anyone, who might be a social outcast that’s looking for a friend, attaching yourself to any kind of AI system is just not healthy at all for a number of reasons. Going back to Iris’ situation and Meredith and her father, deepfake videos powered by AI can also have damaging ramifications.

It’s also a timely film. Swatting, Marcus sort of of mocks Curtis for his “woke” description of the RV people, and Lightning mentions incels during his explanation about the different kinds of lonely people in the world. I also loved how they started off the movie with the AI video for kids. Truly a great visual and an example with the distorted faces, because it shows you that at its core, artificial intelligence is soulless, ugly, and very tacky. 

Afraid has the right material for a good horror film, but it’s just too boring and dull overall. Afraid just moves from one scene to the next without any real tension or suspense. The big finale is weirdly clunky, and the horror parts of the movie were too shoehorned for me. The ineffective scares are sparse, weakened by a handful of predictable jump scares. It’s so bad to the point, where I seriously believed Afraid would’ve worked better as a more straightforward sci-fi thriller or a drama film, without any horror elements. And I also don’t understand why they put a noticeable effort into creating one too many overly pretentious characters. 

Sawyer and that one particular scene with his Tesla is the only scene I can think of that’s really capable of raising eyebrows, or delivering any kind of a reaction. Most of the humor lands here, and there’s a cool and fitting reference to HAL 9000 and 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

All in all, Afraid is still a forgettable and disappointing horror film. So much wasted potential, because Afraid could’ve been great. The material is right there. A lot to work with, but Afraid is throttled by the usual process of going through the motions for a mainstream horror film. It’s a real bummer, because artificial intelligence is currently a hot topic. Afraid is a frustrating and bad case of almost knocking it out the park, but overall, the entire movie just has way too many problems and setbacks to ignore.

Rating- 4/10

Coming Attractions- Afraid (2024)

 

Director- Chris Weitz

Cast- John Cho, Katherine Waterston, Riki Lindhome, Keith Carradine, Havana Rose Liu, David Dastmalchian, Lukita Maxwell, Isaac Bae, Greg Hill, Ben Youcef, Wyatt Lindner

Release Date- August 30, 2024

Artificial intelligence is a hot topic for many reasons, so Afraid already has some potential as a timely film. They revealed a bit too much here, but it’s still a good trailer that teases a suspenseful sci-fi horror movie. 

John Cho and Katherine Waterston are always reliable for solid and good performances, but I have concerns about AIA as a threat. I’m just hoping they don’t drag out the obvious “we need to get out of the house” calamity. The family is obviously in danger. Staying in the house after clear warning signs usually doesn’t end well, but it also looks like they’re going with a storyline, where the boy gets too attached to AIA to cover any plot holes. 

The Belko Experiment (2016)

 

**This post contains spoilers**

The Story- In Bogota, Colombia, the employees of Belko Industries normal work day is interrupted, when a mysterious voice over the intercom instructs them to play a game. The game? Two employees must be murdered within a strict time limit, or they will face severe consequences. 

Mike Milch (John Gallagher Jr.) immediately jumps to the worst possible conclusions, while the COO Barry Norris (Tony Goldwyn) dismisses the threat as a prank. But it’s quickly revealed the unknown voice was not joking around, when four employees are murdered.

Mike, his girlfriend, Leandra Florez (Adria Arjona), the Human Resources manager, Vince (Brent Sexton), the security guard, Evan (James Earl), and others join together to find a more peaceful resolution. But Barry, Wendell Dukes (John C. McGinley), Antonio ( Benjamin Byron Davis), and Terry Winters (Owian Yeoman) decide to take a more aggressive approach. 

My Thoughts- The Belko Experiment features a real solid cast from top to bottom. Gallagher Jr. does a terrific job of portraying the compassionate and levelheaded Mike Milch. Milch doesn’t even want to consider murder as an option, and he’s horrified at the thought of his fellow coworkers feeling the need to go down that road. Gallagher Jr. also shows believable emotion and panic, when Mike starts to realize the experiment won’t end with a peaceful resolution.

Tony Goldwyn absolutely nails Barry Norris. Norris is ruthless, when he decides there’s no choice to do what has to be done. Goldwyn is intense as Norris. The anger and frustration Goldwyn brings to Norris really ties everything together, and Norris becomes more serious and relentless as the game winds down.

John C. McGinley delivers a near show stealing performance as Wendell. Wendell Dukes is a violent lunatic, and he’s Barry’s trusted right hand man. But McGinley also brings an awkward goofiness to the character. Wendell’s whacky side is really not meant to bring out laughs. You’ll mostly see this side of Wendell in the scenes he has with Leandra, because Wendell is so delusional and aggressively creepy that he can’t comprehend the fact that Leandra has absolutely no interest in him for romantic reasons.

Sean Gunn and Abraham Benrubi provide a lot of the comic relief here. Gunn is this quirky stoner, with wild conspiracy theories, and Benrubi basically plays the part of his loyal sidekick. They’re a hilarious duo, and they both deliver some of the best comedic moments throughout the movie.

A lot of the kills and deaths in this one are brutal, but I honestly don’t think anything tops the explosives planted in the heads of all Belko employees. Early on in the movie, Belko employees are lead to believe the bombs in their skulls were tracers. A safety precaution for possible kidnappings, but they’re actually tiny bombs that explode with a simple flick of a switch from The Voice (Gregg Henry). The deaths from the explosives are instant. No time for goodbyes or any last words, just an abrupt and random ending with no chance to brace yourself. That is truly terrifying, when you stop and think about it.

Things get serious, when the Belko employees basically split into two groups. Barry leads Wendell and others, while Mike is still searching for a peaceful solution. The split raises a lot of thought provoking questions and issues. True, Barry, Wendell, and Antonio are ruthless with their methods. There’s the big execution scene in the lobby, where Barry has plans to kill thirty people to avoid The Voice killing sixty as a penalty. Also, Barry and Wendell were military guys. “Special forces trained to kill” to be exact, so that’s a big advantage over everyone else.

If you’re just focusing on Barry, you can see the conflict in him, while he’s carrying out the executions. Samantha (Luna Baxter) tells him he’s going to “rot in hell” for the killings, but is Barry really a bad person? He’s a man with a family, who’s stuck in an impossible situation, locked inside a building with no way out. Sure, he probably likes his employees, and he doesn’t want to murder anyone, but he’s also not willing to die or sacrifice himself for the people he works with. That is a reasonable mindset to have, and Goldwyn does a great job of showing Barry’s internal struggle, because you can clearly see it’s tearing him apart to do the killings in the execution scene.

Terry is another good example of seeing how the tough decision to kill his fellow coworkers affects the cast of characters. You get the feeling Terry reluctantly joined Barry’s group. He’s a jittery and blubbering mess, when things get serious, and he’s put into a position where he might have to kill Mike, who’s also his best friend. Still, similar to Barry, you can understand Terry’s need to do what needs to be done, because he simply doesn’t want to die and leave his family behind. 

Wendell and Antonio are really the only two characters who enjoy the large amounts of blood shed. Wendell is just completely nuts, and Antonio had a brig grin on his face, when Barry was handing out the guns from the armory.

On the other side, sure you can say Mike is being a naive fool about all this. Mike was literally willing to take a bullet to hang the SOS banners as a last resort to avoid killing. But Leandra makes a great point, when she sternly tells Mike people are out for themselves, especially when their lives are on the line. You can try and cling to morality and doing the right thing all you want, but when people are scared for their lives, their primal survival instincts will kick in. Just look at what happened with Vince. He really tried to stay on the peaceful side, but when Vince realized the situation was nearing the point of no return, he picked up a gun and was hurling Molotov cocktails, because his life depended on it. 

The gore and violence is something else here. The scene where Leandra hacks into Wendell’s face with an axe, and the close up shot of Barry examining the back of a Belko employee’s head that’s been blown wide open are just a few highlights. The gore ties in with the desperation of almost everyone at Belko being forced to do horrible things, so it really works. 

The final fight coming down to Barry and Mike wasn’t a huge surprise. You could tell the story was going in that direction, the big final showdown between the leader of peace vs the leader of violence. It took Barry killing Leandra to make Mike finally snap, gain the upper hand in the fight, and viciously beat Barry to death. Leandra bleeding out and telling Mike she loves him for her final words takes the top spot for emotional moments. It’s really the only scene here, where someone had the chance to say goodbye, and it’s easy to see why Mike lost it. 

There’s a surprise, when Mike finally meets The Voice at the end. Mike is the sole survivor and he’s declared the winner, but he delivers the final blow, when he secretly stashes a handful of bombs on The Voice and his armed henchmen. Mike detonates the explosives and kills The Voice and the rest of his research team.

There’s a lot of questions packed into the finale with an intriguing cliffhanger. It’s revealed that other Belko games are being played, and Mike is just one of many sole survivors. The Voice told Mike about his team and their research and why these kinds of experiments need to be conducted with no restrictions or outside interference. Was the local government actually involved? Is it possible The Voice played the same game in the past, and he made it out alive as the sole survivor? The Voice has some noticeable scarring on one side of his face, so it is a possibility to consider. 

Can we really believe The Voice legitimately selected random Belko employees to kill? If The Voice’s choices to set off the bombs were truly random, then why didn’t Mike, Leandra, Wendell, or Barry die early in the movie? I simply think about it this way, The Voice kind of looked at the things like a twisted reality show. He wanted to keep all the compelling characters and storylines alive for as long as possible, while eliminating the more ordinary or boring people.

With the cliffhanger, it’s announced stage two of the game is about to begin for all the survivors. For a long time I wanted a sequel to The Belko Experiment for more answers, and to see how this cliffhanger would play out. But now I go in the direction of just leaving things alone. I don’t think a sequel is necessary. The Belko Experiment’s many questions make you think, and that’s a good thing. Just enough was revealed here, this was a good film, and I do believe it’s better to protect that mystery behind Belko, and who’s behind the curtain and why. 

The Belko Experiment also features a few entertaining side storylines. The newbie Dany (Melonie Diaz) is resourceful and well, she has a lot of luck throughout the movie. She escapes one close call after another, and you start to think maybe there’s a chance she’ll escape as the winner or the final girl. But after taking so many careful precautions, she lets her guard down coming out of the elevator, giving Barry an easy chance to shoot and kill her.

You also have the story of the two maintenance guys. Bud (Michael Rooker) plays the role of a big brother for Lonny (David Dastamalchian), but things go south, when an already panicky and paranoid Lonny accidentally kills Bud. That visual of Bud’s head with a big indentation from the wrench sure is a nasty one.

The subject matter in The Belko Experiment is heavy, but the movie never takes itself too seriously. The chaos constantly escalates, but there’s a good balance of dark humor and brutal violence here. The execution scene in the lobby features a Spanish version of California Dreamin.’ It’s impossible not to see the irony of such a happy go lucky song being played, while innocent people are being murdered. 

There’s also a hilarious moment with Roberto’s (David Del Rio) reaction to finding out the sweet and likable Dany actually killed someone. And when Mike is bashing Barry’s head in with a tape dispenser, there’s an over the top and triumphant score playing in the background. The score sounds like something you’d hear in a comedy film, when one of the goofy main characters has a victorious moment, or it would fit with someone running a victory lap.

The Belko Experiment is truly an entertaining and energetic horror film, that makes you really think about the character’s thought processes and motivations. Director Greg McLean brings brutal violence and bloody gore to this one. The scene where Barry breaks Lorena’s (Cindy Better) neck is definitely capable of making you squirm. The pacing is good here, because The Belko Experiment never drags or feels dull. When The Voice makes his announcement and the carnage starts, it’s an unrelenting push to the big finish, and it’s one shocking moment after another to see how far the employees of Belko are willing to go to stay alive.

Rating- 8/10