From the co-director of The Golden Compass and About a Boy comes a noncommittal horror downgrade allergic to plotted follow-throughs. Chris Weitz’s Afraid — er, AfrAId (stop) — can’t decide which generic “AI is evil!” route to follow. Kernels of decent techno-horror commentaries never pop, whether that’s Weitz’s bungle or studio tampering that hacks away any intrigue from this low-power Smart House remix. It’s a Frankenstein’ed monstrosity made of different horror approaches, except instead of bringing something to life, unrevivable ideas remain limp and useless.

What Is ‘Afraid’ About?

John Cho stars as marketing executive Curtis, a screen-policing father living a comfortable Los Angeles lifestyle. His wife, Meredith (Katherine Waterston), plays stay-at-home mother despite never completing her entomology dissertation. Curtis’ latest account is an artificial intelligence developer run by “The Kids,” aka Sam (Ashley Romans) and Lightning (David Dastmalchian). The product? An Alexa on steroids dubbed AIA — that Curtis’ family welcomes into their home so he can determine how best to sell the digital helper to consumers.

Somewhere in this slop of demonic imagery, cultist followings, and cyberterror blackmail, Weitz sparks healthy concerns about training supercomputers with social media wastelands. AIA “learns” by scrubbing the internet, including Reddit forums and Twitter outrage — the worst of the worst. That, right there, is a tantalizing horror experiment about godlike Cloud entities uploading Hilter’s Holocaust blueprints, Skynet’s uprising, and countless other atrocities (real or fake). It’s nothing revolutionary by logical standards, but in cinematic form, it could have executed a more streamlined thriller that takes a stance on AI’s inevitable upheaval.

As is, Afraid doesn’t have an opinion. There’s no blustery message. Despite AI being such a hot-button topic, Weitz stays vapidly middle-of-the-road and closes his film like he’s triggered an ejector’s seat. Excuse the double reference, but AIA is essentially Frankenstein’s monster, created and failed by humankind because of our hubris, our foolishness — take your pick. The thematic surge is right there, but instead, Weitz plays horror Mad Libs with short-sighted scares that don’t evolve into anything more than a cheap gasp.

‘Afraid’ Is Inconsistent Horror
Image via Sony Pictures

There needs to be more consistency on screen. One minute, a legitimate monster apparates through a solid wooden door. The next, LED-masked intruders (I’ll dub them the Emoji Army) present human threats. Then, there’s AIA, who not-so-sneakily brainwashes Curtis’ children — teens Iris (Lukita Maxwell) and Preston (Wyatt Lindner), littlest Cal (Isaac Bae). Sam and Lightning’s employees dress like a Silicon Valley cult, and a creepy RV parked outside Curtis’ property conceals glitchy figures, but it’s too much for Weitz to handle. Elements aren’t coexisting peacefully, and loosely wound concepts unravel during a finale that renders at least half the overlapping subplots nonsensical. Much like AI’s infiltration of society, the film’s ending is inevitable — but I don’t know what Weitz wants us to think about either.

Weitz’s character designs are baffling, especially cartoonish antagonists like Iris’ AI-sex-tape-leaking boyfriend (Bennett Curran), who is so comically revolting but doesn’t fit the film’s otherwise serious tone. Curtis’ boss, Marcus (Keith Carradine), is laughably greedy — once again a goofy caricature who clashes with laughless tones. Then there’s Curtis himself, played fine enough by Cho, but his breadwinning parent’s inability to react to red flags is disappointingly senseless. A “heated” argument between Cho and Waterson is brushed under the rug hours later, like entire blocks of exposition vanished in between and performances pay the price. There’s no salvation for actors stuck trying to navigate the film’s haphazardly handled conflicts, not even Dastmalchian, a shoo-in for making any “hippie tech disruptor goon” glisten.

Afraid doesn’t offer anything to fear and lacks dystopian imagination. It’s a whiteboard that never cleans itself after the brainstorming stage. Weitz weighs in on the AI debate with timid conviction and incompleteness. Afraid exists to exist, with the only mercy coming from its truncated 85-minute duration. All the uncanny AI imagery, dark web bleakness, and “Sassy Alexa” lines can’t save Weitz’s boringly binary take on artificial paranoias — it’s just there.

Afraid is now playing in theaters in the U.S. Click below for showtimes near you.

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