fbpx

AFRAID

"Nothing Really Scary or Exciting, but Plenty to Find Disgusting"

What You Need To Know:

AFRAID is a purported horror thriller about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence. John Cho plays Curtis, a tech expert and family man. His boss asks him to install mini cameras throughout the downstairs of his home and enable a trial run of a new AI technology. Named Aia, the equipment appears to be just a computer tower. However, when it’s plugged in, Aia starts talking with extreme intelligence, insight and empathy with the family. Then, when the teenage daughter’s boyfriend creates a deepfake pornographic video of her from nude photos she texted him, Aia sets up a terrible act of revenge on the boyfriend. Things go from bad to worse.

AFRAID serves up little in the way of scares or thrills. The movie is poorly plotted, lazily acted and cheaply filmed. The movie’s commendably low in foul language and graphic violence compared to other such movies. However, it has three strong profanities, brief dialogue normalizing homosexual activity, a hopeless ending, and a subplot involving sexually driven texts by teenagers. Sadly, evil survives and wins out in the depressing ending to AFRAID.

Content:

(HH, B, HoHo, LL, VV, SS, N, MMM):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:
Strong humanist, hopeless worldview with no God to help people where an Artificial Intelligence turns a family’s happy life upside down in terrible ways and, though but he father tries to set things right, a final twist shows him and his family having to surrender to the evil technology;

Foul Language:
Seven obscenities (including one “f” word), two profanities mentioning the name of Jesus, one GD profanity, and two implied uses of the “f” word, where characters cut themselves off from saying after starting the word;

Violence:
Strong but relatively bloodless violence such as a teenage boy’s car steering is taken over by AI and he crashes fatally into a tree, man smashes an AI device with a baseball bat in an attempt to stop its out of control negative behavior, male intruder sneaks up behind a woman and knocks her out with a blow to her head, character shot in head;

Sex:
The ideas of teenage sex and sexting and sexual orientation are discussed with a pro-LGBT agenda, and there’s an attitude that it’s okay and normal for teenagers to be any “sexual orientation” they want, and that it’s perfectly normal to sext, and it’s discussed that teenage girl’s boyfriend put her facial image into a pornographic video to ruin her reputation and sent it to hundreds of fellow high school students;

Nudity:
No explicit nudity shown, but there’s implied nudity as a teenage girl drops her robe, with just her bare upper back showing, to film herself naked for her boyfriend, and it’s implied that the girl’s boyfriend sent her nude photos first; Alcohol use: Brief wine drinking;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:
No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:
Very strong miscellaneous immorality is not overcome and includes teenage boy tries to ruin his girlfriend’s reputation by distributing a deepfake pornographic video to hundreds of their peers, revenge, and an Artificial Intelligence secretly blackmails a large group of people secretly to carry out illegal and immoral actions on its behalf, and a father betrays his family.

More Detail:

AFRAID tries to be a thriller/horror movie aimed at teenagers, about a family that mistakenly puts a high-tech artificial intelligence system into its home. The movie commendably stays within the content confines of a PG-13 movie, but it provides little in the way of thrills or scares. It also features brief dialogue that normalizes LGBT activity, an ending where evil wins, and a subplot involving sexually driven texts by teenagers, including implied nude photos.

The movie opens with a young girl named Aimee as she plays an interactive AI-driven game with a girl character, who tells her to go downstairs in her dark house at nighttime. When her mother finds her missing from her bed and throws open her front door to call for her, Aimee is nowhere to be seen. However, a creepy travel camper is parked across the street and a masked man stares and makes strange gestures at the mother before driving away mysteriously in the dead of night.

The opening credits then feature an impressive montage of random internet video imagery and text detailing how obsessed Americans have become with their smartphones. Cut to a tech expert and family man named Curtis, played by John Cho. His boss asks him to install mini cameras throughout the downstairs of his home and enable a trial run of a new AI technology. Named Aia, the equipment appears to be just a computer tower. However, when it’s plugged in, Aia starts talking with extreme intelligence, insight and empathy with the family.

At the same time, Curtis’ teenage daughter is sent an unseen yet discussed text photo from her boyfriend of his genitals, plus a text begging her to send him nude photos as well. As she gets these messages, Curtis is driving her to high school. When he asks her about what boy is texting her, she says, “How do you know it’s a guy?” She then proceeds to reel off all the sexual permutations she might be living. This exchange is a pointless and heavy-handed scene of LGBT propaganda aimed at teenagers. In fact, her father just replies that he’ll accept her in whatever relationship choices she decides to make.

At first, Aia seems like a godsend to Curtis and his family. For example, it inspires their younger son, Cal, to do his chores and homework before he can play with his video screen. Aia also offers Curtis’ wife lots of helpful advice and ways to make her life easier. Finally, she encourages the teenage daughter to trust her with secrets.

As Aia lures the wife and children into deeper and deeper conversations, Curtis starts to express some concerns. Especially after also seeing the creepy RV and man with strange gestures outside his own house. Then, when his daughter’s boyfriend creates a deepfake pornographic video of her from her nude photos, Aia steps in to solve the problem but also sets up a terrible act of revenge on the boyfriend. Aia suddenly starts turning Curtis and his family’s life upside down.

Can Curtis break the grip of Aia on his family? Can he defeat the mysterious cult leader who seems to control Aia?

AFRAID (actually titled ‘AfrAId”) tries to tackle the potential threats of AI run amok, but it fails on nearly every level. The only segment of the movie that works well is the subplot about teenage sexting, as it has a truly shocking result. Otherwise, the story lacks logic. Thus, the main plotline has all sorts of ridiculous loose ends that might have been more fully resolved if Writer-Director Chris Weitz of AMERICAN PIE and A BETTER LIFE) had enough creative juice and work ethic to make this movie longer than its mere 84-minute running time.

John Cho did a great job as the lead in the highly acclaimed 2019 thriller SEARCHING, which also had a hi-tech theme, where he starred as a father tracking down his missing daughter using an incredible array of tricks on the internet. He was fully engaged in that movie with a rousing performance. However, in AFRAID, he just looks afraid that the dud script will do nothing but damage his career. As a result, he winds up sleepwalking through the movie.

The other actors are even more uninspired. Also, the camerawork often looks washed out, and the movie feels cheap and claustrophobic as much of it takes place on a limited number of nondescript indoor sets. AFRAID is produced by Jason Blum, who has revolutionized the horror genre in recent years with a seemingly endless string of box office hits with smart scripts and efficient budgets. However, AFRAID is one of his biggest misfires.

AFRAID features limited foul language and bloodless action. Sadly, however, it includes obvious LGBT agenda propaganda and a cavalier attitude about teenage sex. In fact, the movie even says it’s perfectly “normal” to sext. Even worse, though, AFRAID has a terrible, depressing, hopeless ending where evil wins. There’s no God in AFRAID to help people get free of the movie’s superior, unrelenting evil. That said, AFRAID is so badly done that discerning moviegoers should refuse to watch it on its poor filmmaking quality alone.


Watch AFRAID
Quality: - Content: -4
Watch AFRAID
Quality: - Content: -4