As a seasoned horror aficionado with over three decades of binge-watching under my belt, I must say that AfrAId has left me utterly dismayed and longing for the good old days of slasher movies. This film, my dear readers, is not just bad – it’s like stumbling upon a haunted house made of wet cardboard boxes in a ghost town filled with forgettable characters.
After catching Madame Web earlier this year, I found myself thinking that I wouldn’t find a film as bad in 2024. The movie made me long to be watching Madame Web again. AfrAId, the newest offering from Blumhouse in the horror genre, tries to capitalize on a popular societal issue. Given the current buzz around AI, it’s not surprising that this film was previously titled They Listen. The first teaser trailer came out just under two months before its premiere, and there wasn’t much buzz surrounding it, meaning viewers had little enthusiasm leading up to its release. On opening weekend, I watched it in a nearly empty theater, and the lack of excitement was palpable.
AfrAId is so bad that I almost wish AI wrote it. Calling a script AI-generated is essentially a slur in Hollywood, but I’m convinced it could have been responsible. How meta would that be? A horror movie about AI written by AI. You could almost sell that based on the concept alone. But no, this movie is written and directed by Chris Weitz, whose career has seen the highs of About a Boy and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story to the lows of The Twilight Saga: New Moon. Weitz has been consistently working within the studio system for decades, but everything about this movie screams amateur directorial debut.
In approximately 84 minutes, I believe there are several unexploited scenes in this movie due to its editing. From the start, various moments appear prematurely concluded. The rhythm is awkward, inconsistent, and somewhat unintentionally so, with even the opening horror sequence ending just shy of truly terrifying. The film “AfrAId” showcases AI-generated artwork, but never attempts to deceive us into believing it’s real. Given its theme revolves around AI, it deliberately taps into the unsettling valley of human-like artificial intelligence to present disturbing visuals. However, this deliberate attempt falls short of the intended impact.
This movie doesn’t manage to be genuinely frightening, mainly because the pace is slow and tedious. Even though it’s short, it can drag on and become rather unexciting. The first hour or so of the 84-minute film lacks any truly terrifying events. To remind viewers that they’re watching a horror movie, they include a scary opening scene and a dream sequence. One potential plot point is an RV parked outside their home, but it doesn’t develop in a satisfying manner.
If AfrAId aimed to gradually build suspense towards horror while also being engaging or emotionally impactful, it missed the mark. Instead, it appears to be a hodgepodge of familiar elements. For instance, in 2013, Her presented a unique romance between a man and an advanced AI. In 2019, Jexi offered a darkly comical take on this idea. Now, in 2024, we have a horror interpretation of the human-AI relationship. However, given that M3GAN, released exceptionally well in 2023, already explored this concept with fun, eerie doll elements and humor, AfrAId seems unnecessary and lacks those appealing aspects.
AfrAId seems not to offer anything new or exceptional to the cinematic horror genre. The dialogue can appear stiff, awkward, and poorly timed. It’s a mediocre example of horror at its weakest point, lacking enjoyment and creativity with its premise, instead opting for a heavy-handed serious tone. I find it perplexing as to why Curtis was chosen as the lead character over Cho, who is an accomplished actor. However, the main character in this film seems remarkably one-dimensional compared to other films I’ve watched this year.
In this family, each member seems to embody a stereotype, but the dad stands out as an exception – he’s rather uninteresting. The mom appears focused on her forgotten academic work, while the teen daughter is under pressure from a problematic boyfriend. The tween son is being bullied by his peers, longing for friendship, and the youngest child simply behaves like any other young child. This family of characters lacks depth or appeal. You find none of them likable or engaging. AfrAId’s horror feels impersonal, as if anyone could have directed it without adding much personality.
Every subplot is the worst possible version of it. We don’t care about Curtis and his job. We don’t care about Meredith (Katherine Waterston) and her unfulfilled life as a mom. We don’t care about their two young sons. The one almost interesting subplot is one where Iris (Lukita Maxwell) gets deepfaked into a pornographic video by her boyfriend, and it spreads around the school. It takes too long to see how people treat her differently once this video is leaked. Once we do see how people treat her, the results are hysterical. It’s so melodramatic that I started laughing at it.
In another attempt to evoke emotions, the narrative focuses on Meredith and her late father. However, this subplot felt poorly executed to me; it was so inept that I found myself yearning to storm onto the stage and shatter the screen with my fists. The climactic scene where Meredith interacts with her father’s memory is intended to elicit sympathy from us, but the issue lies in the fact that his existence had been previously unacknowledged. We were not aware of his demise until this supposedly emotional moment. Without establishing their relationship during his lifetime, attempting to tug at our heartstrings feels futile and misguided. This scene falls flat; it means nothing. It is nothing.
We haven’t reached the climactic part yet, but let me tell you, AfrAId was already agonizing for the initial hour. However, the last twenty minutes were so grueling that I had to resist every urge within me not to walk out. A pair even attended the screening and departed thirty minutes into the film, choosing not to come back. Oh, how envious I was of them. These final twenty minutes managed something that few other movies have: they made me despise my existence more with each ticking second. It is a haphazardly assembled, illogical mess – the worst third act I’ve ever witnessed.
The production seems disjointed and confusing, like five separate scripts were haphazardly combined and filmed without proper coordination. With each new development, the narrative becomes increasingly illogical as ideas are introduced and discarded almost immediately. At times, I found myself on the verge of laughter due to its bizarre nature. However, “jaw-dropping” is often used to describe films, but in this case, my jaw genuinely dropped – in a negative manner. The sudden, unexpected elements create a sense of frustration rather than excitement.
No, you know what? I’m still not done. It feels like they asked a group of 11-year-olds what they thought would be a good ending for a horror movie and then mashed up every one of their ideas. Movies like AfrAId are so irredeemably awful that they can make one forget how good horror movies can be. The ending is trying to say something meaningful, but the execution made me want to pull my hair out. It’s the worst movie of the year. As the film got worse and worse, all I wanted to do was throw my hands in the air and quit. But I didn’t. So now you’re reading this review. You’re welcome.
SCORE: 1/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 1 equates to “Awful.”
ComingSoon rarely gives a poor rating, typically saving it for video games with serious issues or entertainment lacking any commendable aspects.
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2024-09-02 19:11