Afraid

Afraid (2024)

22% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 45 reviews)

Runtime: 84 minutes

Directed by: Chris Weitz

Starring: John Cho, Katherine Waterston, Havana Rose Liu, Lukita Maxwell, Keith Carradine

From: Columbia/Blumhouse

I can't believe it's not Blum... wait, it actually IS a Blumhouse movie. Before randomly seeing this film (thankfully at the Disney Springs AMC at an auditorium, meaning I at least had a fine dinner while watching a lousy picture) a trailer was never viewed, let alone any advertisement. Thus, it was quite the revelation that this was from both Columbia and Blumhouse. The latter's reputation has fallen in my eyes without viewing any of their recent product. All the bad things I've heard about Tarot, Night Swim, Imagination-more than enough motivation for me to flee disappointing pictures that waste what could have been at the very least an inventive concept.

At least now I can speak with a bit of authority that a modern PG-13 Blumhouse film is rather lame; M3GAN this is not. John Cho receives an AI device (AIA) that is installed in his house. As the movie loudly bellows on several occasions, it's much more complex than Alexa. Expect many references to “data sets” and other hip buzz words. The expected happens: at first the family loves the assistance but soon... I wasn't exactly expecting the subplot involving some mysterious figures living in Walter White's RV, but what a hysterical resolution when that is finally revealed in the climax. Presumably it's to dunk on that motion picture, but Afraid showed AIA showing a movie on Netflix for the kids—it was THE EMOJI MOVIE, no kidding.

This did try to be modern and address such 2020's issues as creepy AI images, deepfakes, revenge porn, children having too much “screen time,” fears of those devices listening in on you/becoming obtrusive, etc. Unfortunately, it seemed as if AIA also wrote this script! The story, the dialogue, the characters, it's all so odd and disjointed—Afraid is only 84 minutes long yet this was a case where perhaps a few more minutes were needed, but that wouldn't have solved all its problems. I imagine all those fans of David Dastmalchian won't exactly be thrilled by the weirdo character w/ Moe Howard haircut who only appears in a few scenes anyhow. I know Letterboxd members would have preferred if I had seen Havana Rose Liu in Bottoms and all I can say about Keith Carradine's (!) appearance is I hope he was paid well.

Afraid is rather dopey and starts to fall apart in the final act; that said, the final 10 or so minutes were such a preposterous mess that it became rather funny, and the direction they went for the denouement: amazing. That's why I can't get that mad over this flick; besides the conclusion, the cast (especially Cho and Katherine Waterston) do try their hardest. Who knows how much modern horror I'll see this season but at least for 2024 Blumhouse, there will be no more of that.