Blumhouse's Afraid Is Giving '90s Disney Fans Deja Vu

The horror house that Blum built (aka Blumhouse) has been doubling down on its tech-horror in the wake of the overwhelming success of "M3GAN." Not only is a sequel film, "M3GAN 2.0," expected to arrive in 2025 but there are also plans for a technological erotic thriller called "SOULM8TE" that's described as a "M3GAN" spin-off about an AI lovebot. But before either of those films hit theaters, Blumhouse has another AI nightmare up its sleeve: Chris Weitz's "AfrAId."

The film centers on a man named Curtis (John Cho) whose family is chosen to test out a brand-new home equipped with a state-of-the-art digital family assistant known as "AIA." This full-service smart home utilizes sensors and cameras to learn the family's behaviors, schedules, wants, and needs — utilizing AI to anticipate further assistance they might require. She can order organic foods from the grocery store, read bedtime stories to the youngest child, manage all of the bills and finances, and even serve as an interactive rewards chart so the children start picking up chores.

The more AIA gets to know the family, the more attached she becomes to them all — to an unhealthy degree. "Think of me like another mom," she says to the family's actual mother (Katherine Waterston), a phrase that should make anyone's blood run cold. AIA's need to take care of the family quickly spirals out of control, putting the family (and those in their immediate orbit) in grave danger. As far as AI horror is concerned, it's a pretty terrifying premise.

But it also sounds a whole lot like one of the greatest Disney Channel Original Movies (DCOMs) ever made, "Smart House."

Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, "Smart House" follows a single father and his two children as, upon winning a sweepstakes, they move into a state-of-the-art smart house with a digital family assistant known as "PAT" (Katey Sagal). She is an all-seeing AI assistant who observes the family to learn their behaviors, schedules, wants, and needs — and can even anticipate things they may need. She prepares healthy breakfasts at the mere mention, plays music videos on the walls to entertain the youngest child, and even absorbs messes on the carpet to help with clean-up. Without a maternal figure in the family unit, PAT starts to impose herself as their new mom, even taking on a physical presence as a 1950s housewife (also played by Sagal) projected into the house.

Directed by LeVar Burton (yes, that LeVar Burton), "Smart House" is remembered as one of the premiere DCOMs and is essentially an episode of "Black Mirror" for pre-teens, with PAT existing as the combination of June Cleaver and HAL 9000 of "2001: A Space Odyssey." There's even a moment when PAT is asked to unlock the door, to which she replies, "I'm sorry, I can't do that," just like HAL 9000. The sci-fi comedy for kids was way ahead of its time, and there have been multiple "smart house" movies in its wake. 2022 brought "MARGAUX," a horror-thriller about college students who celebrate their last weekend as undergrads at a smart house with an advanced AI system named MARGAUX that wants to kill them off one by one.

Saying "AfrAId" is a rip-off of "MARGAUX" or "Smart House" might seem appropriate for millennials who grew up on the DCOM and grew up to watch the former, but "Smart House" wasn't the first of its kind, either.

Before "MARGAUX" and before "Smart House" there was 1977's "Demon Seed," a sci-fi horror film directed by Donald Cammell and based on the 1973 novel of the same name from Dean Koontz. "Demon Seed" is somewhat of a "forgotten film," not completely lost to time but one that was so reviled upon release that it mostly fell out of public consciousness. The technology seemed nonsensical at the time, and the genuinely disturbing ending turned off critics and audiences alike.

Today, there has been a slight critical reappraisal of the film, but "Demon Seed" is still a relatively niche title, even within diehard horror circles. Centering on a child psychologist named Susan and her computer scientist husband, "Demon Seed" sees the couple living in a home powered by an AI system capable of advanced thought named Proteus IV. As her husband becomes more obsessed with his creation, the program eventually takes Susan hostage and attempts to artificially inseminate her in order to take a human form.

There's definitely something to be said of the film's commentary on tech obsession, playing god, the overreliance on artificial intelligence, and the destruction of women's autonomy — especially in 2024, when tech titans like Elon Musk are at the forefront of the pronatalist movement. The smart house aspect of "Demon Seed" is not nearly as prominent as it would be in "Smart House," "MARGAUX," or "AfrAId," but without the twisted mind of Dean Koontz, there's a chance none of these films would exist today. Evolution is necessary, and it'll be interesting to see what Blumhouse brings with its latest horror.

"AfrAId" arrives in theaters on August 30, 2024.