Samuel LoveOne of the most popular subgenres in horror these days plays on very real fears. Like it or not, AI is here to stay – it’s probably already all over your house, one way or another. And as this ‘smart home’ epidemic continues, the films are going to keep coming. Just two weeks ago, AfrAId hit UK cinemas with barely a whimper and critics certainly weren’t afraid of tearing it a new one. And now we have Subservience. This schlocky thriller sees Megan Fox delivering perhaps one of her more expressive performances – as a near-emotionless domestic-service android.
When his sickly wife Maggie (Madeline Zima) is hospitalized while awaiting a heart transplant, father-of-two Nick (Michele Morrone) decides to get a lifelike android to help with household chores. But you’ve seen this film before, so you already know that this android is going to malfunction. After Nick has sex with the android to relieve his stress and worry, she/it becomes obsessed with him – and wants him all to her/itself. Cue a whole mess of AI-tinged beats from the Fatal Attraction playbook. Oh, and make yourself comfortable for the totally underdeveloped subplot about AI taking over workforces. Y’know, off of timely fears. How very insightful.
It’s all so very predictable and bland, with absolutely nothing to say about AI that hasn’t already been said. The film’s tension is tepid at best, as every step of the film’s journey is recycled from better projects. The performances are pretty unexciting, too – this is Fox’s film, and the film’s script gives her a pretty good excuse to phone it in. She’s an android, after all… And while Fox is certainly a seasoned professional at being sultry, she’s set up to fail here when the rest of the film is so cold and her chemistry with the lead is so uninvolving.
So, Subservience isn’t scary or tense, and it also fails on the erotic front – much like the aforementioned Fatal Attraction and others like it, Subservience attempts to hark back to the glory days of erotic thrillers. But when the thrills and the eroticism both fall flat, what have you got left? If the film had gone down the campy route of M3GAN or upped the schlock factor, it could’ve had the makings of greatness. But it is far too bogged down in self-seriousness that it becomes a slog.
It’s as simple as this – Subservience is lazy, and unimaginative. The pieces for something better are here, but they’ve been smashed together without any care for nuance. In the film’s final act, things go a little bonkers as Fox’s android basically becomes the Terminator. But even more bonkers is optimism and overconfidence that comes with the misguided setting up of a sequel, which almost certainly will never happen.
SUBSERVIENCE
Digital Release dates: EST September 13, TVOD September 20
Distributed By: Vertigo Releasing
Synopsis: A struggling father, played by Michele Morrone (The Next 365 Days) buys a domestic AI (Megan Fox – Transformers) to help run the household. But the situation soon turns deadly when the lifelike robot develops an obsessive attachment to her new owner. Driven by a twisted sense of loyalty, she becomes determined to eliminate what she perceives as the true threat to his happiness: his family.
Directed by: SK Dale
Cast: Megan Fox, Michele Morrone, Madeline Zima
Runtime: 95 Mins
