Blumhouse’s AI-Gone-Wrong Thriller ‘Afraid’ Set To Awaken On Blu-ray, DVD, And Digital
by David Lewis
The prolific home of horror known as Blumhouse Productions has already had a big year at theaters, starting with the January release of Night Swim, all the way up to the current box office hit Speak No Evil.
In between those films, they unleashed the tech-horror film Afraid. Eagle-eyed readers will see that the title contains “AI,” indicating that this is indeed a thriller about home artificial intelligence gone rogue. Afraid is now available for rent or purchase digitally, and arrives on Blu-ray and DVD on November 5th.
John Cho, who had better luck with home tech in 2018’s unsung Searching, plays Curtis, whose family is gifted an experimental digital family assistant called “AIA.” The unit is helpful at first, but as it studies the family’s needs and behaviors, it becomes obsessed with anticipating external dangers and protecting the home at any cost. Afraid also stars Katherine Waterston, Havana Rose Liu, Lukita Maxwell, David Dastmalchian, and Keith Carradine.
Somewhat surprisingly, it was directed by Chris Weitz, one half of the brotherly team that gave us American Pie and About a Boy. Between Afraid and writing last year’s sci-fi actioner The Creator, Weitz seems to entering his Dark Robot Thriller phase.
Special features include deleted and extended scenes, an alternate ending, and a featurette called Dark Side of AI, in case you aren’t already sufficiently afraid of artificial intelligence.
