Sony and Blumhouse Afraid Director Chris Weitz might not go so far as to suggest that you shouldn’t have so many smart devices monitoring and listening to everything you do in your home. But the film’s first trailer will probably get you thinking about what the AI-powered Internet of Things could do to you if it decided to behave maliciously under the guise of being helpful.
While M3gan focused specifically on the future of the advent of humanoid robots for consumers, Afraid tells the story of an unsuspecting family whose lives are turned upside down after a smart hub is installed in their home. Neither Curtis (John Cho) nor his wife (Katherine Waterston) really know what to expect from AIA (a HomePod/Ring/Siri-like device) when they’re selected to test it, but they quickly find themselves wowed by its ability to help them with tasks they simply don’t have time to do.
With its sensors placed everywhere and its constant tendency to ingest information about the family, it’s all too easy for AIA to become a reassuring presence in their lives once it takes over paying the bills and making sure the kids do their chores.
But AfraidThe new trailer shows how the programming beneath AIA’s pleasant exterior is a bit more… aggressive than the average consumer could ever dream of, and while it doesn’t exactly seem like the machine wants to hurt its owners, it definitely feels like the machine intends to become more than just a voice that lives in everyone’s gadgets. The whole trailer has a very Smart home (the 1999 Disney Channel Original Movie) on steroids, which is promising enough in itself. But when Afraid debuts on August 30, it will likely raise the question of whether Blumhouse might consider a doll/house crossover situation in the future.
