AFRAID

Story

When two mysterious company executives, Marcus (Keith Carradine) and Sam (Ashley Romans), approach his boss about a revolutionary digital assistant called AIA (voiced by Havana Rose Liu), Curtis Pike (John Cho) is forced to take it home for a trial. Despite the family’s initial reservations, his wife Meredith (Katherine Waterson) soon finds AIA invaluable as it helps do everything from pay bills and manage the kids to diagnosing the heart condition plaguing their young son Cal (Isaac Bae). Their daughter Iris (Lukita Maxwell) is not at all interested in AIA until she finds herself on the wrong end of a fake pornographic video that her boyfriend Sawyer (Bennett Curran) posts online. AIA takes care of the situation in every sense imaginable. AIA also wins over middle child Preston (Wyatt Lindner), this time by providing extra screen time and allowing him to watch things Curtis and Meredith would never approve of. But when more and more strange things begin to happen, and people disappear and the family is threatened, Curtis and Meredith try to take matters into their own hands in order to protect their children. What they soon realise is that AIA is everywhere and that despite their best efforts, AIA still controls everything.

Themes

Children being separated from parents; the dangers of artificial intelligence; bribery and manipulation; pornography; murder; anxiety; bullying and coercive control

Violence

AFRAID has some violence. For example:

A character is hit in the head with a baseball bat.
Multiple bullying messages flash on a screen, including ‘Kill yourself’.
Preston plays a violent shooting game online where he kills other characters.
AIA makes a video of Iris telling Sawyer that he should kill himself. She then controls his car and makes him drive into a tree. There is a violent smash and blood splatters across the screen as Sawyer is killed on impact.
AIA makes Sam shoot Marcus in the head.
Sam is about to kill Curtis when another character bashes her in the head with a fire extinguisher.
Curtis takes a baseball bat to the main computer, only to discover that it is made up of toilet paper rolls and aluminium foil.
Preston throws a friend’s phone into the woods and talks about ‘Swatting’, where police are called to a random location. Meredith is horrified to hear about what he has been learning online.
Preston tries to hit intruders with a baseball bat. He is quickly cast aside and held at gun point, along with the rest of his family.
A SWAT team bursts into the Pike house, with guns blazing. AIA is shot in the ‘head’ and a strange substance pours out of her.

Sexual references

AFRAID has some sexual references. For example:

Iris receives numerous pleading text messages from Sawyer – for example, ‘Pleeeeease. I showed you mine. Now, show me yours.’
Iris asks her dad, ‘How do you know I am not a lesbian? That I am not A-sexual, pan sexual or bi-curious?’
Sawyer tells Iris, ‘I bared myself for you and you were disappointing.’
Iris comments on Sawyer’s ‘dick pics’.
Preston googles ‘boobs’ online.
A character says, ‘Good news! You’re not pregnant.’
Reference is made to a couple having sex.
Meredith tells Curtis that AIA could easily find the porn he is looking for.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

AFRAID has some substance use. For example:

Marcus uses a pump to inject peptides into his stomach and asks another character if he has been ‘bio-hacked’.
Meredith has a glass of wine.

Nudity and sexual activity

AFRAID has some nudity and sexual activity. For example:

Iris lifts up her shirt and flashes her boyfriend a quick glimpse of her breasts.
Curtis and Meredith fall back on their bed, believing that they are alone. She unbuttons her top and he crawls on top of her while the light on the laptop glows, indicating that someone is watching them.
Iris takes a nude photo of herself. She opens up her bathrobe and sends Sawyer a full-frontal shot.
Iris is alerted to a video that apparently shows her having sex. AIA later proves it’s a pornographic video of other people that has been digitally altered to show Iris’ face and body. The video is shown twice.
A woman kisses Curtis and tries to get him to sleep with her. Curtis rushes back home to Meredith who has been sent images of him kissing this other woman.

Product placement

AFRAID has some product placement. For example:

Multiple iPads are shown and used.
iPhones are mentioned.
Cal repeatedly asks to play Minecraft.
Netflix is specifically mentioned, as is a show called Mountain Queen.
There is repeated reference to Siri and Alexa.

Coarse language

AFRAID has some coarse language.

Ideas to discuss with your children

AFRAID is a horror movie featuring jump scares, creepy images and most especially the fear about what may soon be possible. Due to the themes, language, violence and sexual nature of some of the scenes, this is not a movie for children. AFRAID is best suited to audiences 18 years and over.

These are the main messages from AFRAID:

Trust and love have tremendous power to overcome obstacles.
AI might appear to make our lives easier, but it can also make them far more dangerous.
Technology is developing exponentially, and we are open to new threats in ways we have never imagined.

Values in AFRAID that you could reinforce with your children are love, loyalty, trust, compassion and courage.

AFRAID could also give you the chance to talk with your children about the real-life consequences of issues like these:

Posting photos or videos of yourself online, particularly nude or compromising images.
Watching media content that is inappropriate.
Manipulating others to get what you want.
Excessive use of cameras and AI related technologies, including allowing it to control your choices.