Netflix has often been a place for theatrical flops to find new life, and right now it’s providing that service for a 2024 horror movie you probably missed. “Afraid” was Blumhouse’s third of five horror films this year, following “Night Swim” and “Imaginary” and ahead of “Speak No Evil” and “House of Spoils.” There are more duds than hits in that batch, makes 2024 a tough year for Blumhouse. “Afraid” (sometimes stylized as “AfrAId”) currently has an abysmal 22% critical score on Rotten tomatoes. At 55%, the audience’s score is much better, but still not great.
But hey, sometimes when you’re scrolling through Netflix late at night, all you want is a ridiculous, silly horror movie to throw on and pass the time. As of this writing, “Afraid” sits at number seven on Netflix’s daily top 10 movies for the US (via FlixPatrol). That means it only currently ranks behind the original Lindsay Lohan Netflix holiday rom-com “Our Little Secret” and some older films, including Michael May’s “Transformers.” Considering “Afraid” came and went without much fanfare earlier this year, it’s a pretty decent showing.
Perhaps the passage of time has simply made us all a little more curious about stories where untethered tech corps and artificial intelligence at large with no legal fence in place lead to tragic, even nightmarish consequences. But while “Afraid” may be worth watching for fans of the Blumhouse style, it’s likely to fall short for anyone looking for real commentary on the modern AI landscape.
Is AfrAId worth watching on Netflix?
Many horror films fall short in the eyes of critics but achieve huge success with their target audience. Unfortunately, “Afraid” didn’t do much better in that arena when it was released in theaters back in August. It barely made back its meager $12 million budget at the box office, and when you factor in marketing costs and all the other expenses of distributing a blockbuster, that’s a pretty significant loss. Blumhouse has built a pretty reliable model around low-budget films, but that doesn’t mean every one of them will hit.
There are things to like here though, most notably the strong lead performances from co-stars John Cho and Katherine Waterston. The two play a married couple whose family is thrown into chaos after the installation of an experimental new AI smart home system. Cho’s character, Curtis, has professional ties to the company that develops AI, but while the benefits of using it seem huge at first, a dark underbelly eventually reveals itself.
If that pitch sounds like fun and you don’t mind spending time on a movie that might be a little meh, “Afraid” might be worth a stream on Netflix. But in a world where so many good sci-fi horror movies exists, and where movies like “Ex Machina” or “The Creator” handle AI stories with so much more depth, there’s not much to recommend here. It is not about to break into the list of Blumhouse’s best horror moviesand you’re probably better off just watching “M3GAN” again instead.
