‘AfrAId’ Blu-ray (review)

Did you know there’s a theory that humans are, in fact, just AI taken to the ultimate level?

It goes that back before recorded history, our brains and organic bodies were created just to house the artificial intelligence…and now, centuries on, and long since having forgotten our beginnings, we’re slowly reinventing ourselves!

Certainly, it’s impossible to go through a day here in 2025 without encountering AI in one fashion or another. Some people hate it with unbridled passion whilst others willingly embrace it and its promise of easier…well…everything!

Others are just plain afraid of AI and all its implications.

That’s where today’s movie comes in.

AfrAId is a uniquely modern type of horror story in which a fairly typical family is upended by the new presence in the house of an almost magical, seemingly sentient AI.

The experimental AIA is brought into the home as a test as our father figure—played by the always impressive John Cho—works for a marketing agency that just signed a contract to publicize the product.

Soon enough, it becomes abundantly clear that the female-voiced AIA is more like a person than a product, ingratiating herself with the family’s three kids and eventually the wife. It anticipates their needs, handles their problems, offers medical diagnoses, The husband remains somewhat skeptical all along, though, and eventually downright suspicious that things are not what they seem.

Written, directed, and co-produced by Chris Weitz, the whole thing gives a vague Black Mirror feel as it’s a fairly cerebral horror, without any real blood and/or guts. It’s a little slow at times, a bit confusing here and there, and what should have been the extreme ramifications of the picture’s one big death, as caused by AIA, are completely ignored.

Still, it’s enjoyable at its own leisurely pace because you quickly come to truly like the family…and AIA!

Although fairly predictable for the most part, and, in fact, similar in many ways to M3GAN from a couple years back, there are two or three completely unexpected (by me, anyway) twists along the way. There’s also a nearly perfect, creepy ending, which even has a nearly perfect, unintentionally creepy ending song as the credits are generated! There’s even an amusing embedded scene in the credits.

The cast is excellent! For an actor who came to prominence with the stoner comedy, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, Cho has since shown not only a wide range as an actor but the ability to manifest considerable gravitas when called for. He’s appropriately stoic here as the concerned husband and father. As the mother, actress Katherine Waterston (daughter of the great Sam Waterston) is new to me but offers exactly the right emotional levels to her role. The actors portraying the family’s three children are all good, with a standout performance from Lukita Maxwell as the teenage daughter

Others in the cast include David Dastmalchian, so good recently in Late Night with the Devil, as well as a completely unrecognizable Keith Carradine as Cho’s boss. Riki Lindhome—either Garfunkel or Oates from the brilliant Garfunkel and Oates—continues to show that she’s an estimable actress in more serious fare.

Finally, there’s actress Havana Rose Liu, who doubles as a character called Melody and as the voice of AIA. As the latter, she completely aces that cheerful Alexa-type voice needed to make the audience feel the “humanity” of the AI product.

In the end, one can argue that the bloodless horror of AfrAId could have been sharper or at least less confusing, but AI really does have as much potential for good as it does bad, and I can’t help but feel that the confusion and resignation of the movie represents an accurate picture of where we find ourselves at this point in time.

Extras include featurette, and deleted & extended scenes.

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