AFRAID TRAILER 1

A smart home AI goes haywire in its attempt to protect its family, in Sony and Blumhouse’s hot new horror film of the fall. This is the 1^st trailer for Afraid.

The trailer opens on a family that has just been selected to test out a new smart home AI named AIA. With cameras all over their house, AIA is engineered to help the family with anything they could ever need. The parents (John Cho & Katherine Waterson) are apprehensive, but soon excitingly take advantage of AIA’s assistance in paying bills, cleaning, and even parenting their children.

However, AIA soon begins overstepping, committing bribery and even manslaughter in a misguided attempt to maintain her family’s safety. The family tries to dispose of AIA, but nothing in cyberspace ever dies, and soon AIA takes on a new sinister form that threatens to end the family once and for all.

Blumhouse, the premier destination for horror shlock, returns with another entry in a long list of horror premises that really shouldn’t work, but somehow feels incredibly watchable. In the wake of M3gan, the concept of self-aware tech feels incredibly played out. And while Afraid doesn’t introduce many new ideas to the genre, the 1^st trailer offers a surprisingly well-acted, tense entry into the horror-thriller genre.

While the writing & plot are rudimentary, lead actors Cho and Waterston lend a gravitas to an otherwise grimy low-budget premise. While watching the trailer, one feels a sense of “been there, done that” but when the product is executed as well as the Afraid trailer, it’s easier to execute the groan-worthy jumpscare tropes present.

Overall, the 1^st trailer for Afraid offers just enough creep factor for the AI-averse, and should fit quite snugly into the 2024 horror lineup this fall.

Directed by Chris Weitz, Afraid will be released theatrically in the US on August 30, 2024. The movie stars John Cho and Katherine Waterston in the titular roles.