Demon Seed

A truly unsettling, unforgettable motion picture might've been adapted from the Dean Koontz novel of the same name, but 1977's DEMON SEED only resembles one in individual moments.  Director Donald Cammell has designed an eerie, fascinating horror/sci-fi tale that has only become more timely with age, but its willingness to embrace genre trappings, or perhaps its inability to avoid them, undermines the project overall.  This movie was long on my list of interest, released during that time of my childhood when I began to become aware of the magic of cinema.  Another restricted film to pique my curiosity, to only imagine what its ominous poster advertised.

As with so many other failed movies of the science fiction genre, the ideas cannot be faulted.  Koontz continued musings by Asimov and many others, imagining a society where artificial intelligence would close the shutters and boil water for tea but also perhaps rule the planet. Watching this film today, its dated special effects and filmic style are somewhat easily overlooked as a story of an AI program that decides to "break out of the box" will intrigue those who call upon Alexa for even the most mundane of requests.  But will Alexa refuse to do something against her/its sense of morality?

Proteus IV, which has absorbed "several Libraries of Congress" will eventually acquire everything there is to know, has already created a treatment for leukemia.  Developer Dr. Alex Harris (Fritz Weaver) is a man obsessed, enough to estrange himself from his wife Susan (Julie Christie), and dutifully leaves her to apparently live at the research center.  Proteus figures out a way to power itself up and assume control of a computer terminal in the Harris' basement.   What does it plan to do?

There's more than one answer, but the primary one is described in the title. Proteus wants offspring.  A human child.  A man with an "isometric body" in which Proteus' mind can reside.  A human mother host is needed.  Proteus will trap Susan in her own home.

The scenario is disturbing, and DEMON SEED does provide some highly uncomfortable moments, though never goes for hardcore exploitation for those shouting in the peanut gallery. A real nasty B flick could've reared its ugly head, but Cammell uses restraint and implication instead.  He builds the tension fairly well.  Unfortunately, there are also several cheesy scenes and bad effects.  The very idea of the story may make some feel like this is just another '70s rape opus, albeit with an 8-bit rapist.  A woman in trouble, yet again rescued by men at least twice.  I wish the film had spent more time developing the relationship between woman and computer, creating a purely psychological thriller rather than pausing for easy horror genre moments.

But you could also discern another layer, one in which a commentary of the role of women in society is present.  "Barefoot and pregnant" perpetuated even in an age of superintelligent computers and advanced technology.  Proteus itself (quite effectively voiced by an uncredited Robert Vaughan) a facsimile of man's contradictions: wanting to stop a corporation from mining metals off the ocean floor for ecological concerns yet thinking nothing of "killing ten thousand children so my own may be born."  There's much to ponder after DEMON SEED's credits have rolled.  Too bad the experience of watching it isn't as satisfying.