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A group of friends book a ‘smart house’ for the weekend to have fun, but their trip goes awfully wrong as the AI running the place starts to harm them one by one. That’s pretty much the plot of 2022 horror movie “Margaux”, which sounds interesting at first, but consistently gets more dreary by the minute.
Directed by Steven C. Miller, “Margaux” begins with a bloody scene of couple being murdered by their smart home, the story then switches to computer genius Hannah (Madison Pettis), who is sitting in the library and coding, while hoping to land a job with Google. Hannah joins her friends Drew (Jedidiah Goodacre), Devon (Jordan Buhat), Kayla (Phoebe Miu) and Clay (Richard Harmon) for a weekend reunion trip. Drew’s annoying ‘influencer’ girlfriend Lexi (Vanessa Morgan) decides to join them last minute, so their car ride begins with an overdose of selfies for social media.
When the friends arrives at their smart house for the weekend, they are pretty impressed by its artificial intelligence and incredibly (unrealistic) abilities. “If you need anything, holla at your girl,” the AI greets the youngsters when they arrive at the property. “Margaux” is the kind of technological-horror movie that should’ve been a horror comedy instead of being a serious thriller, because the script is just not intelligent enough for its “artificial intelligence turns serial killer” plot. Besides, stories without the human element of vendetta or pain, just don’t work well emotionally on the viewers. I just kept fighting one yawn after the other as Hannah’s group of friends got brutally bumped off one after the other.
What unintentionally added a touch of humor and silliness to ‘Margaux’ was the machine’s ability to communicate like a nosy teenager with the college friends it was hosting. For instance, the AI tries to prod two characters into confessing their feelings for each other. In another scene, the AI becomes visibly annoyed that the only thing one character wanted to complain about was her boyfriend’s inability to take good pictures. It’s as if the writers decided to give the AI the personality of a mean girl with murderous intentions. I use ‘girl’ here because Margaux has a woman’s voice.
I only stuck around until the end of this film because I was curious about how it would conclude, and unfortunately, it didn’t prove to be very interesting. Thrillers like ‘Red Rose’ and ‘M3GAN’ are far more entertaining in the techno-thriller genre than ‘Margaux’. If you enjoy watching serial killer movies and don’t mind a weak plot as long as there’s a body count, ‘Margaux’ could be a reasonable choice, especially if you’re looking for something that doesn’t demand too much of your attention.
Rating: 4 on 10. You can stream the film on Netflix.
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LOL, I actually enjoyed this movie but I went in with very, VERY low expectations (it was something my mom wanted to watch.) 😀
Haha! Maybe I’d have enjoyed it more if I had company while watching it too 🙂