Motion Detected review.
In a curious twist a film about the dangers of AI appears to have been, itself, largely scripted by AI. Motion Detected has a simple message that it delivers in a muddled, confusing way.
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Motion Detected
Directed by Justin Gallaher and Sam Roseme
Written by Justin Gallaher and Sam Roseme
Starring Natasha Esca, Carlo Mendez, Katelyn McMullen, Bob Clendenin, Roland Buck III and Julie Brister
Motion Detected Review
Technology Horror will be around for as long as new technology becomes available. We’ve seen reasons to fear everything from video cassettes (Ringu) to cell phones (Scream). Cyborgs (The Terminator), AI (2001: A Space Odyssey), Skype (Unfreinded)…if we can invent it…someone will demonize it on film. Motion Detected targets home security. Unlike every one of the examples above…it doesn’t have anything new to say about its target, however.
Eva (Natasha Esca) and Miguel (Carlo Mendez) move into a house with a state-of-the-art security system following an attack. When Miguel is called away on business, Eva is left to contend with an uncooperative AI. Then a lot of things that don’t make any sense at all happen.
I’d apologize for being so snarky in the plot synopsis…but it’s as accurate a recap of Motion Detected as I could muster. The rules of Motion Detected simply don’t make sense. I’ll accept almost anything a story does if it makes sense within the world of that story. This movie doesn’t bother to explain the rules and instead proceeds to live by none. Nothing tethers the plot whatsoever. Things are physically moved by the AI…maybe? I don’t know how (or to be fair, if) that happened. The movie does things and immediately redoes them in a way that you don’t know what’s real and what’s a dream.
That doesn’t have to be a bad thing…it’s bad here because Motion Detected doesn’t seem to know either. It presents a series of ideas that play like someone said “wouldn’t it be cool…” only almost nothing is. The movie has nothing new to say about the technology it makes the antagonist of the story. “Letting technology control your life is a bad thing” is about as deep as it gets. To hammer this home…the person who attacked Eva before the movie begins was named El Diablo. The name of the security system that menaces her? Diablo. That’s what we’re dealing with here.
Most of Motion Detected sees Eva alone on screen but not in the house. Camera glitches reveal the ghostly presence of a little girl…who we come to learn lived in the home previously. That’s a great set-up for a ghost story. Unfortunately, Motion Detected is not a ghost story. The resolution of this aspect of the story can best be summed up as a shrug of the shoulders combined with an audible “huh”. We do find out what’s happening in a round about way…but it’s so eye-rollingly stupid that you won’t care.
Natasha Esca is given (literally) nothing to work with. She’s not trapped in an evil or haunted house…she’s trapped in something far worse. A bad script. She repeats sequences so they can play out differently and then walks around as confused as we are about what’s happening. There is nothing in the script or on the screen to help her. She does as well as anyone can under the circumstances.
Not every idea in Motion Detected is bad. There is an interesting side story about a neighborhood watch-like website that has some fun ideas. The movie fails to utilize them, of course, but there’s something there. Literally. There’s literally something there and the neighbors are too afraid to talk about it. One neighbor manages to tell Eva that she should run from the house and that it was “too late” for him. I don’t know exactly why he couldn’t just leave…but it at least raises the stakes and holds your attention. Especially when he proves to be right.
The movie limps to its utterly nonsensical conclusion where we see one of the strangest climaxes I can recall. Eva needs something to physically fight…and because Motion Detected never sets any rules…it has no problem breaking them. It’s not terrible until it is. And when it is…the final moments of the movie…oh boy is it.
With nothing of note to say beyond “technology bad” and a script that manages to make even that confusing, Motion Detected simply doesn’t work. For a low-budget movie it does look pretty good. Even the cheesy tech moments that certainly won’t hold up aren’t that bad. It is funny that they talk a lot about how big the house is and then do everything they can to make it seem small. Just another example of how Motion Detected couldn’t stick to an idea well enough to develop it. It’s the one thing the movie delivers in spades.
Scare Value
Motion Detected doesn’t have anything new to say about AI…and the ways it chooses to say it are perplexing. I never figured out all the “rules” of this game. Mostly, I just felt bad for Natasha Esca having to act opposite nothing as inexplicable things happened. We get it. Don’t give control of your life to AI. What Moton Detected posits as a consequence is, frankly, ridiculous.
1.5/5
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