Romi review.
Give Romi credit for trying to do something more with the AI run amok trope. Unfortunately, like its lead, the story finds itself trapped by it.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Romi
Directed by Robert Cuffley
Written by Susie Moloney
Starring Alexa Barajas, Pavel Kríz and Juan Riedinger
Romi Review
While Trauma Horror has taken the top spot by a mile in recent years…AI Horror may be sitting in a comfortable second place. I’m not talking about the fear of AI scripts and images. That horror is as prevalent as it is inevitable. I’m talking about the now routine story of a person trapped in a building with a rogue AI. It’s not a new concept. 2001: A Space Odyssey dealt with it over 50 years ago. But man…do today’s filmmakers think that everyone is terrified of their Alexa? A piece of technology can dim your lights on command so it must be trying to kill you. Admittedly, the Terminator franchise probably has a lot to do with that fear. You’ve undoubtedly heard someone look at an “intelligent” toaster and make a joke about Skynet.
Of course, those sci-fi classics are about awesome things like interplanetary space travel and killer robots sent from the future. The horror of artificial intelligence provides an excellent jumping off point for storytelling on an epic scale. That isn’t what we’re going to talk about today. Romi follows several independent horror movies in its attempt to tell a locked room horror story where AI controls the locks. Margaux, Project Dorothy and Motion Detected are just a few very recent examples.
Romi (which doubles as the name of the AI itself) tries to find a way around the limitations of the subgenre. It struggles to…making one wonder why it trapped itself in the first place. There is an underlying mystery happening in Romi. One that doesn’t really need the AI conceit to be told. It makes the choice to feature it even stranger. There’s a simple enough haunted house story here without it.
Maddie (Alexa Barajas) committed a hit and run. Instead of taking responsibility for her actions, her politician mother tries to cover it up. Maddie takes a job house sitting in a state-of-the-art smart home. Romi, the AI system that controls the house, proves to be unfriendly to her. That may be the least of her problems. Ghostly images of a woman begin to appear to her. There is a deadly secret buried inside the house.
Right off the bat Romi ties one hand behind its back by providing us with a lead character who you aren’t sure you should be rooting for. We see her hit and run…and whatever remorse she shows us about the event rings hollow while she is actively choosing to avoid taking responsibility for it. Barajas does a commendable job making Maddie likable despite this. Although she is alone in the house, Maddie is constantly visited by two people throughout the story. Barkley (Juan Riedinger), a technician trying to work out the AI glitches…and Hertig (Pavel Kríz) the property owner.
After a first act where almost nothing happens…things slowly start to pick up. Strange noises and visions begin to plague Maddie. It isn’t until the story starts to dive into the mystery of the woman who appears to her that Romi gets interesting. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen for a long time. Mostly it’s strange noises, weird visions, and uninvited visits from Hertig and Barkley. While some of it is AI related…it could have been accomplished in any number of more interesting ways. The AI aspect of Romi often feels like a lazy way to get from point A to point B.
Barajas is the saving grace of the film. While it takes a long time to get going, she manages to be an engaging character despite everything working against her. When it turns towards a full-blown mystery…Romi even manages to get kind of good. It’s a shame so much time is wasted getting to it. You’ve seen all the tricks before…which makes their usage more infuriating than engaging. The further Romi gets from its AI…the better the movie becomes.
We’ll leave the details of the mystery out for those who want to give Romi a look. Romi is streaming on Tubi for anyone interested. It’s not a bad movie. It’s just, largely, a boring one until it decides to become a different movie altogether. Which brings us full circle questioning why it chose the limits of AI horror in the first place.
Scare Value
Romi is a decidedly better effort to utilize the fear of AI technology than many we’ve seen. It’s also not the best way to present the story it wants to. Technology horror isn’t as deep of a well to draw from as filmmakers seem to believe it is. Romi succeeds most the less beholden it is to its AI concept. Which brings us back to the original problem. Allowing yourself to be trapped by it in the first place.
2/5
Romi Link
Streaming on Tubi
