Starring Danielle Harris, Tim DeZarn, Adam Budron, George Henry Horton, Olivia Soctt and Emily Rafala

Directed by George Henry Horton

Gravitas Ventures, on digital platforms now

James (Tim DeZarn) and Blake (Adam Budron) are thieves with a big score, a bullet wound and a place to hole up. The factory on the edge of town is deserted, intact and open. They need to hide, so they go in. But why is the factory deserted? And why have the cops been ordered not to follow them?

I am a sucker for a movie made with invention and wit on zero budget and I loved this. George Henry Horton pulls triple duty here, with a cameo as a police officer, co-scriptwriting duties and direction and the energy that presumably took drives this pacy, tight little movie.

The script, by Horton and Ryan Scaringe, manages to give us three viewpoints for the price of one as we cut between the two criminals, flashbacks to Dr Jillian (Olivia Scott) and the growing presence of Dorothy (Danielle Harris). Scott’s Jillian is part of the team who built a digital lifeform in the facility and we see how well that goes, and how badly that ends, through smartly built flashbacks. Harris is the voice of Dorothy, the lifeform in question and the most avuncular murderous A.I. since GladOS. Harris’ voiceover work is a real highlight here, balancing Dorothy’s warm, gliding, playful tones with the sociopathic tendencies beneath them. Harris, and the script do a great job of showing how Dorothy has become all the more insular and vicious for her years in containment. Top marks too to one of the major effects for the movie, Dorothy’s alcove. A floodlit corridor with a sinister, ambient digital face at the end of it she’s a presence that creates real unease, the effects and performance working in perfect, machined lockstep.

Horton builds on this, and maximizes the budget, with some very smart choices. Dorothy’s perspective is the primary one for the movie and Horton uses static camera positions scattered around the facility to ramp the tension up as she tracks James and Blake through her home. It’s a smart technique, echoing Person of Interest‘s Machine POV and it’s built on by some very clever use of forklifts. Dorothy’s hands (or perhaps claws), the forklifts in the movie do double duty as monster and camera. The closing chase is especially good fun, as Blake runs an increasingly frantic interference pattern between them and the forklift cameras constantly zero in on him as his options disappear.

DeZarn and Budron more than hold up the human side of the bargain. DeZarn in particular, who’ll be familiar to genre fans, is excellent as the older thief and his world weary approach does a lot to ground the movie. Budron, whose physicality reminded me a lot of Alex Wolff from Hereditary, also impresses. Blake is a bundle of nervous energy and awkward physicality, a puppy to James’ old dog and the way they’re both forced to learn new tricks drives the movie’s second half. The stakes are both massive, as the two men find themselves on the front line of a war between humanity and machines, and tiny. A Wi-Fi dongle has never been more important than it is here. Horton makes it work again and again, the small scale focusing us in on this forgotten little war, in the warehouse no one talks about on the edge of town. It doesn’t all work, and there’s an ending beat that may annoy but that’s really the only issue.

Verdict: A tight, pacy running time is the icing on the cake for this deeply likable movie. If you’re looking for a blockbuster, you won’t find it. If you’re looking for action and character driven SF which never stops reaching, this is for you. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart