Demon Seed

Dr. Alex Harris (Fritz Weaver) has developed a computer called Proteus IV with organic artificial intelligence and lives with his estranged wife Susan (Julie Christie) in a fully automated house administrated by the computer Alfred. When Alex decides to separate from Susan to work harder In Proteus IV, the computer asks for an open terminal to study the human behavior to increase his knowledge. Alex refuses to give a terminal to Proteus IV, but he forgets that there is one at his home. Proteus IV uses the terminal to take over Alfred and trap Susan at home. He also decides to have a son with the wife of his creator to become immortal. Forty years after its release, "Demon Seed" is a dated, but still fascinating sci-fi horror film. In the 60's and 70's, Julie Christie was sort of muse with magnificent cinematography including "Dr. Jivago", "Fahrenheit 451", "Don't Look Now" and has another wonderful performance. "Demon Seed" shows a scary view of artificial intelligence and has a great open conclusion. The character Walter Gabler is forgotten in the story. My vote is six. Title (Brazil): "Geração Proteus" ("Proteus Generation")

As much as I love science-fiction movies, as much as I love '70's movies and as much as I love movies with silly premises, I just didn't liked this one. The movie started of promising and seemed tense and mysterious. However after the opening, the movie picks about the least interesting and convincing approach and the story got lost in a jungle of weird, uninteresting and highly unlikely moments. The middle just wasn't good and interesting enough to keep my attention. It becomes all too obvious that the movie is an attempt to cash in after the success of "2001: A Space Odyssey". The story shows a bit too many similarities and Proteus obviously of course is the same as HAL 9000, only less scary and less convincing. The movie tries to be deep and clever with its story but it instead works out shallow and unconvincing due to an unconvincing and uninteresting storyline. In a way you can call this movie a "2001: A Space Odyssey" for dummies. The premise of a woman being locked inside of a high-tech filled house and is being held hostage by a supercomputer just isn't the most exciting and convincing story they could had come up with, considering its good and in a way relevant subject, about computers and technique eventually taking over the human-race. It becomes all the more unconvincing when the intentions of the super computer become clear; he wants to impregnate the woman to create a hybrid child, eventually resulting in the rape of the woman. The movie could had been tense and above all also thought-provoking. It now instead is a silly '70's mess, with a silly and uninteresting premise that also barely entertains enough. The middle drags on for way too long, without much interesting or tense happening in it. The buildup and story-flow falls flat and the movie is only still mildly interesting and good to watch in some few sequences, mainly due to its good- and good looking technical sequences. Normally Julie Christie is always great to watch in any movie. She has played in classics such as; "Doctor Zhivago", "Fahrenheit 451", "Don't Look Now" and the more recent; "Dragonheart", "Troy" and "Finding Neverland". She however was simply awful in this movie to be frank. Her performance was emotionless and unconvincing and she didn't seemed comfortable with her role and the movie its story. A silly, unconvincing, technical good looking movie, which subject deserved a better plot. 4/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Demon Seed is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Dean R. Koontz. I wasn't sure what to expect when I first saw this film. Needless to say, I was impressed. Whilst the idea of a megalomaniacal computer is not new, it is used to great effect. Proteus IV is a computer that actually questions the tasks it has been made to do and what the relevance of those tasks are. It also seems to have emotion and is heard several times to other characters in the film that he does not wish to hurt them when they are not co-operating with his demands. Although aspects of this film are now dated ( particularly the computer equipment ),Proteus IV's interesting philosophy, Julie Christie and Fritz Weaver's performances and the unexpected creepy ending make this film worth watching.

Proteus' voice would've been much more effective if they'd fixed Robert Vaughn's whistling dentures.

When we realize today how the computers changed our life ,"demon seed" can easily be looked upon as a film ahead of its time.A bizarre cross between "Rosemary's Baby" and "2001"'s "Hal 9000" ,one feels ill-at-ease after the viewing .The screenplay may seem far-fetched but today it can become a transparent metaphor :we might be the computers' prisoners and it won't improve with time.The computer might know intimate details about us,he may "rape" us in a way. But what remains impressive today is how the director and the script writers managed to sustain interest while using only one character most of the time.Most of the time,the audience is left alone with Julie Christie and the "monster" (there are snatches of "Frankenstein" too),and the viewers can easily identify with her character.

This movie deserves much more ratings & reviews. This movie was great back in 1977, it was so much ahead of its time. Even in 2004 this is still a great movie.When I was younger & seen this movie, I thought " man what a cool house ", then once the stuff started happening, I was like " oh man it fights back ", need I say for awhile I was scared of stuff in house ( TV, fridge, stove, stero). I have this movie on VHS & have lent it to friends to watch, they all enjoy it , some not as much as I, but they all agree this movie is ahead of its time. I strongly suggest anyone who has not seen this movie, don't listen to the reviews, go watch it for yourself & you decide.

I wanted to see this because Donald Cammell co-directed Performance, and I wanted to see what he could do. I also heard a rumor about his grisly suicide that made him seem like just the type of person to make a very deranged horror/thriller. Thus I rented the movie that before had been a mere curiosity and now had some interest. I just hoped that the story wasn't as lame as most Koontz stories. Well, it was pretty lame. Technically, this movie is something like the mixture of 2001: A Space Odyssey with Rosemary's Baby, only those movies are spectacular in their own right and this one isn't even a fraction of either of them alone, much less together. You pretty much know you're in trouble when the scientist's wife comes in the room and they discuss matters of Great Thematic Importance and it comes off more like two people complaining about their boring office jobs nonchalantly over unsteeped tea. There were some clever moments, but ultimately the film looks, feels, and sounds like a Sci Fi Channel original movie, and Donald Cammell definitely does not know the power of NOT showing everything that happens. This film had some scenes and points which would have been very disturbing and said something if it didn't seem so blank and uninteresting in execution and delivery. --PolarisDiB

What a great movie! Let's see, what do we have here... First of all, great actors. Julie Christie is not only a real beauty to watch, her fantastic performance as the impulsive and emotional wife that is very wise in her way really rocks. Fritz Weaver is also perfect as the rather emotionaly cold scientist and the rest of the cast also performs very well in its rather small roles. Please take special note of the Asian actress (the linguist of the team), too bad she hasn't much scenes. The voice of Proteus (Who's that actor by the way? I've never heard of him.) is perfect in its calmness and menace. The script is a masterpiece - Proteus' and Christie's battle of wills and points of view is fantastic. Proteus as the non-emotional perfectly logical genius that realises that there must be more ("eternity does exist, but the price of admission, death, is too high for me to pay") and Christie as the emotional woman full of wits ("how do you want to understand humans when they can't even understand each other?" she asks Proteus). Proteus is not mean per se (for example he makes strong points for the saving of the enviroment when he refuses to do certain tasks), he is just purely logical at the beginning and tries to break out of his small nutshell, also because he is treated like a slave by the scientist that invented him - Proteus seems to have became capable of feelings. The directing is great, it's always a pleasure to watch the wonderful camera angles and editing of this movie. The computer animations may look dated now but that doesn't rob them of their timeless beauty. The electronic music is great and really enhances the experience of watching this movie. A soundtrack album has been recently released by FSM, go and get it! The ending is wonderfully creepy (Proteus made the child resemble the dead daughter!) but one really wonders what will happen. Because of the strong points Proteus made for saving the enviroment is doesn't seem to be altogether bad to have somebody like him as a human, but what else will he want to have - complete domination of the world? Wonderful food for thougths and since the whole movie isn't the usual easy understandable just-switch-your-brain-off-and-be-scared Hollywood crap it isn't surprising that some people find it to be extremely dumb - the movie just throws your own numbness or even dumbness back on you if you aren't open minded or still have a good taste. A rare treasure that really deserves a release on DVD! Especially today with the discussion about increasing involvement of computers in our daily life this movie is more worth watching than ever, also because of the wonderful dialogues and the questions that are asked.

This visionary and tense cautionary sci-fi tale brings to mind HAL from 2001, of course, and maybe "Rosemary's Baby", but also later films such as "Altered States" (the psychedelic sequences) and "The Terminator" (the birth of Skynet?). It's economically directed, disturbing, has intelligent dialogue, and will have you glued to your seat. Julie Christie carries it practically single-handedly in front of the camera, and Robert Vaughn, who provides the disembodied voice (both calm and menacing) of the computer Proteus, gives perhaps the finest performance of his career! There are some awesome visuals in this movie - it can also function as a head trip. *** out of 4.

'Ridiculous... only time well tell'; well, my dear Proteus, time has indeed been able to tell: this film is ridiculous. "Demon Seed" is a film with no real 'intelligence' or purpose; it is a grand guignol puppet show embossed with pyrotechnics. Nothing like an interesting or relevant context is established for the film's events, at the beginning. We know next to nothing about any of the 'characters', a locale or bluntly even the computer project itself. The script shows next to no ingenuity, discarding the slightest hint of an interesting possibility when it briefly rears its head. There is a dearth of issues, situations and reactions explored here; barely an ounce of human character comes across in a film which surely needs its depiction besides a cantankerous computer, voiced by an un-credited Robert Vaughn. Many may find this film slightly 'disturbing' or more rightfully mildly unpleasant and exploitative. The whole concept of a HAL-lite super-computer wanting a child is ludicrous stuff, lent farcically somber weight here. To extend this to an idea of this machine forcibly producing a child via Julie Christie is yet more worthy of ridicule. The whole thing is really not thought through in terms of consequences and the internal realism of the situation; quite how Proteus is so able to gain complete control over Christie's abode, is merely one of many questions. The task of Cammell, who directs as if he were dragged into it reluctantly, seems barely taken up; performances are not coaxed from actors who tend to go through some very abject paces. Julie Christie is surprisingly ineffective as the 'wife figure' Susan Harris; emoting meekly and prissily to little effect. It's rather an undignified role, and Christie struggles to lend it any credence; she seems very badly cast. As an actress, I'd say from the films of hers I have seen, that she tends to be more effective as a still, subtle presence ("Don't Look Now") or as an archetype (of swinging new metropolitan England, in "Billy Liar!") than really as a strong character actress. She was quite a shallow Marian Maudsley in "The Go-Between", physically charming but not getting to the heart of the character. Susan Harris is a little more than a non-character in this script, badly essayed by this statuesque actress. Next to no impression is made by semi-names such as Fritz Weaver, and Ms. Christie really cannot carry the film. It is largely a two-hander with nothing really said, between Mrs Harris and a faceless computer; certainly not an easy task for her to act this out I suppose, but then what are performers paid for? Perhaps not ideally to turn out sullen, generally toneless and indistinct portrayals such as Christie's here. There is no point discussing the ending, which is about the most unoriginal, cloyingly cloddish way to 'wrap things up' one could care to imagine. Idiotic stuff, really; that cribs from other films of the time and has the fashionable 'shock factor' that seems laughable today. About the only real saving grace of this film is really that it could have been worse, more infuriatingly annoying than it is; the ending really shows this. Yet, the whole is truly anemic, and special effects and gadgetry, however well applied, do not a movie make. "Demon Seed" is not anything like a good science fiction film, and that it is at all credited with any worth is really an embarrassment to its critical benefactors. For it is simply shlock 'sci fi' lent mock gravity; a dulling demonstration of a bag of tricks with no purpose, credibility or strategy. Julie Christie is compromised in a rather questionable 'storyline' and rendered ridiculous as she barely tries with what is some very inept material. Rating:- **/*****