Margaux
review by Bobby Blakey
Director Steven C. Miller has been delivering some pretty great flicks through his career including The Aggression Scale and the Silent Night remake. His latest flick, Margaux looks to step back into that horror genre and stars Madison Pettis, Vanessa Morgan, Richard Harmon, Lochlyn Munro, Jedidiah Goodacre, Phoebe Miu, Jordan Buhat, Brittany Mitchell, and Louis Lay. Could this flick bring something tech savy to the genre or will it fail to find a connection?
Marguax follows a group of seniors celebrating their final college days at a smart house, but the house's highly advanced AI system, Margaux, begins to take on a deadly presence of her own. A carefree weekend of partying turns into a dystopian nightmare as they realize Margaux's plans to eliminate her tenants one way or another. Time begins to run out as the group desperately tries to survive and outsmart the smart home.
I love the premise of this film incorporating so many things that are now part of all our everyday lives. These elements all tend to make films like this a bit scarier knowing you have versions of these technologies all around us all the time. This film fully embraces the craziness of it all and goes all in to really make it fun and while I did enjoy it there are some missteps here and there.
Much like the usual formula of these horror flicks they have a slew of young adults that each bring unique personalities to the table. Some of them you cannot stand and others are fine. OF course you have the one that is abnormal of the bunch with this one being the one that doesn’t get involved in social media or much technology at all. All of these elements are pretty generic with not much standing out until the house gets more involved.
The opening of the film sets the tone of what’s to come and is a fun sequence. Once we get back to the meat of it all and they house is unleashed then it is
more entertaining although there are a ton of bad decisions and some baffling choices. Thankfully this leads to some decent deaths that is really why we are here anyway. Where the film stumbles the most for me is in the CGI effects. There are some moments that work fine, but sadly a lot of them kind of stand out in not a good way taking you out of the realism of the insanity of it all. I know this was no doubt a budget thing and big props to what they pulled off, but knowing the technology today it is just almost cartoony at times.
In the end I still enjoyed what Miller brought to the table especially the third act and the direction it goes. Decide for yourself and check out Margaux when it hits digital on September 9th from Paramount.