The perils and pitfalls of artificial intelligence are laid bare in this speculative, thought-provoking science fiction that promises much but doesn't quite deliver on every front.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 21, 2025

If Afraid leaned into its own silliness, it might be fun. But as it stands, it's dumber than a dead Digimon.

| Dec 4, 2024

A film that feels like it’s grasping for viable directions for much of its running time.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Nov 9, 2024

Afraid explores society's tech fears as AI creeps into daily life but falls short on thriller tension, leaving it a mediocre horror despite a strong concept.

| Original Score: 2.5 | Nov 7, 2024

... by not investigating A.I., by not giving the danger we’ve already let into our homes a serious exploration, "AFRAID" lacks the weight of its intention and fails to deliver that sinking feeling it so deserves upon conclusion.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 6, 2024

It's a film that's so blunt and so on-the-nose that the importance of the message is lost as it's shoved directly into your face throughout the entirety of its duration, coming off as nothing more than a lazy, uninspired PSA.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 5, 2024

AI is a hot topic for horror, and there's plenty that could be done with it, but despite good characters and a promising setup, this film goes haywire with its silly, one-note third act.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 4, 2024

There’s not much to be done with a movie like “Afraid,” that sets up its technological boogeyman in such a hermetically sealed way that genuine terror — or any other non-algorithmic emotion — can’t penetrate.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 30, 2024

Just enough "the future is here" stuff to creep out an audience.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Sep 26, 2024

...a disappointing misfire that feels like it should be so much better.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 18, 2024

I'm afraid not.

| Sep 14, 2024

Crucially, Weitz grasps that the most unsettling thing about AIA’s real-world equivalents isn’t their alien novelty but the way they mirror human nature, revealing qualities in their designers and users that were present all along.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 12, 2024

Afraid is better than expected...and it largely succeeds as a fun genre exercise. If only its aspiration to “say something” didn’t keep it from being pure dumb fun.

| Sep 9, 2024

A really interesting cautionary tale.

| Original Score: C | Sep 9, 2024

Every line of dialogue is stilted, every theme is spelled out in laboriously literal terms, and the characters never feel even close to human.

| Sep 8, 2024

AfrAId‘s cultish thread actually becomes its most compelling for a time... But none of these threads are quite seen through. They’re often just hinted at and left largely unexplored, cut off, or resolved before much can be made of them.

| Sep 7, 2024

AfrAId is the latest Blumhouse release that feels like a script for a horror short that got a few million bucks to make a quick weekend profit. Not even the AI feels like it wants to be here as we go through a cliche family drama with some jump scares.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Sep 6, 2024

It’s all a bunch of gobbledygook that builds toward a nonsensical finale, hoping to achieve the best of every world. At the same time, I sat and hoped this was all just a simulation of me having to deal with a bad movie.

| Original Score: 2/10 | Sep 6, 2024

Thinly written, confusingly acted, and completely inconsistent in every way that matters, Afraid is bottom of the barrel for tech-based horror.

| Sep 5, 2024

There are a few good moments in the film, directed by Chris Weitz and starring John Cho and Katherine Waterston, but those are few and far between.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 4, 2024