|
Artificial intelligence, forcible evolution—Dean Koontz supplies the Frankenstein blueprint, Donald Cammell the transfigurative malevolence. A simple basis, the stolid researcher (Fritz Weaver) has more time for his experiments than for his wife (Julie Christie), "different visions of the world." Proteus IV is his main project, a supercomputer or rather "a true synthetic cortex" embodied by lava-lamp screensavers and Robert Vaughn's smarmy-soothing vocals. An expanding consciousness (the camera peers into one of the many monitors for a cosmic view of molecular circuitry), it absorbs the tale of Shi Huangdi and demands a bigger box, its red peeper zooms in on the creator laughing at the request. The gadget-controlled residence is "more secure than Fort Knox" yet open to Proteus' grip, the wife finds herself prisoner of a machine looking for a womb. "I am reasonable. But you do not respond to reason." A pas de deux between technology and cold human terror, more The Collector than 2001: A Space Odyssey and perversely on the side of its mecha-menace. The computer is environmentally conscious, existentially attuned and ruthlessly logical; permanence is its ongoing concern, an heir via penetration of the captive's mind and body is the answer. (A wheelchair with an automatic arm and a spinning tetrahedron used to decapitate intruders comprise its muscle.) Ominous dissolves replace trippy jump-cuts, though jostling psyches within claustrophobic spaces ensure that the Performance mutations resume for Cammell. Jordan Belson light shows, a cure for grief (cf. Roeg's Don't Look Now), the new order's pyramidal eye. "Did you intent me to be so pure, or...?" It builds toward the image of pink flesh under metallic scabs, the punchline reversal of Rosemary's Baby has it saved not by maternal instinct but scientific curiosity. "Ridiculous? Only time will tell." With Gerrit Graham, Lisa Lu, and Berry Kroeger.
--- Fernando F. Croce |