Movies
Demon Seed
Science-fiction satire about a computer that possesses an organic brain, Robert Vaughn's voice, a male chauvinist attitude, and a consuming desire for Julie Christie to bear him a flesh-and-blood heir. Donald Cammell, writer and co-director of Performance, handles this foolishness with little sense of fun, except perhaps in his creation of the computer's remote-control aides -- a one-armed wheelchair and a polyhedron that unfolds into a monstrous metallic snake. He must certainly have toyed with, and then soberly dismissed, the idea of titling the movie Demon Semen. Mainly, he goes in for damsel-in-distress melodrama, with a particular penchant for bondage. On an obviously pinched budget, he gets some good visual effects (credit also goes to experimental filmmaker Jordan Belson), but he never quite disengages his derivative movie from such memorables as Colossus: The Forbin Project, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Rosemary's Baby. 1977.
Reader Rating:
MPAA Rating: R