Science fiction is full of stories of machines rising against their human masters. Most of the time, it’s some kind of high-tech robot, but it could also be something as common as your Alexa.
Today, we’re discussing the psychological horror short Angel by Dicky Chalmers. It is now streaming on Alter’s YouTube channel, and you can also watch it at the end of this article. It might inspire you to get a script ready for the next Killer Shorts Horror Short Screenplay Competition.
The Plot
Cici is looking for love, and follows her date, Ben, to his house. There she sees his Alexa-like machine called Angel. Angel tells her to leave claiming that Ben is a serial killer, and has recordings to prove it. But everything is not as it seems.
I Hate It When My Alexa Acts Up
Angel is a story of how people can be manipulated. The titular machine is easily able to take voice snippets out of context to make two innocent people kill each other. The people involved are manipulated by fear and deception, showing how susceptible people are to these things.
For the first half, the short fully convinces us that Ben is a killer. Even before Angel speaks up, the simple joking suggestion that he’s a serial killer is enough to make most people who are familiar with the genre believe it will end up being completely true. Even when they show something simple as bones in the ramen he’s cooking, the viewer, like the protagonist, takes that as definite proof that the ramen is made from humans, even though there’s really nothing suspicious about the bones at all.
For most of the runtime, we sympathize with Cici and want her to fight back. But when she does, the movie pulls the rug out from under us and makes us fear more for Ben and the consequences of Cici’s actions. Angel played the viewer the same way she played the protagonist.
And her later warnings to Ben about Cici take on a whole new feel, even though they are pretty much the same things she said before. She is no longer the innocent piece of technology, but a bloodthirsty psychopath. And her suggestion of “self-defense” is far more sinister.
In Conclusion
Angel is a tense short about a seemingly well-intentioned machine that turns out to not be so angelic. A Twilight Zone-esque psychological thriller about AI rebelling against its masters, simply by turning them against themselves. It might make you a little more suspicious of your Alexa.
Watch it below.
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