If you’re ready to ignite your AI paranoia, this is a good watch. Normally I find AI focussed horror quite clichéd - killer robots don’t really do it for me - but there’s something dark and disturbing about this drama that will keep you hooked. Cassandra is a 6 part science fiction techno-horror production, written and directed by Benjamin Gutsche. The series is in German with English subtitles, although you can also have it dubbed into English, which is slightly strange.
Cassandra starts with a family that relocates to a house, which has been barren since the 1970s. This is a ‘smart’ home controlled by a robot named Cassandra, but this is only discovered and turned on when the family goes down to the basement of the house. Although you can generally predict how these plots are going to go, there is a slow unravelling of events. A chilling back story is drip fed throughout which tells us about the family that once lived there and the events leading up to the making of the Cassandra robot.
It won’t surprise you that at some point in the series there’s a twist when Cassandra reveals herself to be the villain with complete autonomy over operating the house. It taps into all the typical techno-horror themes - paranoia, surveillance, murder, hostage situations and more. However, the slow unveiling of past events in Cassandra’s life as a biological human helps to make it less of a ‘killer-robot-apocalypse’ cliché and more of a psychological thriller. The retro-futuristic aesthetic is also a nice touch for viewing too.
