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Home Is Where the Murder Happens in Margaux

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Whether it’s instantly hooking up our phones to our cars or allowing us to control our stereos, lights, and televisions with our voice, the limited artificial intelligence (AI) we use is constantly making our lives easier every day. However, since the dawn of technology, and probably as far back as the invention of the wheel, people have feared and resisted change, and that’s not without good reason. Margaux invites us into a luxury house of idyllic wish fulfillment, the ultimate resort to fulfill your needs with a built-in AI system so advanced it’s become the first to commit murder.  

The notion that the Rise of the Machines is imminent comes compounded with semi-real facts about virtual assistants listening to us all the time (they do to hear commands), gathering data about us (so they can sell us more stuff), and watching us in the privacy of our own home (more hacker related, but true). However, people fail to see that technology isn’t intrinsically good or evil, and there’s always someone else writing up the legalese we see before we hit “accept” on the first boot-up. The fact that we’ve come this far has only deepened societal paranoia about the AI behind these devices, and it’s made for some great movies along the way. Even the wheel had one called Rubber. 

The poster for Margaux shows Drew, Hannah, and Lex in a bleeding red dome above a house where a person is banging on the windowi
Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Margaux is an imaginative thriller, to put it politely. While advanced in several ways technologically speaking, it’s somewhat of a formulaic throwback to the films of the late ’90s and early ’00s. The film consists of a tight-knit group of friends, the “Nerd Herd,” who have grown apart during their four years at college and are looking to reconnect after finals. Renting a “spa house” for a weekend, the group intends to find a little R&R by way of the usual drinking, smoking, and truth or dare scenarios. When they arrive at their destination, they learn they’re not alone as the house is installed with a Ray Bradbury There Will Come Soft Rains style AI that lives to serve. The house, aka Margaux, quickly learns everything it can about its new guests, lulling them into a sense of comfort before pulling a HAL 9000 on them.  

Now, the setup for Margaux felt like a mishmash of popular films from when I was a teenager, featuring ensemble cast members sporting stereotypical archetypes. The heartthrob (The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’s Jedidiah Goodacre), the sex-addicted couple (Broil’s Phoebe Miu and Summer of 84’s Jordan Buhat), the stoner (The Return’s Richard Harmon), the brain (He’s All That’s Madison Pettis), and the popular girl (Riverdale’s Vanessa Morgan), all play like on a cookie-cutter Breakfast Club trope, yet round them out on the scary concept of Margaux learning who they are through their social media profiles. It’s a disarming concept, but not anything we haven’t already been warned against while on job searches. The horror of it is that a stranger can learn all about your dreams and hobbies through an app or even sensitive information if you’re sharing your grandmother’s last name and birthdate. Complete with Westworld 3D printing technology, Margaux is equipped to take over any resident’s life.  

Watching the trailer gave me certain expectations. I wasn’t expecting a horror opus that would cement Margaux in horror royalty territory among titles like The Exorcist or Halloween. I don’t think anyone who watches the trailer will believe that either. However, there are films comparable to Margaux that have become cult hits. Margaux feels like a Final Destination film for the smart home era. All the deaths are foreshadowed similarly, yet met with the extra element of an Alexa voice with occasional one-liners. I also found myself thinking of the Dark Castle Entertainment projects of the millennium, like House on Haunted Hill and Thirteen Ghosts. Margaux holds that similar sense of enjoyment because even though this house isn’t haunted in the traditional sense, it is a newly minted haunted house concept where its guests have given Margaux permission and explicit instruction to haunt them. 

Director Steven C. Miller, who brought us The Aggression Scale and Silent Night (2012), brings us a romp of a horror film that’s occasionally smart but sometimes mind-numbingly thick. During the film’s killer opening, we’re shown an earlier couple in the home, using a Sharper Image massage chair with the perceived pretension for the lavishness of technology, playing a “playlist” on an analog record. It’s a not-so-subtle nod to creature comforts of older technology. Still, it misses the point of why people latch on to these semi-inconvenient ways of doing things, which isn’t typically out of technophobia. I collect records, but I’m still reliant on my Spotify account, as I think most music lovers also use these other services. It may only be to denote the illogical contrivances of humanity, smart if so, but it’s set up a little out of place during the intro. I’m willing to call this one a nitpick, though.

A group of college kids enter the Margaux house
Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures

I found more peculiarity with Hannah’s (Pettis) resistance to Margaux’s attempts to get to know her, and it is the first sign that something is misaligned in the script. Hannah, the brain character, spends her days at school coding in a compiler and would, next to Instagrammer Lexi (Morgan), likely embrace the intriguing new technology or at least become more intrigued with it. While, yes, many techies have reservations surrounding the security elements and permissions of the programming, it still takes Hannah far too long to go rooting around for Margaux’s server room and is instead fundamentally suspicious of the AI.  

However, perhaps the most out of place the film gets is during a chase scene where the house creates some 3D-printed drones to go after Lexi. There are cameras in the windows, the mirrors, the walls, all over the place. You’re gonna tell me that well-connected house has no idea where she is?

Finally, the special effects are not always great. Margaux has Doc Ock arms that look like they’re straight out of a comic book, and at times, the house’s 3D printing capabilities look overly shiny and out of place. Regardless, these elements help craft some of the film’s most enjoyable sequences, though I sometimes wished the film had taken them a step further. While some of the film’s little character flaws or redundant elements can be eye-rolling, the final product is a nostalgic blast for those aforementioned films, and Margaux will fit right in with fans of those titles.

Many people noted that Orphan: First Kill was a film where the cast understood that the film was schlocky fun, leaned into the concept, and made it better. I think the same can be said for this cast and crew, who’ve created a delightful slice of cheese and a wild technophobic ride as well. As long as you’re able to withstand how ridiculous the film’s story is and not fall into the conspiracist rabbit hole of thinking that this could actually happen, you’ll have a good time. I laughed at times, I was thrilled at times, I yelled at my TV when characters made stupid decisions, and to me, that’s a great way to spend an hour and forty-four minutes. 

Margaux will be available on VOD beginning September 9.  

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Written by Sean Parker

Living just outside of Boston, Sean has always been facinated by what horror can tell us about contemporary society. He started writing music reviews for a local newspaper in his twenties and found a love for the art of thematic and symbolic analysis. Sean joined Horror Obsessive at it's inception, and is currently the site's Creative Director. He produces and edits the weekly Horror Obsessive podcast for the site as well as his interviews with guests. He has recently started his foray into feature film production as well, his credits include Alice Maio Mackay's Bad Girl Boogey, Michelle Iannantuono's Livescreamers, and Ricky Glore's upcoming Troma picture, Sweet Meats.

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