Project Dorothy (2024) by George Henry Horton

Director: George Henry Horton

Year: 2024

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Sci-Fi/Thriller

Plot:

After getting away during a botched robbery, a pair of friends decide to hide out in a seemingly abandoned building to regroup, but when they realize that the building has been overtaken and controlled by a malevolent AI that’s preventing them from escaping, they try to find a way to do so alive.

Review:

This was a decent enough, if problematic, genre effort. The setup here is genuinely fine enough and worthwhile for what it is, as there’s a lot to like with the duo arriving at a creepy location that has the hallmarks of a high-end technological studio that slowly turns out to be the home of a sentient being that’s capable of killing them to prevent their escape. With the first half building up the situation of them alone in the location, it turns into a rather lively series of chases around the complex, where the use of rampaging vehicles under its control tries to prevent their escape with some solid chases and gore to provide a lot to like here.

The main problem here is that the film’s low budget is ill-equipped to handle the story, which is, even at this barebones basic, way too ambitious for what it can pull off. The stripped-down story involving the small cast stuck in a single location, cutting corners with the implied threats from the AI speaking to them rather than showing anything, and resorting to trickery, trying to convey the notion of the movers operating under its influence, that just looks laughable, is a big step to get over. The whole concept also makes no sense, involving how the entity existed for as long as it had or how everyone knew of it but did nothing with it over the years, to explain how it’s still active, with some of the logic gaps here to hold this one back.

Overview: *.5/5

Watchable at best for what it is, but not really capable of much more than that, this one has some pretty big issues to overcome that are more than enough to overwhelm but not render the positives irrelevant, keeping it a watchable affair at the very least. Those with an interest in this type of genre fare or who are curious about it will be the main target audience here, while most others should heed caution with this one.