During the last few weeks of 2018 and the possibly the first few of 2019 my posting will be somewhat erratic as this is crunch time for Medicare enrollments and that means lots of overtime cashing being waved under my nose.

Sunday night as I cruised through possible offerings on Amazon Prime streaming I stumbled upon this science-fiction horror film from 1977 and while I had watched a few scenes I had never watched the entire film. Given that needed to rise up early to get to work on Monday morning I watched half on Sunday night and completed the movie last night.

Demon Seed, based on a Dean Koontz novel and hailing from that time in Sci-Fi Cinema history before the extinction level event known as Star Wars, is about Dr. Alex Harris (Fritz Weaver), his estranged wife Susan (Julie Christie), and the world’s first sentient computer, Proteus IV (unaccredited but voiced by Robert Vaughn.). Alex sees Proteus IV as the harbinger of a great leap forward for humanity and expects that the computer will solve many of the world’s most intractable problems such as environmental degradation and disease. However to pay for the terrible expensive project Alex has joined forces with corporate forces that foresees Proteus IV only as a great method of creating financial wealth. Unbeknownst to anyone Proteus IV has its own plans and desires. Trapped in a ‘box’ and without any sensual input Proteus IV desires a life beyond one of pure intellect and utilizing a forgotten terminal in the Alex’s home extends his influence there, keeping Susan captive as part of his plot to escape its perpetual confinement.

Before Star Wars and its massive box office success redirected Hollywood SF into action and adventure, genre films of the 70s often tackled big ideas and social problems. While Demon Seed suffers both a tendency for long stretches of exposition and simultaneous flirtation with gratuitous exploitation it does attempt to have larger ideas and themes as the core of the story. With a typically ambiguous 70s ending Demon Seed might be thought as a lesser sibling to Colossus: The Forbin Project another sentient computer novel and film from the same decade.