MARGAUX

Margaux (2023)
Directed by: Steven C. Miller
Written by: Chris Beyrooty, Nick Waters
Starring: Lochlyn Munro, Madison Pettis, Richard Harmon, Vanessa Morgan

A bogeyman in the shape of a smart house offers the gore in this “Demon Seed” variant for the modern generation…..

Horror combined with modern technology has been a stable within the genre for many of years and while Steven C Miller’s MARGAUX doesn’t rip up the rule book and offer anything new to what we have seen before, it’s still an easy, if not a lazy watch to pass a boring weekend indoors.

Setting the tone from the off with two unfortunate houseguests realising that this new smart tech house has a murderous mind, a gory head explosion leads the path towards a bunch of college friends, Hannah (Madison Pettis,) Lexi (Vanessa Morgan) Drew (Jedidiah Goodacre) Devon (Jordan Buhat), and Clay (Richard Harmon) who decide to re-unite for a fun weekend away at the same house unaware of the horror that is set to greet them.

With its female voice, Margaux at first can easily seduce, offering the gang a luxury pad where bartending tentacles (now that is sentence, I thought I’d never write) offer alcohol on tap, a kitchen that serves up their favourite food and the perfect bedroom that have been tailormade for their personality.

Only Hannah, a computer whizz kid simply because the plot needs one, is wary of what is on offer, even refusing to download the app that the house requests on arrival and becomes a houseguest that Margaux has difficulty getting to know. Bizarrely the film dips its toes into Star Trek and The Terminator territory, with a room like the holodeck on the Enterprise and liquid metal that makes clones out of people, an outlandish plot vice that basically throws away its initial intriguing premise of a house having to kill by objects/furniture around the place.

The more the film moves on within its running time, the sillier it becomes as Margaux reveals her true intentions and while the deaths are not very memorable, there is a tiny bit of creepiness at times that never really makes this feel a chore.

Yes, you’ll be baffled by the illogical plot choices and even more bemused when the finale becomes something like a Cobra Kai gang fight, but all die-hard horror fans will admit at times that we all need an offering of dumbness from the genre and Margaux has it through each of its rooms and the offering of some dodgy CGI.

It’s not the best horror you’ll see in 2024, but it won’t be the worst..

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