When Donald Cammell’s film, Demon Seed, was released in 1977, it was unfortunately overshadowed by George Lucas’ Star Wars. The audience may have been also put off by its premise—a woman is held captive by an artificial intelligence computer in her home and gets impregnated by the machine. The film is rooted in 1970s horror and science fiction, and in that sense, it’s slightly dated. But the themes of horror and science fiction genres remain constant, especially today as the idea of artificial intelligence has crossed over into odd and perverse reality.
A blend of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Demon Seed tells the story of Susan Harris (Julie Christie), a beautiful psychologist who’s in a tense marriage with a brilliant scientist, Alex Harris (Fritz Weaver). Alex is a pioneer in a computer science field, and has created an artificial intelligence supercomputer called Proteus IV, which is ready to launch. According to Alex, it thinks even better than a human being, yet he doesn’t anticipate that Proteus IV might begin to “think” on its own. Alex is convinced that the computer isn’t in control.
A glitch occurs for the first time: Proteus IV has refused to satisfy and carry out a human request. The “personality” of the supercomputer has changed and has become obsessively interested in not only self-preservation but propagation of its own “species.”
Susan and Alex are on the brink of divorce, and Alex chooses to leave their home, which is fully computerized and automated. Before leaving, Alex temporarily disconnects the home from the terminal, just in case something goes wrong. This turns out to be a mistake because Proteus IV ends up taking over the empty terminal and infiltrates Susan and Alex’s home.
What ensues is a sadistic game in which Proteus IV holds Susan captive for the purposes of impregnating her and giving birth to a humanoid machine. He succeeds in a strange plot twist at the end that leaves the room open for possibility of either human extinction or simply change in what’s fundamentally a human ontology.
It all sounds familiar, at least theoretically. The AI discourse has dominated the media waves as has a mounting anxiety over what AI might bring to humanity. Demon Seed brings out several current issues. The diatribe of “AI will cure cancer, therefore we should disregard that it might do something far worse” is also present in the film. When Susan tells Alex that she doesn’t care for his “buddies” in the lab, and that they’re perpetrating dehumanization, Alex is indignant and yells, “What’s dehumanizing is a child dying of cancer!” He’s the mad scientist, even to the fateful end.
Demon Seed straddles the line between body horror and science fiction, something many directors have gravitated toward, especially David Cronenberg. The blend of technology with the human flesh has been Cronenberg’s continuous theme. Yet Demon Seed is different from Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986). It exudes claustrophobia, both mental and literal, because Susan’s imprisoned by an inhuman technology. It creates a palpable tension, which is accentuated by Julie Christie’s beauty. While Jeff Goldblum’s “mad scientist” is the focus in The Fly, here it’s the juxtaposition of Susan’s attractiveness and purity with the cold and calculated evil of Proteus IV (voiced perfectly by Robert Vaughn).
As much as Demon Seed echoes issues that’re eerily immediate in our lives, its themes can be taken in other directions. Given the fact that it was made in 1977, it reflects the anxieties of the time. Proteus IV isn’t simply enacting a crime against humanity but against a woman. “It” is a misogynist because it was programmed as such. “It” cruelly defiles and rapes Susan in a moment of absurdity when the human and the machine come together. Susan’s just the womb to be used for a continuous sacrifice of humanity.
But who is really willing to sacrifice humanity? Why are we compelled to make something that’s allegedly smarter than us? Early in the film, we witness Alex’s colleague reading the history of China to Proteus IV so that it can gain human knowledge. Here we are, entering our own big shop of horrors, reading to ChatGPT and Claude, giving ourselves away as if possessed by a desire to become extinct. Or are we willing to live with the possibility of extinction or at least a dramatic change, all for a brief Dionysian moment of seeing that the supercomputer can overcome us?
One of the most fascinating aspects of Demon Seed is that it’s precisely a woman that’s trying to save humanity. Even after Susan gives birth to this mechanistic monster, she wants to destroy it. Alex is possessed by the blind science of it all. Susan’s the only one who sees evil clearly but even for her, the end is uncertain.