Demon Seed

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

35mm print! Post-screening conversation with critic and filmmaker Caroline Golum (Feast of Man).

“In this techno-erotic horror movie, from 1977, Julie Christie is sensational as a sometime child psychotherapist stuck in a loveless marriage with a computer whiz (Fritz Weaver). His greatest accomplishment is a thinking supercomputer called Proteus IV—which isn’t satisfied with being a machine. After wife and husband separate, Proteus IV takes one look at the woman of the house and decides to father a child with her. Proteus IV may sound like HAL with a sore throat, but he comes off as more of a humanitarian than his human masters (who want to use him for lucrative projects like strip-mining the ocean floor), and he insists that his child will make computers, not humans, obsolete. Although half the film is taken up with the computer’s bullying of Christie, the director, Donald Cammell, doesn’t control the sex-charged situations in the same way that, say, William Wyler did in “The Collector.” But Cammell does stage a stunning action set piece of Proteus IV battling a young scientist (Gerrit Graham), and Christie’s passionate, vulnerable performance keeps pulling the entire movie into her point of view.” – Michael Sragow, New Yorker

Screening as part of the series “Pregnant with Fear.”

• Year 1977
• Running Time 94 minutes
• Format 35mm
• Distributor Park Circus
• Director Donald Cammell
• Cast Julie Christie, Fritz Weaver, Gerrit Graham
• Accessibility Assistive Listening, T-Coil

IFC Center does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. In addition to the synopses, trailers and other links on our website, further information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media, IMDb and DoesTheDogDie.com as well as through general internet searches.