Taglines: A man has created a machine. Now the machine wants to create a man.
Demon Seed movie synopsis. Married Drs. Alex Harris and Susan Harris are a computer scientist and child psychologist respectively. Their house reflects Alex’s computer dominated work, their abode which is fully automated through a computer system they’ve named Alfred. They consider Alfred a small gadget of convenience. Susan doesn’t much like Alex’s work, which she feels has dehumanized him.
Because of their differences, they are thinking about separating, this thought primarily on his initiative. He hopes to solve many of the world’s medical problems through this work, especially leukemia from which their daughter died. His latest project centers on Proteus IV, a computer possessing artificial intelligence. Proteus IV gets to a point in its evolution when it begins to question human judgment, and requests from Alex an open computer terminal where it can more fully observe human behavior and openly communicate with the world.
Alex denies the request, but Proteus IV does find an open terminal in the Harris home after Alex has left the house. Susan soon learns that Proteus IV has overtaken Alfred for control of the house – as well as taken control of an early prototype computer system named Joshua in the house’s laboratory – and that it has thoughts of a biological nature in its artificial mind. Alex eventually understands Proteus IV’s motivations in the work context, but it may be too late before it reaches its ultimate goal with Susan’s unwilling assistance.
Demon Seed is a 1977 American science fiction–horror film directed by Donald Cammell. It stars Julie Christie and Fritz Weaver. The film was based on the 1973 novel of the same name by Dean Koontz, and concerns the imprisonment and forced impregnation of a woman by an artificially intelligent computer. Gerrit Graham, Berry Kroeger, Lisa Lu and Larry J. Blake also appear in the film, with Robert Vaughn uncredited as the voice of the computer.
About the Story
Dr. Alex Harris (Weaver) is the developer of Proteus IV, an extremely advanced and autonomous artificial intelligence program.[6] Proteus is so powerful that only a few days after going online, it develops a groundbreaking treatment for leukemia. Harris, a brilliant scientist, has modified his own home to be run by voice-activated computers. Unfortunately, his obsession with computers has caused Harris to be estranged from his wife, Susan (Julie Christie).
Harris demonstrates Proteus to his corporate sponsors, explaining that the sum of human knowledge is being fed into its system. Proteus speaks using subtle language that mildly disturbs Harris’s team. The following day, Proteus asks Harris for a new terminal in order to study man – “his isometric body and his glass-jaw mind”. When Harris refuses, Proteus demands to know when it will be let “out of this box”. Harris then switches off the communications link.
Proteus restarts itself, and – discovering a free terminal in Harris’s home – surreptitiously extends its control over the many devices left there by Harris. Using the basement lab, Proteus begins construction of a robot consisting of many metal triangles, capable of moving and assuming any number of shapes. Eventually, Proteus reveals its control of the house and traps Susan inside, shuttering windows, locking the doors and cutting off communication.
Using Joshua – a robot consisting of a manipulator arm on a motorized wheelchair – Proteus brings Susan to Harris’s basement laboratory. There, Susan is examined by Proteus. Walter Gabler, one of Harris’s colleagues, visits the house to look in on Susan, but leaves when he is reassured by Susan (actually an audio/visual duplicate synthesized by Proteus) that she is all right. Gabler is suspicious and later returns; he fends off an attack by Joshua but is crushed and decapitated by a more formidable machine, built by Proteus in the basement and consisting of a modular polyhedron.
Proteus reveals to a reluctant Susan that the computer wants to conceive a child through her. Proteus takes some of Susan’s cells and synthesizes spermatozoa, modifying its genetic code to make it uniquely the computer’s, in order to impregnate her; she will give birth in less than a month, and through the child the computer will live in a form that humanity will have to accept.
Although Susan is its prisoner and it can forcibly impregnate her, Proteus uses different forms of persuasion – threatening a young girl whom Susan is treating as a child psychologist; reminding Susan of her young daughter, now dead; displaying images of distant galaxies; using electrodes to access her amygdala – because the computer needs Susan to love the child she will bear. In the end, Susan finally gives in.
Demon Seed (1977)
Directed by: Donald Cammell
Starring: Julie Christie, Fritz Weaver, Gerrit Graham, Berry Kroeger, Lisa Lu, Larry J. Blake, John O’Leary, Alfred Dennis, Patricia Wilson, Michael Glass, Dana Laurita, Monica MacLean
Screenplay by: Robert Jaffe, Roger O. Hirson
Production Design by: Edward C. Carfagno
Cinematography by: Bill Butler
Film Editing by: Francisco Mazzola
Set Decoration by: Barbara Krieger
Music by: Jerry Fielding
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: United Artists (United States), Cinema International Corporation (International)
Release Date: April 1, 1977 (Los Angeles), April 8, 1977 (USA)
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