There have been, in recent years, a number of imaginative explorations of the role of technology in our lives. It’s a diverse topic, ripe for horror: the increasing levels of control we afford to tech, as well as the importance we attach to apps and platforms, have made for some great films – some scary, some funny, and some a blend of both. Unfortunately, Motion Detected (2023) won’t be joining those ranks anytime soon. It’s too diffuse, too confused and has no pertinent social comments to make. Tech framework or not, this is thin gruel.
We start with a little girl lying in bed; she wakes up to see something static or akin to a glitching screen, almost creeping around her door. She sees ‘it’ at other times, too: when playing outside, she sees something at her window, and heads indoors to take a look. An antsy home security system chunters “Motion detected” as she heads upstairs, before – she’s gone. Literally gone. It seems that she hears her mother’s voice, and is fooled into heading into the big red cloud of electrical static accordingly.
The same house now being available to lease – not a great sign – we cut to a clearly wealthy married couple (albeit no wedding band for her), hoping to move in. The agent showing them around discloses that the last tenants ‘just vanished’, taking it oddly well, given they must have owed the company money. Here’s something else odd: the house’s owner has his own glowering portrait hanging on the wall. Heavy foreshadowing right here – and now that we’re on that subject, the fact that the overzealous home security system is called Diablo is not the best of signs either. Anyway, Eva (Natasha Esca) is enthused about the house, odd portrait and all, because of its state-of-the-art security. She recently survived a run-in with a Mexican serial killer at their old place in Mexico City, and wants the peace of mind. They sign up, just in time for husband Miguel to head back to Mexico City, and their old house, for ‘work’, which seems to be a perpetuity of client dinners. Nice work if you can get it.
This (in)conveniently leaves Eva alone in the new house, with no idea how to work the new security system. You’d think that at the very least the property people would have provided basic instructions, but then that may impede it continually going off. And go off continually, it does. Creepy, unseen triggers set it off. Boundaries are disrespected, weird, hooded figures seem to be menacing the area, and Eva is having a dreadful time of it – as often refracted through a home security eye’s view, with Motion continually Detected. Is this some kind of haunting? Is she being menaced by very earthly figures? Or is this all in her head?
There’s great scope here for a commentary on how our homes are scarily out of our control – or else, on how neighbourhood reliance on messageboards and apps can breed absurd situations, or even on how past trauma can create hallucinations which simply make tech part of their modus operandi. None of these, really, comes to the fore in this film. Eva sadly comes across as an unpleasant character: peevish, argumentative and needy. She is supposed to be deeply traumatised by her past encounter with a killer, but this gets only the sparsest of treatments, and isn’t plausible. There was space and time to do more, but unfortunately Esca’s character as-written instead has to loll about being ‘sexy’ with a disproportionate and pointless number of outfit changes and yoga sessions, not to mention another boundary-defying character (the Diablo technician, no less) who openly ogles her on two occasions, almost as much as the camera seems to peer down her top on a regular basis.
None of this contributes to the storyline. To be fair to this actor, she has to do most of the work alone, as she’s the only person around. But the exposition is clumsy, eventually handed over to one neighbour character who trots out the elements of the house’s mystery ad hoc, whilst this seems to mean Eva has ample time to get drunk and dance solo. I’m also unsure how Mexican viewers will respond to Eva, by the way, a woman who is at first outraged by the stereotyping of Mexicans, but out of nowhere becomes a hard drinking devotee to Santa Muerte. These two things are a little hard to consolidate.
Again, none of this really builds tension or suspense. Jarring edits between Eva’s nightmares and real life are clumsy; the film repeats itself, with the 6am wake-up call over and over, ‘lights out’ over and over, and only the barest, bluntest link between tech and ‘something evil’ being introduced. If this is meant to hint at the inescapability of Eva’s situation, then it doesn’t feel earnest. Even at just 1 hour and 20 minutes long, it becomes difficult to follow, and by the end it had scuppered any impetus it might have had. Unable to fully suspend disbelief, it became difficult not to yell, ‘Just go elsewhere for a while!’ Too many plot points are left dangling whilst these feelings build. Hey, it’s a shame. But as technological horror grows and grows as a genre, there are bound to be more films like this one – a swing and a miss.
Motion Detected (2023) is available from May 19th, 2023.