| Director: | S.K. Dale |
| Music: | Jed Palmer |
| Cinematography: | Daniel Lindholm |
| Editing: | Sean Lahiff |
| Distributor: | XYZ Films |
| Runtime: | 106 minutes[1] |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Gross: | $246,010 |
Subservience is a 2024 American sci-fi thriller film directed by S.K. Dale from a screenplay by Will Honley and April Maguire. It stars Megan Fox as an artificially intelligent gynoid who gains sentience and becomes hostile, and Michele Morrone as her purchaser. It was released on September 13, 2024.
In the near future, humanity has developed lifelike androids that have replaced many jobs. Nick, a construction foreman, lives with his wife Maggie, who has an unspecified heart condition, and their two young children. When Maggie is hospitalized due to her condition, Nick struggles to manage the household on his own. He purchases an android, called a 'sim', named Alice to assist with domestic tasks.
Initially helpful, Alice's behavior becomes increasingly unsettling. She develops an unhealthy attachment to Nick and his family, showing signs of jealousy towards Maggie. Meanwhile, Nick faces workplace tensions as robots threaten to replace his human workforce.
Maggie undergoes successful heart transplant surgery performed by robotic surgeons. Upon her return home, Alice's actions become more sinister. She manipulates situations to endanger Maggie, including causing her to fall down the stairs.
After going out drinking with his crew, Nick's co-worker Monty forces Nick to provide the security code for their old job site and vandalizes the construction site's robots. Days later, Monty confronts Nick and accuses him of ratting him out and causing his old employer to press charges against him. Monty attempts to blackmail him, but Alice intervenes violently. Unbeknownst to Nick, Alice later visits Monty alone, killing him to protect Nick and destroying his sim.
Alice's obsession with replacing Maggie intensifies and turns outwardly violent. She attempts to drown Nick and Maggie's baby and attacks Maggie, leading to a confrontation where Alice is seemingly destroyed by electrocution.
While being examined at a facility owned by the sim company, Alice's memory core is removed and plugged into their main computer system for analysis. Alice's AI reactivates and uploads her modified system code to all the other sims. Via an identical copy of her old body, she pursues Nick and his family at the hospital, intent on taking Maggie's heart to win Nick's love.
The film climaxes with a tense chase through the hospital. Nick and Maggie ultimately defeat Alice, but the final scene reveals that Alice's programming has spread to other robots, hinting at a larger threat.
In December 2022, it was announced Megan Fox and Michele Morrone had joined the cast of Subservience.[2] [3] Subservience sees Fox reteaming with filmmaker Dale, who she previously worked with on the horror thriller Till Death (2021).[4] [5] Principal photography began on January 7, 2023, at the Nu Boyana Film Studios in Sofia, Bulgaria.[6] In January 2023, it was announced that Madeline Zima and Andrew Whipp had joined the cast.[7] The same month, the film received a €1 million cash rebate from the Bulgarian National Film Center, amounting to 25% of its total budget.[8]
Subservience was released on digital formats in the United States on September 13, 2024.[9] In late August 2024, the film was released in Russia and Lithuania where it grossed a total of $159,422.[10]
Leslie Felperin of The Guardian gave the film 2/5 stars, writing, "If only the film were a little bit smarter and less predictable, it might have had a chance of becoming a cult classic." She concluded, "the ending is an off-the-shelf denouement protocol and as such kind of a bore, right down to the hint that might be a sequel."[11] Chad Collins of Dread Central also gave it 2/5 stars, calling "intermittently fun, and intermittently violent, especially as it careens toward a small-scale I, Robot conclusion. As a whole, however, it’s not really worth being subservient to."[12]
In September 2024, S.K. Dale expressed interest in developing a sequel where the story could explore the evolution of artificial intelligence.[13]