Look, I think we know that somewhere out there that there is a horror movie where a “Smart Home Gone Bad” concept works while simultaneously being a commentary. Something like how much time we waste digitally documenting and posting our IRL experiences on our social media feeds for “the likes” but therefore missing out on actually experiencing these events and occasions. You won’t miss a bloodbath.

This movie ain’t it.

It could’ve even been a cheeky stab at what most of us do when using social media, signing your life away via Terms & Conditions agreements.

This movie ain’t it.

The meat of the story is introduced to some college kids who are going on Spring Break and got an “AirBnB” of sorts (it seems there is a wave of this lately in the horror genre) that is a futuristic Smart House complete with 3-D printing capabilities and horrible looking CGI mechanical tentacles. Our main character Hannah, who is a coder, is the only one that doesn’t accept the Terms & Conditions agreement to gain access to the house past locked gates that are only unlocked when everyone accepts an agreement on their phones. Of course, our skeptical coder whom we’re sure is going to come in handy later on in the film, is the only one that doesn’t accept (but the house lets her in any way).

Director Steven C. Miller directs this one and if you’ve been following independent genre films in the past 10 years, the name may sound familiar. Miller came onto the horror scene with his film Automaton Transfusion in 2005/2006. In 2012, he returned to the festival circuit with The Aggression Scale. It was a simple story that was a more gritty telling of Home Alone. In fact, Miller directed three films in 2012 including the loose remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night, and Under the Bed. Since then, he’s been pretty prolific with direct-to-video action movies.

The biggest issue with Margaux is that the characters feel like they are exaggerations of the age group they’re supposed to portray. Sure, they may look the part but the feels updated, cookie-cutter, predictable, and, worst of all, forgettable. Miller opens with a splattery moment but this moment and others just don’t cut it to be as gonzo as the film could have been. There are relatively sinister things happening but the film never moves in that direction. One kill sequence has the potential to be particularly nasty but feels more like a cop-out. Margaux is more focused on being straight, and to the point without any style.

Margaux has a similar mentality to 90’s-tech-horror films like Brainscan or, probably more on the nose, Ghost in the Machine, both films act as morality tales that drive that this “new tech” proves that it may be best to unplug every once and a while. By the end of the film, the film feels like a carnival funhouse that maybe wasn’t worth the number of tickets you redeemed for it.