Besides the amateurish dubbing (which we could not disable, but which I can forgive), I felt the writing and direction of this movie was dull as dishwater. First, this couple goes to a hi-tech house on an island, set in the future. The woman seems oversexed, and appears naked a lot, while the man always has the stony look of annoyance and disgust about him--no warmth, smile, or other emotions.

Anyway, they get to this "smart house", and it does a few things at first which hint that something is a bit off. This is intriguing.

However, the couple then start making love (standing up) and on the walls flash pictures and videos of naked women and pornographic scenes. What? The wife seems a bit disgusted and tells the house to turn it off. The husband seems unperturbed. Is this normal? It was just weird with no explanation.

Then we learn the husband is some journalist who has exposed the paramilitary tactics of the city police, and for his efforts, is suspended (or fired?) from his job. The wife seems to work in the legal system, and keeps referencing "Layla", who is a resistance fighter who perhaps took part in a terrorist plot, attacking the police. The husband feels distraught, thinking his expose article led to innocent deaths. The "house" leads him to find a fully automatic weapon in the basement, and finds out the wife brought it there for safekeeping or something, if Layla needs it? He confronts the wife with it, who eventually apologizes.

The husband asks the house to play back video on the wall the wife was looking at before she went to bed, one of which is sex with the husband's boss. He runs out in the woods as if he's been hit in the gut. Again, the husband confronts this secretive slut of a wife, who basically puts the blame on him for divulging one of her legal cases to his boss, who blackmails the wife into having sex with him to avoid publicizing her case.

There seems to be something wrong with the house--it does not "like me" she says, and the husband reassures her the system cannot be hacked, and they're going to call out an expert.

Then there are more scenes of them sitting down, gloomy, talking about the story, the terrorist incident by resistance fighters against the police, the technical issues with the house. Lots of dead, dull scenes with dreary chit-chat about some political event we cannot even see, as the husband takes his kayak into the water.

We finished about half of the movie, but it seemed too scattered. I thought I was going to watch a movie about a smart house going bad, or even having a mind of its own. It apparently does, but not against the owners, really. Nothing really exciting or interesting happens, and the atmosphere seems drab, cloudy, gray and dreary the entire time. The expression on the husband's face is monochromatic and without variance. The wife just stares at him, wondering if he wants to sleep with her or to sing the praises of Layla, her resistance fighter friend.

Smart house gone bad? Infidelity? Preoccupation with some political event that happened they don't even show us? Naked wife swimming, showering or throwing her body onto his?

The movie seemed like a dull and dreary mess, so we turned it off. It was tedious and unappealing in almost all respects--the actors, the dialog, the entire writing and boring plot (plot apparently was about the resistance fighters coming to the place with guns and the house protects the owners or something).

(2021) The House/ Das Haus (In German with English subtitles) SCIENCE FICTION POLITICAL THRILLER

Adapted from the short story by Dirk Kurbjuweit, co-written and directed by Rick Ostermann that has husband, Johann Hellström (Tobias Moretti) and his wife, Lucia Hellström (Valery Tscheplanowa) just arriving to their home located at an isolated island, And what is unique about the home is that it does things by command, simply by talking to it, in the same tradition as HAL from "2001: A Space Odyssey". In the midst of all of this is some militia group clashing with the gov't in regarding of a terrorist act. And it is presumed that it was a young couple by the names of Layla (Lisa Vicari) and her boyfriend, Alex (Max von der Groeben) who committed the act, except that by the time they arrive they denied they even did any such thing.

A little of "Demon Seed", "2001 A Space Odyssey" and "Forbidden Planet" with no new surprises.

The opening scenes are the house becoming awake, with vacuums being sent out, drapes opening, etc. Johann, who wrote a political piece is in trouble. The government didn't like it, and so he gets fired. The government is heading into an election, and is getting very repressive. Johann and Lucia travel by autonomous water taxi to the house, which is on an island. The house responds to Johann, knowing where he is, what he wants, etc. So he doesn't even have to open a door. Water in the shower can be controlled through verbal commands. Even a glass of water is tailored to the person, with supplements. There is a glitch, and a technician is summoned, and he explains the system cannot be hacked, as it is isolated. The system is represented as a red sphere, perhaps an homage to the HAL computer. But is was set up for Johann, so it knows him, but he didn't include Lucia, so the house is learning about her. And something happens that Lucia was aware of, but Johann was in the dark, and that is part of the drama. The house is very interesting in itself. The movie is somewhat interesting, but very forgettable.