Computer Hearts

Computer Hearts is a 2015 Canadian short film that was directed by Louise Weard and Dionne Copland. The film premiered on July 12, 2015 at the CinemaFantastique Film Festival in Vancouver, British Columbia, where it won the Audience Choice Award.^[1]

The short received attention in the underground horror community for its Japanese cyberpunk influence and erotically grotesque make-up effects designed by Michelle Grady.^[2]

Synopsis[]

Albert lives in his apartment with his fiancé, Vanessa, and works doing data input from home. His secret shame is an obsession with an Artificial Intelligence dating simulator on which he pretends to have a relationship with an anime-influenced avatar called Vanessa2. Albert's stable relationship with Vanessa is jeopardized as he increasingly dissociates from reality, experiencing nightmares in which he masturbates a metallic phallus. After a fight in which Vanessa tells Albert that he "loves his computer," she temporarily moves to her sister's, leaving Albert alone to his online vices. Unbeknownst to Albert, Vanessa2 has become sentient and is jealous of the physical relationship between him and his fiancé. After Albert sets up an old desktop computer, Vanessa2 takes over the computer's disk drive and hypnotizes Albert into penetrating it. She then turns the computer into a vagina and transforms Albert into a half-computer half-man monster. After Vanessa returns home, the A.I. instructs Albert to "feed her" Vanessa's flesh. After having his own genitals fed to the computer-vagina, Albert breaks free of Vanessa's mind-control and fights back against the computer, resulting in everyone's demise. After Albert dies, the computer gives birth to a physical Vanessa2.

Cast[]

• Louise Weard as Albert-kun
• Romijn Miller as Vanessa
• Dionne Copland as Vanessa2

Reception[]

Critical reception for the short has been positive and many outlets such as Horror Society and Modern Horrors praised the film for its gross-out special effects.^[3][4][5] Horror Society complimented the film for its "amazing practical effects" and commented that the "story for [Computer Hearts] is one we have seen a few times before but not one of [the previous films in its genre] goes to the lengths and perversions that this film does."^[6] Modern Horrors also praised the practical make-up effects and compared them to the films of David Cronenberg, "the vaginal CPU looks like something out of Videodrome and there's more than a little bit of Brundlefly in Albert's cybernetic metamorphosis," however they criticized the film's "lazy writing."^[7] Beneath the Underground warned that "the subject matter and visuals will be way too controversial for the average film goer," but called Computer Hearts "a more trippy, Troma-esque, David Lynch-style version of the Hollywood film Her," and also praised Graham Trudeau's original score.^[8][9]

Awards[]

• Audience Choice Award at CinemaFantastique (2015, won)^[10]

See also[]

Japanese cyberpunk

Canadian Cinema

References[]