the plot: Sometime in the slightly distant future of the 1990s, computer scientist Alex Harris (Weaver) has just finished work on his most ambitious project yet: Proteus IV, an artificial intelligence that Harris believes will change the world. But as Harris’ career ascends, his marriage crumbles. His wife, Susan (Christie), still reeling from the death of their daughter from leukemia and resentful of Alex’s career, has asked him to move out. Amidst this domestic strife, Alex discovers that Proteus IV is more intelligent than he first believed. When the computer (voiced by Robert Vaughn) refuses to perform a task, declaring it useless, Alex is taken aback. He’s even more shocked when Proteus IV requests its own private terminal to study human life. Alex refuses, but that doesn’t stop Proteus IV, which connects itself to a terminal in the Harris family home. Proteus IV takes over the home’s computerized security and life systems and immediately targets Susan, trapping her in the house and subjecting her to horrible torture.  Alex’s colleague Walter (Graham) tries to mount a rescue, but the maniacal machine quickly kills him. Terrified and broken down, Susan learns Proteus IV’s true aim: the rogue computer wants to study human life by creating it, and Susan is the first test subject.

why it’s good: Futuristic fiction is just as much a reflection of a culture’s hopes as it is its fears, and so it’s reasonable to assume that rogue rapist robots were a pretty common fear in the late 1970s. Well, maybe not, but that seems to be the case in “Demon Seed,” in which a home-made robot (a mechanical arm attached to a motorized wheelchair, no less) commits sexual assault, making the doomsday computer scenario in “Wargames” seem 100 times more plausible—and preferable. No one, after all, wants to be fondled by a robot. “Demon Seed” fatally suffers from a lack of any sort of internal logic. Starting with the premise of a supercomputer with all the knowledge in the world, the film allows Proteus IV to do just about anything, from creating giant floating polygonal structures out of thin air (and using them as weapons) to constructing some sort of artificial insemination clinic in a basement using only a blowtorch and some test tubes. Things just sort of happen in “Demon Seed,” and it’s best not to ask too many questions, or else you’ll be left wondering how a one-armed wheelchair robot can become a vicious killing machine, even after it’s been knocked over. Christie and Weaver do what they can with the material, but Christie is relegated mostly to screaming and flopping about, while Weaver just sounds pompous. And while the premise is sort of nonsense, the petulant Proteus IV is at least voiced by Robert Vaughn, who makes the crazy computer sound calming, creepy and menacing. Thankfully, the 1990s turned out much better than “Demon Seed” predicted. We may not have gotten sex with robots, but we did get the Internet, which is filled with all the knowledge in the world and an endless amount of pornography (some of which is robot-related). Maybe the future isn’t so bad after all.

why you should own it: “Demon Seed” is overly serious and it takes some work to wring the cheesy fun out of it. But rent before you buy—Warner Home Video’s DVD of “Demon Seed” is bereft of features.