Project Dorothy

Rating: 7/10

Director: George Henry Horton

Writers: George Henry Horton and Ryan Scaringe

Style: Sci-fi thriller

Time: 1 hour 20 minutes

Review by Mike Szymanski

Sometimes the best movies have a minimal cast, minimal special effects, and minimum amount of dialogue.

These smaller indie movies are true gems, because it’s obvious that the filmmakers wanted to put out a good movie and used the tools they had at their disposal.

Director/co-writer/producer George Henry Horton very obviously had access to a huge endless warehouse with plenty of places to run and hide. It’s the perfect backdrop for the screenplay he co-wrote called “Project Dorothy.”

As simple and minimal as the set and cast feels, there’s some intense depth and lots of subtle humor in the screenplay.

The idea is very timely with the idea of Artificial Intelligence taking over the entertainment industry, and is part of the whole controversy causing the actor and writer strikes.

Alexa cannot take over the world, but perhaps Dorothy can.

Two guys running away from a botched robbery in the near future take refuge in what looks like an abandoned warehouse. Older and grizzled and injured James (played by Tim DeZarn) who was shot in the leg and has been in prison and doesn’t want to go back. You’ve seen him in some genre classics such as “Cabin the Woods,” “Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning” and “Spider-Man.” His colleague is handsome and much younger Blake (played by Adam Burdron).

They committed a robbery but there is something that a client wanted from this warehouse, too. The police are ready to follow them inside, but are called off when for some suspicious reason, the cop is instantly ordered to leave and not to pursue.

The opening of the film is a close-up of a blonde scientist with a worried look on her face and she stares directly at the camera and right at you. It’s a fascinating, haunting opening with a song “We Are the Flame” that sounds like it should be opening a James Bond film. The woman’s trepidation isn’t explained, but something around the staff is definitely going wrong in the chaos going on behind her.

Project Dorothy is the name of a computer system that got corrupted three decades before and it killed everybody inside.

The camera work is exceptional while we are watching some of the chase scenes coming from Dorothy’s point-of-view. Dorothy controls everything that moves inside the warehouse and has turned forklifts into dangerous killing machines.

One of the guys has a computer chip that will get Dorothy onto the Internet and the computer is whirring with computerific anxiousness to get a piece of the action. She tries being friendly, coaxing and almost seductive at first, but soon after we see her become crazy with computer rage.

The voice of Dorothy is played by Danielle Harris and true genre geeks will recognize her from “Halloween 4 and 5,” “Rob Zombine’s Halloween” as well as “Hatchet 3” and many others. It is only her voice used in the film, but people will also know her from voicing Debbie in “The Wild Thornberrys” and more.

Dorothy recognizes how far the world has expanded since she has been offline, but sees the internet as an easy way for world domination.

Like scary AI with their own minds, such as “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Demon Seed” any of the “Terminator” films, this shows that computers can get uppity and eventually dominate humans.

There are some subtle references to the Wizard of Oz via Project Dorothy. Blake searches for a vending machine looking for Twinkies because they will last forever. The people of Oz are known as Winkies.

The grand hall where Dorothy speaks with a vague face in the background has dramatic arches reminiscent of the Great and Powerful Oz.

And then, when Blake returns to the bathroom he see Jake and jokes “Are you oiling the old Tin Man?” It’s a metaphor for masturbation I’ve never heard of before, but it certainly forces a Wizard of Oz reference.

“Hell no, are you offering,” retorts the older guy. Then he concedes, “It’s been a while” and then tells the young man, who has never been in jail, “It’s good practice for prison, kid.”

The who journey is filled with heavy music of some impending doom, and screaming in the background. And yes, it’s not their imagination, but the forklifts ARE moving closer and closer to them.

Monster forklifts are a unique threat, and these even look like they have eyes and growl. (I have seen killer shopping cars, however, so that may just beat the odd threatening machines in campy movies.)

Meanwhile, they are finding empty piles of clothing with no bodies and no explanation about what happened, or where anyone is. They do find out however.

Enjoy this sci-fi indie for what it is, and have some good time fun in seeing what is down those long and scary hallways.

The movie was screened at the Cannes Film Market in May 2023 then received a summer and fall festival run.