Serena Review: Screenlife thriller stars Andi Matichak as a sinister AI chatbot
PLOT: When a down-on-his-luck musician is recruited to evaluate a new chatbot, the AI unearths some dark secrets about his life and seems to be purposely pushing him to the edge.
REVIEW: The “Screenlife” style of filmmaking is one I’m still hesitant to embrace. Every time I encounter a movie where all of the events play out on the screens of various devices, I groan mentally and debate whether or not I should give it a chance – this despite the fact that I have enjoyed several Screenlife movies over the years: Unfriended, Host, Searching, Missing. They tend to work better for me than “found footage” movies do, yet they still need to win me over every time. Director Rob Alicea’s thriller Serena is the latest Screenlife movie I’ve given a chance to… and it was the latest one to win me over.
Serena stars Steven Strait as musician Chris Sadowski, who once enjoyed success with his band Ghost Agent and even counted Matt Pinfield as an enthusiastic supporter. These days, Chris is down on his luck. While he has gotten sober and his love life appears to be in good condition – his partner Vicki (María Gabriela González), who will take every opportunity to quote Han Solo dialogue (and she is given plenty of opportunities) is pregnant with their first child – everything else is crumbling down around him. He’s dealing with a creative block and he and Vicki are struggling to pay their bills. Vicki doesn’t know it yet, but they’ve even been served with an eviction notice and will have to move out of their home in a week if Chris can’t come up with a couple thousand dollars in the next 48 hours.
Just when things are looking their most dire, a lucky break: the tech company Nucleeus needs beta testers for their new eeChatbot, which they envision as being able to help people make every decision in their lives. Chris isn’t a fan of AI, but thanks to a friend on the inside (Tyrone Marshall Brown as Will Ramos), he’ll be paid $3000 rather than the standard $1000 to try this chatbot out and help it learn the difference between fact and fiction with a 75-minute survey. The test starts simple, with Chris interacting with text on a screen. But then the AI names itself Serena, finds a voice, and creates a face that she describes as being “the perfect balance of sexy and approachable.” Andi Matichak of the recent trilogy of Halloween sequels is the actress chosen to represent that balance.
At first, it seems that Serena could be greatly beneficial. If this AI is going to help people make every decision in their lives, it could guide them to success. But things get gradually more uncomfortable as the chatbot digs deeper and deeper into Chris’s personal life. They take a disturbing turn when it unearths some dark secrets he wasn’t aware of. And the movie gets really intense when Serena predicts that something very bad is going to happen very soon… maybe even before the test period is over.
Although Chris spends almost the entire running time sitting in front of his computer and interacting with Serena, there are several other actors in the film, as he has FaceTime calls with Vicki, Will, and others, and also interacts with some people who come to his door (which we see through a security camera). The supporting cast includes Ashleigh Murray, Nicole Gut, Alberto Bonilla, and Zebedee Row. But for the most part, the movie is carried on the shoulders of Strait and Matichak, and they both do great work in their roles. Strait gives a flawless performance as his character deals with some intensely emotional issues, and Matichak – who can only stand up straight and stare into the camera as her AI character – managed to make Serena come off as nice and helpful one moment, then sinister and deceptive the next.
With a running time of about 97 minutes, Serena is longer than you might expect, given the concept and content – but somehow, Alicea and writers Jonathan Benecke and P.T. Hylton were able to make the idea of a man talking to an AI chatbot sustain that running time. I would have expected this to drag at times, but I never felt like there was a dull moment. I was invested in seeing how things were going to turn out for Chris, and wanted to find out what was really going on with this chatbot Serena.
Serena had its world premiere at the Cinequest Film Festival on March 13, 2026. Distribution plans haven’t been announced yet, but it’s difficult to imagine that a distributor wouldn’t want to get this one out into the world as soon as possible. It’s an interesting, engaging thriller and one of the best modern “sinister AI” movies I’ve seen so far. It’s a Screenlife movie that wouldn’t have worked as well if the filmmakers had attempted to shoot it in a traditional style rather than focusing on Chris’s computer screen – and if/when you have the chance to see it, it’s definitely worth checking out.
The post Serena Review: Screenlife thriller stars Andi Matichak as a sinister AI chatbot appeared first on JoBlo.