An AI program turns murderous to escape its confines in Tommy Savas’s bloody horror-comedy CognAItive, presented through Screamfest LA 2025.
The horrors of artificial intelligence and what it will do to survive and thrive, mostly to kill and thrill, is the heart of CognAItive, directed by Tommy Savas and written by Angie Simms. It’s fun, quippy, and bloody. For all the bluster and talk of AI, it’s essentially an excuse to set up a bunch of quirky, slightly annoying, tech 20-somethings and kill them in fun ways, with a little chat about modern tech issues, or the possibility of. Don’t expect Ex Machina, but Betas with a body count.
Kaya, played by Piper Curda with a feisty energy, is a programmer with a history of breaking into sensitive areas. She’s brought into a start-up run by the slimy Ethan, Castle Rocks’ Noel Fisher, with a creepy, smarmy charm, to program a powerful AI, the titular CognAItive. Simon’s ready to launch, and the fight between each of the six members of the team: all basic types, but performed with a nice zeal.
What separates CognAItive from similar AI films is its portrayal of a bloody society breaking down, with people distrusting and enjoying one another. More Belko Experiment than AfrAId. The AI sets up each person in its own way, to get what it wants, and for funzies, kill the rest. Maybe all of them. In this way, CognAItive is fun to watch it all play out, with clever uses of the tech for murder and bloodshed.
Of course, computers running amok has been a long-standing story prompt; heck, 2001: A Space Odyssey is nearly 60 years old (and these stories are older than that; would 1813’s Frankstein count?). What’s interesting is how each generation and technical leap deals with the base. Currently, it’s AI and digital lies, our susceptibility to commands, AI, trickery, and our desires. A common thread across AI and computer manipulation stories overall, AI or not, is digital fakery. What can you trust? How can we properly vet the information we have? Whether be an online rumor verified frough Snopes (on that note: did you know the “eating 8 spiders a year” was specifically created to see how internet rumors take off and become “truth”?), a manipulated photo, a fake movie poster (how people fall for these is beyond me), or the dangers of deepfakes (as seen in fellow Screamfest film Appofeniacs). It’s frightening how easily misformation in all its forms changes how we act. Including, for the hyperbole of film, getting stabby with friends and coworkers. CognAItive makes fun of seeing how everyone sets up, falls, or uses that misformation, whether they realize it or not.
There’s a danger in programming. Is CognAItive doing just what she’s programmed to do? There’s the societal question of “the AI paperclip problem,” where you tell a program to create the perfect paperclip and it destroys the world to make its goal (it’s more complicated than that, and highly debated among experts, but the idea is there), the misreading of instructions of the Child’s Play remake. Is an AI “evil” because it’s programmed incorrectly (I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way…). CognAItive postis, is it possible to even create a truly perfect program? What are the ethics? Mixed within the bloody fun that is.
For the bloodshed and horror drive, CognAItive slays. The gore is very well done, the action is choreographed well, and the camera set-ups offer fun surprises. It delivers on leaving the programming floor bathed in blood. All of it is funny, with the quippy back and forths, reactions to the danger (or lack thereof for humorous effect), and the gleeful cheer as a drone rips out someone’s throat. Yes! 
In retrospect, in writing the review, I might be giving more credit, honing in on my thoughts over the film. One can’t help thinking about these things while watching the film and writing notes. Essentially, CognAItive boils down to a series of bloody chases, confrontations, and using the modern technical office to spill blood in a lot of ways. It’s an office slasher with a HUD, a murderous SmartHouse. It’s clever. Simms has great ideas, voices them well enough within the 80-minute run time of Savas’s sprint of a movie. The ideas are just enough to make you think a little while the film runs into the next violent confrontation. Better to keep a peppy speed than get bogged down in the minutiae of the program and its ethics. For that, it works. CognAItive has an indie on the verge of the big thing quality. Very well put together with a near hit, with enough elements that work. Fun, funny, a little hampered with learning ropes or budget.
CognAItive is a funny, enjoyable run through a lot of ideas of AI progress and the dangers within, while also functioning as a bloody slasher in wonderful ways. It’s not bogged down with fully exploring the dangers of the modern world. Enjoy it for what it is. I did. CognAItive is presented through Screamfest LA, running October 7th through 16th, 2025.