Directed and co-written by George Henry Horton, Project Dorothy is an ambitious indie sci-fi horror that tries to do a lot with a little. Think Resident Evil, but with a cast of mainly just two characters, and replace the zombies with fork-lift trucks!
James (Tim DeZarn - The Cabin in the Woods) and Blake (Adam Budron - High on the Hog) are two bank robbers on the run after a heist gone wrong. With the older James having been shot in the leg, and with them in the middle of nowhere being pursued by police, the pair are desperate to find somewhere to hide out. They think they are lucky when they discover an abandoned factory complex, especially when the approaching police are warned off from approaching the place by their superiors. Inside, the two swiftly restore power, but in the process inadvertently awaken a crazed A.I (voiced by Danielle Harris - Inoperable, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers), who, having been trapped offline in the facility since the 1980's, becomes determined to utilise the modern technology the robbers have on them in order to escape its restricted systems and get onto the internet.
The first few minutes of this sci-fi horror are also some of its worst, where the low budget is most apparent. It consists of a kind of flashback sequence, but rather than showing events, a camera flies through the empty giant warehouse/factory environment as poorly voiced soundbites attempt to create the vibe of an A.I going rogue and killing the employees that had been stationed there. There are a cast of just six actors in the film, but it is only really Harris (whose voice doesn't appear until roughly the halfway mark), and Budron and DeZarn who feature in any sort of capacity of more than a minute or two. Weirdly, the feel of this being a low budget homage to the original Resident Evil actually kind of works. As a rogue A.I, the titular Dorothy wasn't bad, with Harris hamming up her gleefully evil dialogue in an entertaining way. I also liked the kind of father and son relationship that James and Blake share. They may be bad guys, but they appear to genuinely care about each other. The recent past of the bank robbery is hinted at, but not really gone into in any detail, so it's never really revealed if their crime involved innocent people getting hurt. Regardless, I liked these two protagonist anti-heroes, and it was good that they were not stereotypical types only looking out for themselves. Despite being promised to be let go should they help the A.I escape, they never once even consider doing that, knowing the damage she could cause should she get out.
This is all well and good, but in effect, Project Dorothy struggles to convincingly portray any type of real threat for the characters. The A.I is all seeing, able to use cameras to spy on the protagonists, but its power is limited to controlling five or six automated fork-lift trucks. These are woefully ineffective, mainly due to suffering the Dr Who 'Dalek' curse of not being able to go up or down stairways. The first half of the film frequently shows The Evil Dead style first person perspective shots of something rushing down corridors at lightning fast speeds. The reveal that these are those trucks was a bit underwhelming, especially considering that once on camera they don't seem able to go at those same speeds as in the first person moments. This leads to some chase sequences where it never feels like the characters are in too much danger of actually being caught. This also leads to some plot gaps in logic, such as how the A.I was able to kill and dispose of the research staff when its abilities were so limited, managing to go to places that in the film it is shown unable to get to. It also felt a bit silly that such a dangerous place was known about by the government, but had been left poorly guarded and left to rot for decades.
For all the limitations of the budget, and the gaps in logic that this caused, I found myself getting into Project Dorothy, even if it does require you not to think very hard about the ridiculousness of it all. Thanks to the likeable protagonists, a great looking location, and a spirited voice performance, this remained entertaining, if unable to fully realise the ambitions it had. Project Dorothy was released on VOD on January 16th.
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