Automatic is 1995 cyberpunk cyborg cybertrash, its poster, cast and production design look exactly like a hundred other films of the era, made cheaply, then straight to VHS and finally landfill. Cybertrash like this litters my media collection and clouds my brain, have I seen Velocity Trap before? or am I confusing it with Terminal Velocity? who can say. Automatic almost went straight into the bin while we were watching it, an attempted sexual assault 15 mins in had Lindsay and I discussing just turning the movie off, but then the rapist is killed to death by a cyborg, which lifted the mood somewhat. I’m glad we stuck with it, while Olivier Gruner is a remarkably terrible actor and somehow unconvincing even as a soulless robotic husk, the movie works though it and other than another attempted sexual assault with accompanying rapist killed to death by a cyborg, it’s mostly pretty good most of the way though. At this point I was fairly sleepy and sure this had shown us all it had, just when I remarked this to my constant companion (cyber-panion) Lindsay, the movie revealed it’s hand. We’d seen Daphne Ashbrook run around dodging sexual assault and slightly falling for Gruner’s robot. There were really cool guns with displays on them that you could use for zoom calls and shooting around corners, which seems like it could lead to some incredible accidents, gotta be careful you set your status to ‘appear offline’ when you’re shooting and put the safety is on when it’s time for another meeting that could have been an email.

That’s the thing with terrible films from the 90’s, or bad movies in general, they don’t play to the stereotypes you’re used too, also even when they do, you often underestimate them. Early in the movie a large upright sarcophagus (cyber-ophagus) is introduced, we speculated on it’s contents and landed on ‘it’s gonna be a bigger guy’ because it usually is a bigger guy. This hypothetical guy would beat up Gruner in the last act, who would win because he’s got more heart or whatever, regular stuff. But that’s not who’s in the cyberophagus, Daphne Ashbrook was in the cyberophagus, because she’s been a cyborg the entire time and they have this lab full of Daphne Ashbrook’s in various states of disrepair and disrobe. It’s kinda fantastic, the movie goes from cybertrash to Frankenstein (cyber-stein) immediately. John Glover, who’s largely been in another, less interesting location for the entire movie joins his creations in his laboratory. He offers them the world before dying to their hands, Ashbrook and Gruner escape, cyborgs in love and partners in crime.