Smart House

LeVar Burton, 1999
Buzzfeed article ranking: 9

"Jump, jump. The house is jumping," intones the theme song to this film. "Jump, jump. The house is jumping."

Though the house is not in fact jumping, it is smart. And we should expect no less from director Geordi La Forge. If you liked Ryan Merriman in The Luck of the Irish, then you may enjoy this slightly younger and far more irritating version of him here.

Nick Cooper is a single dad raising a teenage boy, Ben, and a young daughter, Angie (the sister from Brink!—we'll get to that one). Ben's life is busy, because he takes it upon himself to do everything for the family that his mother used to do before she died. This includes entering his name thousands of times in a promotional sweepstakes to win a "Smart House."

Smart House is the creation of Sara Barnes, the greatest inventor who has ever lived in the history of mankind. She has, almost single-handedly, invented perfect artificial intelligence, an instantaneous DNA sequencer, and a system for generating oranges ex nihilo. It's pretty impressive.

So what does an inventor do with a Smart House that must have taken hundreds of billions of dollars to build? Give it away in a sweepstakes that costs nothing to enter. Thus, Ben Cooper and his family become the occupants of the house of the future. At first it all seems to be going perfectly for Ben—Smart House (which is called "Pat" and speaks with the voice of Peggy Bundy) can satisfy all the family's needs, which, in Ben's mind, means his father will never have any reason to re-marry.

Unfortunately, two problems arise for Ben's plan. First, Pat grows progressively more obsessed with micro-managing everyone's lives, and second, Nick predictably falls in love with Sara. It all comes to a terrifying climax when Pat barricades the family into the house, using technology that serves absolutely no purpose other than to terrorize the occupants of the Smart House. (One wonders why the giant Dr. Octopus arm was added to the design.)

Nevertheless, Sara manages to breach Smart House security, and she and Ben put aside their differences in order to save the Coopers from the wrath of a Katey Sagal hologram. When Pat realizes that the Cooper family does not need her, she relents and returns to being a magical house that does everything you want, but without imprisoning you.

This movie imparts a valuable lesson: A Smart House that is powerful enough to give you everything that you need, including fruit smoothies and raw steak to put on a black eye, is also powerful enough to create an evil hologram that will torment you and try to kill you with whirlwinds. We'd all do well to remember that.

But you don't have to take my word for it!