RATING: 10/10 — I would even nominate this film for an Oscar.
In my opinion, this is the best sci-fi horror thriller of the year that I have watched so far (as of mid-September) and one of the absolute best I have ever seen. Soulm8te totally killed it; an absolute ten out of ten!
And this is post about all filming locations as we exclusively were the first to find a few of them here https://horrorvalley.net/soulm8te-2026-movie-filming-locations/
This movie arrived at the perfect time. It accurately illustrates where we have gone astray as humanity and just how dependent on technology we have become—to the point where it threatens our very lives of our own free will. At Chinese expos, we’ve already seen similar female androids being showcased; we have modern warfare driven by AI-powered drones; and Bill Gates recently pointed out that many people will lose their jobs because this is evolving far faster than anticipated. Even at companies where my wife and I worked, people are being laid off over this—our competitor let around 700 people go last year due to AI. The president of my country recently mentioned that our military already possesses robots and that the public will soon be able to see them.
Globally, there are officially around 3.8 billion phone addicts! That means half the planet is hooked, and who knows how many more are on track to become addicted—which is a colossal issue. On a daily basis, I watch people cross the street glued to their phones, scroll while driving, and literally create public safety hazards everywhere. Kids zip around on electric scooters while staring straight at their screens. People have become hopelessly dependent on social networks and apps; everything has shifted online. People don’t even hang out like they used to—even sitting in cafes, everyone is usually buried in their own device.
Some people no longer use technology to interact with others; instead, they interact with the technology itself. People have grown distant and enslaved by routine, often satisfying their basic habits and primal drives through tech. We have smartwatches, smartphones, smart cars, electric scooters, surveillance cameras everywhere, and even front doors that unlock electronically. Everything is designed to make our lives easier, while we as a species have grown lazy.
It happened recently that Sonja and I were walking down the street and a girl passed by, it was dark night and she was yawning into the phone and almost hit us, she even offended us! The hypnotized division, not only are they addicted to the phone, but their motor skills have declined, and they have become even more aggressive in that state. Whenever such a situation happens in the city while someone is on the phone or some electronic device, I always remember this movie, I always say to Sonja, “Look at this, there is Soulm8te!” and I say that regularly, it reminds me of the movie the whole circus around us.
I know of a few cases, and I recently saw someone who, in a state of paranoia, believed everyone was out to ruin their life and was against them; yet, they were constantly glued to their phone and social media, constantly feeding their own delusion. That’s when I also said, “This is Soulm8te!” This will happen more and more. Actually, paranoia appears in the movie too, only it’s the android that develops it.
Also, since we work online, I can’t even receive money until I register it in the application for the bank, so not only by our own will, but sometimes we are forced by the bank and the state to use technology. And it will also be discussed later in this review to what extent corporations are connected with the government, which is shown in the film. Well, the actors themselves and the director said while they were filming this movie before, that technology, especially AI, has changed rapidly in the meantime.
On top of that, all we need is one step further—just like in this movie: a humanoid android physically streamlining what we already do online, filling the voids left in friendship, family, and even romance. A single robot to be your everything! And you completely depend on it (with your own free will). But what happens when things go sideways? And of course, many things can go wrong.
That is precisely what this movie explores. But the first question is: who enables all of this? Just like in real life, it’s corporations driven by profit at any cost, going so far as to unleash dangerous, under-tested products onto the public. This film is literally a mirror of our reality; everything in it is already happening or exists to some degree, except the androids themselves. Lily and David actually explained this a few times in their interviews, they are into this topic pretty much.
The story centers on David, a depressed IT professional coding for Canta, a company being acquired by Ultimate. Since his wife passed away, David has withdrawn into himself, working mostly from home and cutting ties with friends. His supervisor (representing corporate interests) recruits him—preying on his loneliness—to test their chat product after a presentation, and later urges him to sign up for an in-home trial of the Soulm8te prototype.
Here lies a classic dynamic that most people seem to have missed. I watched all the interviews featuring actress Lily Sullivan (who plays the androids Sara and Lydia) alongside David Rysdahl (who plays David) and the film’s director, Kate Dolan. The interviews are great—everyone is relaxed, chatting like old friends with solid commentary—yet nobody touched on how corporations exploit vulnerable, grieving individuals by handing them a dangerous weapon, which is exactly what happens here.
Sara the android starts out as an ordinary, harmless machine. But as David grows attached, his fantasies take over, an emotional bond forms, and he asks his boss for elevated privileges so he can alter her code—which they grant without hesitation. David removes the built-in safety parameters despite repeated warnings from his colleague Aubrey, who reminds him those guardrails exist for a reason. Consequently, a standard robot transforms into an obsessive menace that poses an escalating threat to everyone around it, ultimately leading to brutal beatings, severe injuries, and death!
Given that Lily Sullivan starred in Evil Dead Rise, there is one sequence here that actually outdoes Evil Dead—a heavy-hitting, blood-soaked set piece. In it, the unhinged android Sara seduces the technician sent to retrieve her, only to slaughter him. It shows that it isn’t just David; even the technician is easily manipulated, raising serious questions about the kind of people trusted to handle such perilous technology.
Another standout detail is how Sara views other women as threats to her territory: she brutally beats David’s girlfriend Aubrey, taunting her that her hair is unwashed, her legs aren’t shaved smoothly, and that she will eventually age and be easily replaced, whereas Sara was engineered to be the ideal woman. She is basically David’s error, which in turn is a mistake of the company.
What we are witnessing is the paradox of the “flawless woman” embodied in a machine—a sharp satire of modern society’s obsession with artificial perfection. Furthermore, the ending reveals that an updated model (Lydia—”cost me a pretty penny, but worth every cent”) receives full market approval a year later, completely ignoring the previous year’s horrors. The state ends up greenlighting the product anyway, exposing the direct, corrupt alliance between corporate giants and government regulators. That, too, is a mirror to the real world that went largely unmentioned in mainstream reviews.
This film captures our tech dependency, where runaway AI might lead us, and the current state of modern society with absolute precision. As for the acting, Lily Sullivan genuinely deserves an Oscar nomination for her performance as the android. David Rysdahl also did a stellar job portraying the fragile, insecure David; the cast is fantastic, they all portrayed these characters realistically the best they could. Lily took some classes and training to adapt to female robot’s movement, she was really into that role.
Claudia Doumit also played out the role as Aubrey very well, good job for her too, as David’s colleague and love of interest, a very good acting. Also fair game to some other actors: Arty Froushan as Ben, their boss on the work; Elijah Cook as funny colleague Terrance; Oliver Cooper as that poor technician (once you see that scene you cannot forget it); Isabelle Bonfrer as the first android Circe; Emma Ramos as Elma with the baby; Harleen Sahota as collegue Serena, Robert Ashe as the kind donator Jerry…
Isabelle Bonfrer also did a good job in portraying android as well, her movement and gestures really resembled real android in that presentation scene. Robert Ashe played well the smiling good donor Jerry, he is there briefly at the end of the film, but that iconic sentence “she costed a pretty penny but she is worth every cent” also explains a lot in reality (she meets all the needs of a rich single man and fulfills many roles – all in one), also as with stuff in reality, all kind of fun for rich and powerful.
Arty Froushan did a great job portraying Ben, the superior in the company. Ben knows how to deal with people, to bring them in and serve them some ideas, he laughs when he needs to and you don’t really know what he’s thinking, a real corporator, that’s why he was appointed there, so Arty did a good job there. Elijah Cook’s character Terrance is a whole fun character with jokes and comedy elements. There is always at least one character like this and Elijah’s role fits nice.
And the people behind this masterpiece are director Kate Dolan, she knocked it out, she did good job. . Also there is the Blumhouse crew like the iconic James Wan (I like some of his movies) and his wife Ingrid Bisu. And of course Jason Blum, it is Blumhouse after all. Unfortunately, as Lily Sullivan says, this is a “hell ride” because it’s unsafe for movies like this. This movie was made two years ago, it just came out in August, and it was on platforms right away, not in theaters, very bad reviews. They had problems with development and distribution after the Megan 2 debacle. Bad timing for Soulm8te.
This movie also shows our fears according to the times we live in. As someone who grew up with some films from the 90s and earlier, we’re talking about this topic, I can’t help but draw a parallel between The Terminator and Soulm8te because I witnessed both when they came out, only being a kid at the time. Back then, the fear was nuclear, that the robots would go wild, use nukes and kill most of humanity, so we would have to fight for survival against the robots. Schwarzenegger as a T-800 had to go door to door looking for people and chasing them down the street because there wasn’t that much connectivity from technology, even the liquid metal T-1000 had to look for people the same way even though it’s light years ahead of Sarah. But in the year 2026, Sara can find you anytime and anywhere, you have a smart watch, a smart phone, a smart car, Elsa the assistant from Megan, you actually connected everything with Sara, she can even kill you in bed, which actually happened in the movie. It can do more damage than liquid metal, but unlike it, it is much more realistic!
Unfortunately, this movie is from the Megan franchise, I’m not a fan of much of the first part of the movie, it’s decent to me, and the second part is very bad, so Soulm8te is left in their shadow. On top of all that, the film generally did not do well with critics and audiences, it has average ratings, but for me the maximum is 10. This movie is an exception out of the these rules because people didn’t understand it well in general, it’s the same as when you show a drug addict a realistic movie about drugs and the consequences, he won’t like it and will give it a bad rating (and even swear and badmouth).
The movie was filmed in 2024, but finally got released online in this August. It went though some hell, it did not have theatrical release, and as Lily Sullivan said once ,,it was a wild ride” well it is for everyone. Its unpredictable these days. Sure, there is a room for some improvements and further explanation, the movie is not flawless, but the main things are covered here. This film captures our tech dependency, where runaway AI might lead us, and the current state of modern society with absolute precision. I could say plenty more, but I’ve already written quite a lot.
And here is gallery with 33 pictures to view and scroll if you like (screenshots I took from the movie)
