Runaway

Runaway (1984) is an American sci-fi thriller written and directed by Michael Crichton — watch it online on iFILM. Tom Selleck plays Sergeant Jack Ramsay, a cop whose job is handling malfunctioning robots in a near future where machines do the cooking, farming, and construction. Routine work, until a domestic robot turns out to have been deliberately reprogrammed to kill.

The man behind it is played by Gene Simmons of Kiss — in one of the stranger casting choices of the decade, and one that actually works. His character has engineered microchips that can turn any machine into a weapon, and he's selling them. When Ramsay gets close, his young son becomes the leverage. Crichton had been thinking about autonomous systems long before anyone else treated it as a serious premise; the film is a product of its era in look and pacing, but the central anxiety aged better than expected. Stream Runaway (1984) online on iFILM.