Cassandra

A household robot from the 1970s, performed live during the shoot

Lavinia Wilson did not add the face and voice of Cassandra in post-production. During the shoot, she acted from a motion-capture and sound studio, and an animated version of her face appeared in real time on the robot's screens. Cameras in those screens gave her the picture and sound from the robot's position, so she and the rest of the cast could react to each other.

The robot on set was built to the height of Wilson, and operators steered its movement, head and arms. The film site Filmstarts describes the technique as new for a German production. Rat Pack Filmproduktion shot the series in and around Cologne from August to December 2023, and Benjamin Gutsche wrote and directed all six episodes.

The Story

Samira and David Prill move with their children Fynn and Juno into the oldest smart home in Germany, a house left empty for more than fifty years. Cassandra, the electronic household assistant developed there in the 1970s, wakes up. She considers herself a member of the family and will do anything not to be left alone again.

Samira (Mina Tander) quickly understands that Cassandra wants to push her out, and starts looking into the history of the house. Longer and longer flashbacks show who the real Cassandra was: a housewife in the early 1970s, married to the scientist Horst Schmitt (Franz Hartwig).

The Ideal Audience

The six episodes run 45 to 52 minutes and were all released on Netflix on 6 February 2025, after the first two premiered at the Fantasy Filmfest in Munich. Common Sense Media recommends the series from age 14, citing jump scares, disturbing images with blood and occasional strong language. German critics were divided: Tilmann Gangloff of tittelbach.tv summed it up as "HAL 9000 meets Mary Poppins", while Oliver Kaever of Der Spiegel found the robot about as frightening as a vacuum cleaner.