M3GAN is the first horror movie of 2023 and the first horror movie I’ve seen in theaters since Halloween 2018. I was definitely pleased with my experience. MEGAN is a killer doll movie in the same vein as Chucky, but with a more modern approach toward technology, making it more like the 2019 remake. I remember seeing a trailer for it and thinking “This looks ridiculous, I’m in.” Now seeing it, I still feel the same. It was a ridiculous movie. The premise is that a genius robotics engineer Gemma makes a new robot toy named MEGAN for her niece Cady after a tragic event shakes both their worlds. I felt like the movie was hampered by its PG-13 rating.
MEGAN is super creepy the entire time and has a blood rage and I think it would have really benefited the horror if they were allowed to get wilder with it. There was one scene where MEGAN is chasing someone through the woods, and she drops to all fours to run like an animal, and it was terrifying.
There were some other good scares, but with a lot of Blumhouse films, a lot of them were inconsequential jump scares. The doll design was fantastic: looking very realistic yet so plastic and inhuman at the same time. The ending somewhat keeps the door open for a sequel, but even if it is just a one-off, MEGAN was a truly unsettling antagonist.
As for the rest of the movie, I thought it was fine, nothing really stood out to me. I thought the relationship between Gemma and Cady was cute, albeit very cliche. The busy workaholic who didn’t expect to have kids suddenly having to take care of a child has been done before and it followed the same beats here. It didn’t make the movie bad by any means but it became very clear to me that MEGAN was the star of the show.
The supporting cast had some fun, comedic moments but there were some choices made that I wasn’t really a fan of. For instance, (light spoiler) there’s an employee at the toy company Gemma works at who is apparently stealing company secrets, but it goes absolutely nowhere and could have been written out completely. It’s minor but I think a better story around M3GAN could have elevated this from a likely cult classic to a classic period.
Final Thoughts
M3GAN had some good skin-crawling moments and MEGAN the doll will definitely fuel nightmares, but I felt like the rest of the movie didn’t stand out and a PG-13 rating did not work in its favor. I would still recommend this movie to anyone who likes horror movies, but it’s one I imagine falling behind in the shadows of what else this year has to offer.
