Time for my first review of a 2023 movie. In what is already looking like a decent year for horror (Possibly just because we don’t have another bad Halloween sequel to deal with, though we do have an Exorcist remake to be annoyed at later in the year), one of the first to hit theatres this year was the AI gone rogue/Killer doll movie “M3gan”.
Viral Marketing.
This has been building itself a nice bit of hype as the release date drew near and featured an interesting viral marketing campaign a little reminiscent of the one used for Smile. The main feature of the campaign was creepy M3gan doll dancers turning up in high profile events/locations. The campaign also had some fun on Twitter with some playful interaction between the M3gan account and the Chucky one. Both being owned by the same company, you have to wonder if a crossover is on the cards.
But anyway, what about the film itself? Helmed by “Housebound” (2014) director Gerard Johnstone but from the mind of Horror legend, James Wan (scripted by Wan’s “Malignant” (2021) collaborator Akela Cooper), M3gan stars Allison Williams as under pressure robotics engineer and toy maker “Gemma” and upcoming child actress Violet McGraw as her orphaned niece “Cady”. The titular character herself is a mixture of animatronics, body actress Amie Donald (provider of M3gan’s dancier moments), and voice actress Jenna Davis.
The Set Up.
The story is pretty simple and built around two key strands that intertwine. One is a much more personal story about Gemma and Cady. Gemma is a woman that clearly put her career first in life, largely driven by her inventive nature and ambition to break new ground with technology and AI. Suddenly she has found herself as guardian to her young niece after both the girl’s parents are killed in a road accident. Cady is obviously traumatised by the experience and Gemma doesn’t really know how to cope and is torn between trying and attempted to hit deadlines at work.
The second part of the story is in Gemma’s passion project “M3GAN” an AI robotic doll, that she has been working on in semi-secret (much to the chagrin of her bosses). After a failed test she was told to abandon work on the project and return to the next line of fury robotic toys that her company is famous for. However after sharing her designs with Cady she realised that she could perhaps kill two birds with one stone by having a prototype of her design bond with Cady, helping her through a tough time while also allowing Gemma to spend more time with her niece while she works. Good intentions it seems, but that road to hell is paved with just those sort of intentions.
Comedy and Critique.
What we see unravel then is a fun horror/comedy wrapped around a quite intelligent critique of both irresponsible science and parenthood. It is a double mistake that ends up costing several people their lives. Cady ends up become so emotionally bonded to M3gan that the relationship has become unhealthy, meanwhile the capabilities of the doll to learn and adapt to the emotional state of it’s primary user has led to the AI become dangerous unstable itself. Meanwhile Gemma’s focus on making the product a success has lead to her missing the warning signs of both issues. I couldn’t help but be reminded of that line from Jurassic Park: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”. It definitely applies here.
Friend, Entertainer, Murderer.
But that’s the nuts and bolts, what makes the film really work is the fun approach to the character. Really gave the movie a sort of 80’s feel in it’s slightly silly approach where the killer is firmly there to entertain the audience first instead of just terrify them. That said though, she certainly ups the creepy factor when needed. The doll taps into a lot of horror history, providing some fun “Chucky” like moments, some parts with more in common with “The Terminator” and a good helping of “Village of the Damned” too, with it’s creepy dead eyed children.
The doll appears realistic and humanlike at one moment (going into dance routines for example) and then in a moments notice changes into something far scarier, with a clear influence from the movement patterns of the more impressive Boston Dynamics robots. It’s those moments that M3gan transitions between lifeless doll, imitation little girl and savage robot that makes the movie really work and the great thing is those moments can be moving, scary or funny depending on what was needed at the time.
Conclusion
M3gan is a straight forward movie and makes for easy viewing, which is really what you want from a Horror Comedy. It’s a fun movie but most importantly it firmly establishes a new member to the Horror Icon hall of fame. Even though horror has been making a big comeback in recent year, there hasn’t been many iconic characters added to the list. Indeed the last addition was probably Annabelle and that killer doll has been more miss than hit (“Creation” was fantastic mind). If you’ve only gotten into horror in recent years perhaps this won’t be what your looking for but if you were a Horror fan in the 80’s, I’m pretty sure you’ll love it. It’s a 7/10 from me.
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