Film Review: M3GAN – 6/10

‘Oh, I’m afraid that won’t work anymore, Cady…’

Whether it be Chucky, Annabelle or something else conjured directly from the toy store of hell, horror loves a scary doll. M3GAN arrived early in 2023 with plenty of hype and an impressive pedigree. Horror royalty James Wan wrote the story and serves as producer and the involvement of Blumhouse Productions is normally a good marker of quality. Unfortunately, M3GAN is lacking that certain something…

Single mum Gemma (Allison Williams) creates a walking, talking doll as a companion for her needy daughter Cady (Violet McGraw) only for all hell to inevitably break loose when the doll (voiced by Jenna Davis) takes its job to protect Cady a little too literally.

The Child’s Play franchise is not really frightening, but it is at least fun, and often incredibly gory. That’s not what this is. The PG-13 rating really robs M3GAN of any real jeopardy, and the forgettable cast doesn’t help matters either. Director Gerard Johnstone does a fine job in bringing M3GAN to life, and there are some moments that are visually unsettling (namely any time that the doll runs), but in reality, M3GAN is a fairly rote and inconsequential film that doesn’t offer enough in terms of cheap thrills to enter the annals of really great killer doll movies.

Perhaps because there has been a glut of truly excellent horror movies recently, or perhaps because Blumhouse and Universal got the marketing right, M3GAN received plenty of hype upon release and has been a box-office hit. Whilst I’m always happy to see a genre film succeed, particularly one that is an original story, this particular film doesn’t really live up to the hype.