Chucky and Annabelle’s technologically advanced little sis is here and she’s slaying – literally. M3GAN is the ultimate uncanny life-like AI doll who’s taking the internet by storm with her sassy no-nonsense comebacks and TikTok-inspired dance moves.
The science fiction comedy horror revolves around Gemma who works as a roboticist for the leading toy company Funki. Looking to stretch the boundaries of what AI can achieve, Gemma sets about developing a humanoid doll: the Model 3 Generative Android, or M3GAN for short. M3GAN is designed to be a kid’s best friend and a parent’s greatest ally, playing games, assisting learning, and being a general caregiver. Unexpectedly, Gemma gains custody of her niece Cady after her parents die in a car accident. Struggling to connect with Cady, Gemma gifts her a prototype of M3GAN, without completing the necessary test trials, leading to disastrous consequences when M3GAN becomes too attached to her primary user.
Get Out actress Alison Williams stars as the neurotic Gemma in the film and her unsentimental reaction to her sister’s death only adds to the bizarre hilarity of the flick – she seems more perturbed that her niece will be getting in the way of her career than the fact that Cady no longer has parents. Alongside Williams, child star Violet McGraw, who you may recognise as the young Nell from the Haunting of Hill House, plays the sweet, troubled Cady brilliantly.
We, like everyone else, are obsessed with the film, which was released on Friday 13th January, and has already grossed over $95 billion worldwide. When the first trailer was released for the film back in October the inclusion of Taylor Swift’s ‘It’s Nice to Have a Friend’ caused quite a buzz with fans of the singer online. Then clips of M3GAN’s odd stony-faced acrobatic dancing started to spread on TikTok. The creepy doll has inspired many memes on Twitter like splicing clips from the film so that M3GAN is competing against the Annabelle doll (and obvs winning) in RuPaul’s Drag race. With over 5.6M likes on the M3GAN TikTok account the marketing team really turned this one out – people are totally creeped out by the women popping up dressed as M3GAN dolls but we also can’t look away! The website Chess.com even temporarily added M3GAN as a chess bot to play against to promote the film.
With TikTok and gay Twitter’s approval in place, M3GAN has officially joined the Babadook and the genderfluid Glen/Glenda doll from Chucky as horror’s new queer icon. With perfect campy comedic timing, how could she not be? The most memorable moment in the film which will have everyone in the theatre suppressing giggles is when Cady tries to question M3GAN about her involvement in a murder and to distract her M3GAN suddenly bursts into a beautiful rendition of Sia and David Guetta’s ‘Titanium’. The height of absurdity. Director of the film Gerard Johnstone told NME, “That song immediately popped into my head as being pretty perfect because [M3GAN] literally is made of titanium.”
It seems the crew knew exactly what they were doing when making M3GAN the audacious sophisticated doll we know today. Williams told NME she thought “‘If there’s a chance we can make M3GAN iconic, this is going to be so much fun”. Johnstone seemed to have that thought in mind when designing the doll telling i-D magazine he was “very specific with everyone that she had to be iconic” and that if something felt wrong “it’s because it just didn’t feel iconic enough”.
M3GAN’s sharp oscillations between icy disdainful glares at the world and her sweet nurturing care towards Caddy is what makes M3GAN so hilarious. The special effects in the film are also impressive making the audience forget at some points that M3GAN is a doll and not a little girl just like the characters mistake her for in the film. Overall M3GAN is just a likeable character. Her murderous desires have spawned through the result of a flaw in her programming, poor trialling, and a rush to be ahead of the market not from any will of her own. Despite her psychopathic tendencies you’ll find yourself siding with M3GAN as she plots against anyone who even dares to look at her precious Cady wrong. Non-horror fans shouldn’t be put off by its genre as M3GAN is neither excessively gory or scary, but horror buffs will also be entertained by the innovative killings and multitude of off-the-wall moments.
As Blumhouse, known for producing a bunch of brilliantly dark twisted movies such as Paranormal Activity, Get Out, The Purge, Us, Insidious, and The Black Phone along with many more, are the production company that has brought us M3GAN it’s no surprise that it’s a hit with audiences.
Johnstone has confirmed that the sequel to the film is already in development and in a promotional Reddit ‘Ask Me Anything’, he expressed interest in a crossover film with the Child’s Play franchise and his desire to have Megan Thee Stallion cameoing in the sequel! Double Megan is something we never knew we needed until now.
Words By: Molly Sutherland
