It is so rare these days that someone is able to come out with something that is a new concept that is not just a copy of something else that has already been done. This is particularly evident with the recent speed-release of remake films rather than any sort of new idea. An exception of this in the past 7 years or so has been the series "Black Mirror" that I feel almost every episode of is just amazing. The series focused mostly on man's over-dependence on technology on their lives and how much of this isn't actually helping anyone, it is making our lives worse in the long run.
I would imagine that this was at least part of the inspiration for this film M3GAN that I watched last night and it was one of the best horror/sci-fi films that I have seen in quite a while, despite having a child actor in one of the lead roles. PS: I normally hate child actors.
Released in 2022, this film starts out on focusing on how toys are evolving into interactive machines that children develop a relationship of sorts with and the original product that is wildly popular is meant to replace pets as a kid's companion in life. The reasoning behind it was that the toy will never die and therefore will shield a child from this traumatic experience.
Something happens that is dramatically more traumatic than a pet dying for one of our main characters "Cady" when during a ski trip with her parents, the are involved in a car crash with a snow plow that kills both of her parents. I will admit this part of the movie would have been done better because it was just corny how it happened so abruptly but I would imagine that they were trying to save money on the production cost by not having an actual accident shown. Since I think you should see this movie, don't let this hokey start to the film scare you off from watching the rest of it.
By pure coincidence, conveniently for the sake of the story, Cady's aunt who is now her legal guardian, just happens to be working for a toy company that is working on an AI-powered robot that gets "paired" with one child, and becomes the best friend of that child and learns about what makes them happy and learns how to console them, educate them, and also to protect they from physical harm.
Enter M3GAN, which stands for Model 3 Generative Android gets paired with Cady after Cady shows very little interest in doing anything with anyone, including her aunt. At first Cady seems like a good kid and Megan her robot friend is a large part in solving this. When she is around Megan, Cady returns to being a normal-ish kid and this is exclusively because of how the robot is able to cheer her up and cater to her desires.
Megan also helps to raise Cady and reminds her to do things like flush the toilet and wash her hands but Cady is more likely to listen to Megan because they are similar in stature and Megan has a child's voice. They indeed become best friends but then the "Black Mirror" side of things start to kick in. Just like bratty kids with an Ipad, Cady will soon throw extreme tantrums whenever Megan isn't allowed to be included in everything. Cady refuses to do anything unless Megan can come along and Cady doesn't want to do normal things like socialize with other kids. Much like today's children become addicted to their phones or tablets, Cady simply cannot live with Megan.
While this shouldn't be a surprise and is also directly addressed in the trailer and is therefore not a spoiler, Megan starts to learn a bit too much and since her primary directive is to protect Cady, she does so without any regard to ethics or the rule of law including killing things that cause Cady harm, even slight harm like making her cry. Things escalate in a spooky way because despite the fact that Megan is only 4 feet tall, she is exceptionally strong and easily overpowers animals and other humans.
There are a lot of reasons why the horror aspects of this film simply work and it isn't just jump scares. There are some of those but I feel that this film took a more creative approach as far as horror is concerned by introducing a sense of dread into the mix because often, we know exactly what is going to happen based on how Megan starts to act and what scenarios Cady ends up in, but the way in which they execute (pun intended) the situation is done is a very creative fashion that I think most fans, even those that are not fans of horror, are going to enjoy.
Should I watch it?
My viewpoint could be a bit biased because I love both horror and sci-fi. This is a pretty scary movie that sometimes borders on the absurd but that is ok since most sci-fi and horror films are not terribly realistic. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and I think most other people did as well seeing as how it pulled down nearly 200 million on a 12 million budget during a time when people were not going to cinemas very often. There's something just extra spooky about dolls that go over to the dark side and I guess the producers of Annabelle excel at that even though I've never seen those movies. Perhaps I will do those next.
I think this film accomplishes not just being a good horror and sci-fi film, but also pointing out the dangers of allowing any electronic device to do your babysitting for you - even if it isn't capable of ripping people's ears off.
M3GAN can be streamed for free on basically all streaming services other than Disney and Netflix
