M3gan is the ultimate prestige toy: a precision-engineered prototype cyborg doll with limpid blue eyes and the capacity to learn from and empathise with her “primary user”. She comes with a price tag that would buy you a midsized family car, a full gamut of judgmental tweenager eye rolls and a taste for casual slaughter. And right now, she’s a lifeline for her creator, robotics engineer Gemma (Allison Williams). Following the deaths of her sister and brother-in-law, Gemma finds herself caring for her traumatised eight-year-old niece, Cady (Violet McGraw). It’s a job that Gemma is only too happy to outsource to Frankenstein’s 4ft devil Barbie, a decision that comes back to bite her (and to attack her with a hammer).
The latest addition to the killer doll genre, M3gan is an enjoyable horror-lite romp: knowing, amusing, but not particularly scary. But while the psychotically perky robot might not have the chaotic energy of Chucky from the Child’s Play franchise or the porcelain malevolence of Annabelle, she does bring a pleasing TikTok-friendly pizazz to her killing rampages. I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more of the murder toy of the moment.
