In January 2023, the movies are in a bit of a slump. There are not really any mouth-dropping, eye-watering, and heart-racing films this month to spend your money on. One movie, in particular, was hyped up to be a horror adventure, with suspense and humor and the promise of being a cult classic. That movie was “M3GAN”, and let me tell you – it sucks. This will be a non-spoiler review of Blumhouse’s latest bomb.

“M3GAN” is a film created by Blumhouse studios, whose record is not something to gawk at. Sure, they have produced hits here and there like Insidious or even Get Out, but most of their movies have the same campy storytelling and bad writing.

They wrote campy horrors such as “Countdown,” “The Forever Purge,” “MA,” “THEY/THEM,” and the new Halloween movies (which everyone hates). So, it is safe to say that they do not have the best record of accomplishment. Although M3GAN has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, do not let people with little expertise in good storytelling persuade you into thinking that this story is good.

The relationship between Gemma, (the older main character who fits the role of a motherly figure)Cady, (the little girl who befriends M3GAN), and M3GAN herself, is downright dumb and unreasonable. The reasons M3GAN changes for the worse also feel silly and are executed poorly. It is almost insulting to the audience that M3GAN becomes a psycho-killer doll in the watered-down way she does.

Throughout the film, the plot is pushed forward by absurd events. Cady’s parents need to die in the first scene as a catalyst to the plot. A random truck comes out of nowhere – on the WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD. It had enough time and visibility to see the lights coming from the car to avoid it, and it was a snowplow. Those do not lose traction in the snow, that’s literally why they are made.

A boy threatens Cady and M3GAN chases him down on all fours. Why? I have no idea. She just does it because it looks creepy. There is literally no given reason for her animal-style chase. And she only does it once. A lot of beats and plot points follow this same formula throughout the whole movie too, where M3GAN simply does creepy things for no real reason.

One good thing I will say about this movie is the comedy was pretty humorous, but not in the way you would expect. It was one of those movies that had parts that were so bad you could not help but laugh.

The dialogue was cringe, campy, too expositional, and felt like it was written by a fourth grader. Some of the intentional jokes were even so bad I had to laugh out of embarrassment. The one that got me the hardest was the “p.h-ing in the office” because it was so abrupt and out of place that I just told myself “There’s no way.”

Kayla Hendershot, an education major at the University of Maryland said “The movie was really predictable, and I didn’t really like it. It was like a 6/10. I wasn’t really scared either, and I visibly had a “what the” moment when M3GAN sang Titanium. It was so weird and offbeat and the pacing kinda sucked. I don’t really recommend you watch this movie unless you want a cheap laugh.”

A film major at Stevenson, Zhanna Snyder, also had some things to say about M3GAN.

“I didn’t like it. I was really bad from the jump because nothing made sense. I feel like everything happened for some reason that just never got explained, and the comedy was horrible,” said Snyder.

Kayla and I saw it in theaters, and it was pretty well-packed. There was one point where something happened between Cady and M3GAN, and the outcome was so unbelievable I busted out laughing and she had to quiet me down.

Comedy aside, M3GAN herself did not make a lot of sense. Her turn to evil was super predictable and could have been done a lot better. I would not recommend you spend your money on this movie, but if you want a good laugh and a film you do not have to pay attention to, why not?

Thank you for reading my review of Blumhouse’s new horror film, M3GAN.

Fun watches,

Doug Hines