M3GAN

Allison Williams, the star of the already viral “M3gan,” a collaboration between horror producers James Wan and Jason Blum, has made a career of subverting ...

“I think that the audience reevaluating Gemma as the movie goes on is in the movie’s interest — to be constantly checking in and being like, Am I on her side? Am I not on her side?” I ask if she thinks audiences are doing the same thing with her as a public figure. [Williams divorced her first husband](https://www.vulture.com/2019/06/allison-williams-ricky-van-veen-are-getting-divorced.html), had a son with Dreymon, and got engaged, seemingly in that order, though she won’t really get into it. “If that happened to me now, if I was on a show that was that predictably Monday-morning think piece–y, the pressure of that would be really overwhelming in a way that it wasn’t then. M3gan is, in one reading, a screw-you to the idea that Williams is synonymous with Marnie, Rose, or Charlotte: Fine, this time, the vengeful psychopath with my face actually is my avatar. At 34, the pigeonholing doesn’t bother her as much — “I mean, I’m wearing a turtleneck,” she deadpans — but she winces at the thought of someone not believing she wasn’t also laughing at the absurdity of Marnie describing her “cultural heritage” as “white Christian woman.” A horror career was not always the post-Girls plan — she’d dreamed of a classic-leading-lady or even a character-actor life — but the genre is where she finds the most complex roles, those that allow her to both reflect and refract her inescapable toxic-white-girl persona. (Williams admits to “cringing” at the videos now, adding, in a Marnie-esque aside, that she’d love to “reach through time and say, ‘You’re never going to guess what’s coming.’”) But that instinct, of wanting to control that idea of me in this mind of a stranger that I’ll never meet, is something that falls off of you with age but doesn’t disappear entirely. [horror megaproducers James Wan and Jason Blum](https://www.vulture.com/2023/01/m3gan-reshoots-pg-13-rating-gerard-johnstone.html) with a screenplay by [Akela Cooper](https://www.vulture.com/2021/09/sorry-but-did-i-hallucinate-this-one-line-in-malignant.html), the mind behind 2021’s lunatic parasitic-twin thriller, [Malignant](https://www.vulture.com/2021/09/sorry-but-did-i-hallucinate-this-one-line-in-malignant.html). [Marnie tries anilingus](https://www.vulture.com/2015/01/girls-recap-season-4-premiere.html) with her new hipster love interest, a headline the next morning read, “Allison Williams Gets Her Salad Tossed on Last Night’s Episode of Girls.” “I remember that headline very clearly,” says Williams, rolling her eyes. “The memes that they’re making — we can go home, our job is done.”

Dolls are scary but M3gan is so much more than that.

It’s kind of a time and place situation for a trailer like that and a dance like that to ignite the way it has. I think in the first movie we get characters talking about how it’s sexist to assume that the killer is a guy. Like the Emma Roberts reveal (Scream 4) — it’s so funny because realistically that’s probably a 5-foot killer, but it doesn’t matter because anyone who’s under the robe is always going to be larger than life, and intimidating and fabulous. But queer people have spent so much time having to explain ourselves that I think this is one place where it’s okay if we don’t. And so when a lot of us look at that, we think, we can’t be [Nancy](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087800/) so we’re Freddie. And whether the movie is good or bad, I don’t know if it matters so much when it comes to the reaction. M3gan is beautiful and evil, so there’s a subversion that some gay men might be responding to when they see something like that. I worry because I’m in this homosexual bubble that I might be imagining things, and I just want to know if you’re seeing the same thing. I saw The Blair Witch Project, and that was really just a nail in the coffin when it comes to camping, an activity I was already skeptical about. Like, you can play with the doll if it’s destructive but not if it’s beautiful. We talked about where M3gan fits into the long history of killer dollies on screen, why LGBTQ people love the genre (hint: because it subverts real life), and how horror can give queer people an escape that they might not find anywhere else. [All over the internet](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/10/why-is-everyone-so-obsessed-with-m3gan-movie) were fan-made videos of M3gan dancing as well as declarations — from people who hadn’t even seen the movie — that M3gan was coming for the crowns of fellow murder dolls Chucky and Annabelle.

With 'Malignant,' 'M3GAN' and 'The Nun 2,' writer Akela Cooper is the 'merciless' new voice of studio horror — and the genre is better for it.

I love the response to “Malignant” and I’m loving the response to “M3GAN,” but I have to be honest. It’s kind of twisted because you have to put yourself in this situation — “If I’m in this location and I’m 4 feet tall, what can I do? What is going to happen when that evolves?” I’ve seen the ones that can write stories and it’s like, “Do I need to go into another line of employment?” I was always wary about Alexa and Echo. It wasn’t a Gabriel [in ‘Malignant’]-scale massacre, but she did kill a bunch more people, including a couple of characters whom James was like, “I like what you did with those people, but I want them to live.” I was merciless, but again, that is me. At the time I was like, “AI that can have a conversation with you, that can babysit your kids, is weird and creepy. It’s not like I sit down and say, “I’m going to write the craziest s— and it’s going to be so campy!” I start with character and story and making them real. I want the kids to go to you.” And I’m like, you want me to take care of two small children? And I knew that the opening was going to revolve around a child who’d been orphaned and had to come live with her aunt because years ago, when I moved [to L.A.], my sister talked to me about her children: “If anything happens to me and my husband ... Horror fans know you as the writer of the delightfully bonkers “Malignant,” but you actually wrote “M3GAN” first. I knew she needed to be “M3GAN” and the acronym would come later. “When I was writing ‘M3GAN,’ did I think that there were going to be dancing M3GANs at the premiere at the Chinese Theatre? A lifelong horror fan, she’d long put off writing the two horror features that had been swimming around in her head — until one day she committed to putting them on paper, working before and after each day of writing on [“Luke Cage.”](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-et-st-marvels-luke-cage-review-20160928-snap-story.html)

Read Bloody Disgusting's review of M3GAN, the new horror movie that sings and dances its way into theaters on January 6, 2023.

I was pretty upset in that moment but over time I learned to appreciate the ride. She was out of breath and looked dead at us and spilled, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god” as she stumbled down the corridor like a crackhead wearing rollerblades. The next day we finally had a ride to the theater and were going to witness The Blair Witch Project for ourselves. The PERFECT place to watch this and a place to that point I’d never been. Now, I was a salty little bitch for having the movie ruined for me the night before but all that changed when we were standing in line and the showing before ours let out. We lived in an age of unsolved mysteries because the internet was in its infancy and also because of the literal show This kind of grab assing went on with me and my friends for weeks leading up to the film’s release. They all went to bed and I was hanging out in the basement by myself and thought, “Let’s see if there’s a web page about this.” Big ole’ mistake, Mike. I thought I was scared shitless before but now I was on a whole nother planet – and so were my buddies. The horror-comedy does live up to its promise to entertain, but with a heavy emphasis on humor and less on horror. I flipped on the cable TV with the clicker, not even bothering to find a channel. It’s less about a newly orphaned girl and more about the absurdity of M3GAN’s existence and the desire to sell her as the hottest new toy despite fully knowing what kind of monster is on their hands.

A state-of-the-art robot doll becomes a girl's best friend, and dangerously more, in this over-the-top horror film.

This is the kind of scary movie that needs a lead performance that is strong not fragile, deadpan not showy. There’s a scene where a police officer who is investigating the disappearance of a dog blurts out a chuckle, then apologizes, saying, “I shouldn’t have laughed.” Any horror fan knows that his jerkiness is as much a sign of impending doom as coeds having sex at a summer camp. In early January, when prestige holiday fare tends to give way to trashier pleasures, a good monster and a sense of humor can be enough. It’s the comedy of a primly composed mean-girl android turning into The Terminator. She excelled in a critical role in “Get Out,” and now in “M3gan,” a ludicrous, derivative and irresistible killer-doll movie.

Kick the year off right with a surprisingly funny thriller about a snotty, artificially intelligent killer doll. Photo of A.A. Dowd · A.A. Dowd, Chron.

They come courtesy of a toy company called Funki, whose brightest designer, Gemma (Allison Williams, back in the Blumhouse after her memorable turn in Get Out), has more ambitious plans for the code she's been developing. If M3gan isn't as delightfully deranged as that movie (for one thing, it's PG-13, which really limits the outrageousness of the gore), Cooper's crooked sense of humor remains intact. [horror movies](https://www.chron.com/culture/main/slideshow/Texas-based-horror-movies-to-watch-this-Halloween-211776.php) as gimcrack as the unsold toys wheeled out after the holidays.

Credit where it's due: The marketing team behind the new horror movie M3GAN has done an excellent job. It's been easy enough to rake in the horror fans; ...

It’s not a movie you watch for the airtight quality of its storytelling or the subtlety of its technological cautionary tale. Because it has a highly specific, out-of-pocket sense of humor, which is campy and offbeat and so clued into the pop cultural appetite for irony that it’s sometimes difficult to tell what’s supposed to be a joke. M3GAN’s plot is functional, and its thrills are solid, but its sense of humor is uniquely vibrant, both weirder and funnier than expected even after months of hype. And while many of the movie’s best moments of physical comedy have already been given away in its marketing, M3GAN retains a few tricks up its sleeve: a riotous opening scene, discreet text-based visual gags, and multiple jokes involving songs so perfectly chosen I’m struggling not to spoil them here. Toward the end of the film, a distraught Cady threatens her therapist with scissors and slaps Gemma clean across the face. But the more familiar its particular blend of horror and comedy is to viewers ahead of time, the easier it will be to forgive the movie’s shortcomings in favor of fawning reenactments of its most quotable lines. Its plot points are skimpily justified: Cady’s parents die convenient horror-movie deaths; Gemma finalizes M3GAN within a week, despite having spent $100,000 and untold years tinkering on it unsuccessfully; various characters make pointed allusions to how the rushed timeline of M3GAN’s release means she can’t be properly safety-tested. M3GAN’s sense of humor is one of a kind. Soon enough, Gemma debuts M3GAN: a robot designed to mimic Cady’s speech and behavior patterns and protect her from harm who is programmed to get better at her job as she spends more time studying Cady and the world. But because “killer robot doll” is merely a vibe and not a premise for a feature-length film, here’s the basic plot of M3GAN, which comes out tomorrow: M3GAN, which stands for “Model 3 Generative Android,” is the secret side project of roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams). As M3GAN performs for two audiences, one real and one fictional, the movie delights in breaking our expectations again and again, daring to be even weirder than it was just moments ago. The first trailer, which dropped last October, is set to an eerie version of “It’s Nice to Have a Friend” by Taylor Swift, automatically earning the allegiance of millions of Swifties.

Get ready for another movie about a creepy killer doll. Created by King of Horror James Wan (The Conjuring, Insidious), M3GAN is coming to theaters this ...

[Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/signup) — at least not anytime soon, since it will be heading straight to Peacock after its theatrical release. 21, became available to stream on Peacock on Dec. [HBO Max](https://prf.hn/click/camref:1100lqHbQ/pubref:---/destination:https://www.hbomax.com/?offer_id=5&transaction_id=1020b725757ac9478de78f928b5f79&affiliate_id=1020&aff_click_id=&utm_source=NY+Post&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_id=27047578) since it’s not a Warner Bros. As of now, the only way to watch M3GAN is to head to a theater when it releases on Friday, Jan. Ticket to Paradise, which hit theaters on Oct. You can find a local showing on

This is why you don't let the Terminator parent your kid: A robot toy companion turns deadly in the campy and satirical new horror film 'M3GAN.'

"M3GAN" rocks plenty of style and offers some crafty needle drops: A bit of "Toy Soldiers" is especially clever. Writer Akela Cooper carries over a similarly enjoyable and bizarrely campy vibe from "Malignant" to this film, which operates more as black comedy than scary movie. When a tragic car accident takes the lives of her sister and brother-in-law, Gemma becomes guardian for her traumatized 9-year-old niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), though she’s unprepared for being a mom. McGraw holds her own, too, since Cady’s tumultuous emotions run deep and she begins to use M3GAN as a snarky role model. Gemma “pairs” her new project – M3GAN, short for Model 3 Generative Android – with Cady and their connection is immediate. It’s also just plain fun to watch a film that packs a healthy amount of absurdity alongside an insightful exploration of 21st-century parenting, though you might never trust Alexa ever again afterward.

The internet blew up when the trailer for the Blumhouse sci-fi shocker dropped. It has so far been viewed over 22 million times on the official YouTube ...

I've been filming for a while and trying to be very Covid cautious, so I haven't been to the movie theaters a bunch in the last couple of years. The frightening moments were between cut and action, whether M3gan was just off to the side waiting to work again or she was right in my face waiting for them to switch a lens or something like that, and it felt so plausible that suddenly she would spring to life. You have to lay enough to put the crumbs out there, so you want to entice the studio to make more because it's so much fun. It's the exaggerating that allows for more freedom of conversation about kids and technology and whether or not it is a good idea to have M3gan function in the same role that parents should. There's also always this worry because I have been watching cuts of it on screens about the size of my TV at home, and then we premiered it in the Chinese Theatre. It's the one we all dreamed of for her, and now M3gan belongs to the world. That was in there from the moment we had her playing the piano. From the description in the scripts I read and from the initial conversations with the director, Gerard, cutting then to all these years later and seeing the final cut, we gave this movie its best life. The people have yet to decide, and you have to let people do that. Then there was the task of introducing M3gan to the world. I'm poised that way, but I was so thrilled by the response to the trailer. Simon Thompson: The last time I spoke to you was on the backlot at Universal Studios for Get Out.

Before booting up M3GAN for producers James Wan and Jason Blum, Gerard Johnstone made his feature directorial debut on Housebound, an awesome horror comedy ...

[Dawning](https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3739204/dawning-screambox-acquires-haunting-festival-favorite-out-of-afm/), Signal 100, and Just Desserts: The Making of Creepshow as well as a collection of Severin Films cult classics from the likes of Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, and Jess Franco! But guided by the seductive and mysterious Gabi (Mia Goth), they venture outside the resort grounds and find themselves in a culture filled with violence, hedonism, and untold horror. In the film, “While staying at an isolated island resort, James (Alexander Skarsgård) and Em (Cleopatra Coleman) are enjoying a perfect vacation of pristine beaches, exceptional staff, and soaking up the sun. Jason, “Hannibal”); Lovecraftian horror Banshee Chapter; cryptid found footage flick Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes; Indonesian action-horror Dead Mine; zombie-war hybrid Outpost: Black Sun; both Good Tidings and The Windmill; and even Sun Choke, the indie hit starring Barbara Crampton! The Key Players: Morgana O’Reilly takes the lead as Kylie, and Rima Te Wiata plays her superstitious mother Miriam. Her latest brush with the law sees her placed under house arrest, a punishment made all the more unbearable by the fact that she’ll be living with her mother Miriam.

From the moment her first trailer graced the internet last year, we knew it would be hard to escape M3GAN. The creepy killer android whose dance moves are ...

Williams didn't admit whether or not she knew the M3GANs would be following her to Today, but she did seem at least a little excited to see them, and admitted that surprise appearances from the dolls are "just part of my life now." "And that is terrifying. [Allison Williams](https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/m3gan-allison-williams-get-out-scream-queen-interview), who plays M3GAN's creator in the new film, stopped by the daily morning show Thursday to talk about the making of the new killer doll sensation, only to be greeted by her creation outside the world of the movie yet again. "By the way, no one told us these ladies were coming, and they scared Dylan Dreyer," Guthrie said. The creepy killer android whose dance moves are as fierce as her kills quickly became one of the internet's new favorite toys, and [all the buzz around early screenings](https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/m3gan-universal-pictures-movie-reviews) of her movie has borne out that excitement. [M3GAN](https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/topic/m3gan).

Allison Williams discusses what it was like working with the 'M3GAN' doll and serving as an executive producer alongside James Wan.

I loved it all, and I'm loving the experience of promoting it and delivering M3GAN to the world and the marketing, and I'm not in charge of any of it. So, from the script to even the edit of the movie, to the way it's promoted and all of it, I like to be involved in all of it. I'm currently shooting something where I'm not producing it, and it's so hard to not be wanting to know everything that's going on. It's going to be hard to go back. I found that it deepened my experience as an actor because it allowed my investment to be as deep as I always want it to be. The great joy is being able to work with people who are and learn from all of the experts and the geniuses who come up with these trailers and who come up with the marketing campaigns. I got to be on the email distributions of, "We're trying to clear these toys for Gemma's shelf, and we can't get any toys from this company. And so I'd be Gemma for 10 hours, and then we'd break for lunch, and I'd be the executive producer, and we'd talk about the rest of the day and the schedule going forward and stuff, and how we're going to achieve all of this stuff, or such-and-such actor can't come in anymore. She seems so real that even when she's not talking or doing anything, it's so easy to just project that onto her, to imagine that she's just going to strike up a conversation with you. I have most of my marbles still. So between "cut" and the next "action," either while we were doing a scene together or even just during a break when she was not working, [was] very eerie just because I think she's so alive to me. When her sister and brother-in-law die in a car accident, she is left to care for her young niece, Cady, and is ill-equipped to do so.

A young girl gets a robotic doll with a murderous streak in this fun horror film from producers James Wan and Jason Blum.

[Exclusive Expedia promo code - Extra 5% hotel bookings (no minimum spend)](https://www.wsj.com/coupons/expedia) [SHEIN coupon code - 25% off](https://www.wsj.com/coupons/shein) Yet at its core it’s about the ambivalence of raising children (“All joy and no fun,” as the writer Jennifer Senior put it in a book of that title) as personified by a lead engineer at a toy manufacturer: Gemma (Allison Williams, formerly of “Girls”) becomes the guardian of her niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), after the kid’s parents are killed in an accident. - DoorDash: All things considered, some parents might be willing to overlook the cuddly robot’s shortcomings, such as a sarcastic streak and a tendency to commit homicide. In “M3gan,” the titular gadget—a “Model 3 Generative Android” that looks like the lost Olsen sister—teaches a little girl proper bathroom procedure with military rigor while the kid’s guardian occupies herself with more diverting activities.

Allison Williams stars as a robotics engineer who creates a killer guardian for her young niece in the latest from Blumhouse.

Even so, M3GAN is a blast, especially with a crowd that’s game to laugh along with a doll’s ominous stare and her inhumanly humorous attempts to be the perfect best friend. Though the contortionist-level juxtaposition of an American Girl murderbot should probably be more viscerally satisfying, Cooper’s offbeat humor and Johnstone’s ability to build tension with her characters make for a potent combination. It’s reductive to entirely blame a PG-13 rating for this shortcoming, but some of the most explicit kills are implied by a cut or by happening just out of frame, so the film feels fairly bloodless even as the body count rises. Gemma, distracted by the professional glory that M3GAN’s launch is about to bring her, technically holds the legal position of Cady’s guardian, although the actual tasks of nurturing and caring for Cady fall to a toy, creating a codependent relationship that distracts from the young girl’s ability to grieve. Remarkably well, though folks expecting a film as gonzo as screenwriter Akela Cooper’s previous horror sensation, [Malignant](https://www.avclub.com/film/reviews/malignant-2021), aren’t going to get quite the same left-field intensity this time around. From the moment she was revealed, M3GAN was an instant icon for a horror fandom in love with eerily autonomous dolls.

After her breakthrough role on “Girls,” Allison Williams transitioned to millennial scream queen territory. In “M3GAN,” the actress earns that title over ...

[a mastermind in the director’s chair](https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/jordan-peeles-nope-will-blow-you-away), the Academy was [finally warming up to 21st-century horror](https://www.thedailybeast.com/get-out-how-the-oscars-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-horror), and Williams is the creepiest millennial scream queen. Or give us more of her duking it out with a tiny robot living in every system of her house. [Girls](https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/girls-at-10-in-defense-of-lena-dunhams-creative-genius), has dipped in and out of the public eye over the last few years. If she keeps working in horror films, all the better—be them campy like M3GAN or thought-provoking like Get Out. As the daughter of NBC news anchor Brian Williams, she’s told interviewers that “there’s no conversation about my career without talking about the ways in which I have been fortunate.” [M3GAN](https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/m3gan-trailers-robot-is-a-queer-icon-like-the-babadook-and-ma)—the singing, dancing, J.Crew-dressed robot girl—carries the new horror movie [M3GAN](https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/m3gan-review-this-dancing-doll-horror-movie-is-unlike-anything-ever-created). She stars as Gemma, the aunt of orphaned Cady (Violet McGraw) and inventor at a toy company. In the wake of New York Magazine’s polarizing Instead of responding, she chuckles and continues the demonstration. She loves robots in particular—a menacing fixation to have in the case of this movie, where an animatronic doll begins to take over the world. In Get Out, she still embodied sleek, uptight Marnie Michaels, but now her emotional manipulation was being played for shrieks instead of laughs. Life-sized humans have been [dressing up and dancing like her](https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/m3gans-dance-to-taylor-swift-film-red-carpet-1235183659/)!

“M3gan”. Universal Pictures. Directed by Gerard Johnstone. Subscribe to our free email newsletter. Get the latest news sent to your inbox.

I would have preferred if it had truly embraced its horror label, but I still loved the basic concept, the slasher moments and the sly satire. Then again, “M3gan” really shines as a black comedy. The film also makes points about grief and our addiction to technology, but these secondary themes are mostly filler. The little girl loves her new M3gan doll, and the doll loves her back. Once the child pairs with the doll, it will become a devoted companion. Which is exactly what happens after a young girl (Violent McGraw) loses her parents in a freak accident.

M3GAN writer and frequent James Wan collaborator Akela Cooper says a gorier version of the film exists, and is on the books.

Given the promotional material of the feature, M3GAN is already giving creeps to horror fans. The audiences at the world premiere of the movie last month were greeted by a troupe of dancing M3GANs. However, the writer admits a much gorier version of the movie made it to the original script. In a new interview with [Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2023-01-05/m3gan-movie-malignant-akela-cooper-james-wan-horror), Cooper spoke about writing a much gorier version of the movie. The marketing of the movie has been fascinating, with the doll’s dancing video going viral. [M3GAN](https://collider.com/m3gan-movie-allison-williams-interview/) is set to terrify the audience in unimaginable creepy ways.