Films like Dolls and the Puppet Master series saw the ’80s and ’90s bringing to life a number of iconic killer dolls, though it is Chucky from Child’s Play that is the be-all and end-all icon of the subgenre. What all of these films had in common is the embrace of bringing something innocuous and innocent into your home, only for it to turn on you, as well as these movies sharing the same cinematic techniques of the time allowing these threats to come to life in more effective ways than its predecessors. Another uniting factor is that the size of all of these dolls inevitably asks the viewer, “Couldn’t I just kick it out a window?” To usher in a new generation of killer dolls, M3GAN is here to deliver audiences the best of what the subgenre has to offer, making for an entertaining and engaging experience, yet one that is still bogged down by the inherent hurdles of the formula.
