2022 was one of the best years horror has ever seen. 2023 looks to be no different, and it’s not wasting any time getting started with M3GAN. The film about an AI companion with an impeccable sense of style turned evil hits theaters in early January. The marketing for the film has been one of the most purely entertaining campaigns in recent memory, but the newly released clip lets horror fans know M3GAN isn’t playing around. If her best friend Cady’s (Violet McGraw) “in danger” she’s literally ready to give them an earful.
The new IMDb exclusive clip, introduced by star Allison Williams, gives fans an extended look at the forest scene from the trailers. M3GAN is lifeless on the ground when Brandon (Jack Cassidy), Cady’s school bully, insults her. The evil Al quickly springs to life and grabs Brandon’s ear. This is such a gruesome scene that sees Brandon’s ear skin be stretched out like it was silly putty. M3GAN is teaching him some “manners” and humorously lectures him about how bad boys left unchecked turn out to become bad men. This is where the horror of the scene comes in and the ear stretching begins. The scene ends with M3GAN ripping off a part of his ear, rising off the ground like she was possessed by a demon, and doing her best Michael Myers head tilt before throwing Brandon’s ear fat aside like it was just another afternoon for this killer robot. The last we see of Brandon he runs off, but his dire fate seems to be pretty much etched in stone.
M3GAN, from all the marketing and stellar early reactions, seems to be Blumhouse and Universal’s next major horror hit. You don’t have to look far to see why as this is the love child of producer James Wan, the godfather of The Conjuring universe, and screenwriter Akela Cooper who wrote Wan’s brilliant supernatural thriller Malignant. The cast is also filled with genre veterans like Williams who previously starred in Jordan Peele’s Get Out and the underrated Netflix film The Perfection while McGrew previously starred in Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep and The Haunting of Hill House. The great pieces are here for a new horror classic in the making. However, while the marketing has leaned into the more horror comedy aspect of this film, this clip shows horror diehards that it won’t be skipping out on the violence. Even though this is a PG-13 film, that ear pull is nasty to say the least, and it looks like it was done practically which is always a plus for us demented genre aficionados.
