Blake Kathleen Johnson

This was the first horror movie that I watched in theaters— I was pretty excited but it was just a movie with bunch of lot holes, censoring, and no true message besides the classic “AI gone rogue”. I did love how they brought Megan to life with an actress, but that was about the most impressive part of this movie. All the “terrifying” censored gore was in the trailer. The movie started out with a toy commercial which was quite an odd hook. The movie seemed like it was scared to show blood and gore due to the fact that it had a pg-13 movie rating. Cady (the little girl who befriends Megan) only met Megan because her parents died in the first five minutes of the movie and they didn’t even delve into Cady’s trauma. The only kill from Megan that sort of made sense was the dog. Cady’s aunt Gemma didn’t seem bothered at all by the fact that her sister and brother-in-law both died. She heavily relied on Megan to take care of Cady and got mad when she was actually doing it! This movie seemed like it was quickly put together, barely any character development, bad acting (in some parts), and is overrated. Sure it’s the first horror movie of 2023 and there are a lot of high ratings but it’s just an unoriginal doll that’s robotic with trauma pushed aside to give Megan the spotlight. Cady throws so so so many temper tantrums and seems like a completely different person (not in a good way [spoiled mainly] by the halfway mark of the movie), and the only sympathy I have for her is the fact that the worst thing that could’ve happened to her did— her parents are dead!! But she doesn’t talk to her therapist, and the writers didn’t take complete advantage of the vulnerability of this character in a horror movie setting. This is just my opinion, if you want to see this movie, go for it!! I did think it was worth seeing. Just know that this isn’t the best doll horror movie but it does have some amazing character designs.