M3GAN 2.0 (2025)

Hold onto your vaginas...

M3GAN gets an upgrade and is pitted against AMELIA (Autonomous Military Engagement Logistics & Infiltration Android), a secret government weapon that was built based on M3GAN's stolen code. This film also gets an upgrade, from a smaller sci-fi horror flick to a full scale action epic, in a turn similar to Terminator 2. And the movie suffers for it. There is a lot of exposition to get through and not enough of the fun of M3GAN herself. There are one too many ideas and characters introduced, until it eventually loses the plot completely.

So what's next for this series? Besides an inevitable 3.0, there's an upcoming spin-off entitled SOULM8TE, about a man who buys a companion doll, which is a subject close to my heart. (Let's hope she looks like Ivanna Sakhno, too.)

2½ neural implants out of 5

M3GAN (2022)

A robotics engineer creates M3GAN (Model 3 Generative ANdroid), a fully autonomous humanoid robot with advanced learning AI, in order to help her niece cope with the death of her parents. They quickly become inseparable, as M3GAN's processes accelerate and she develops sentience. What separates this from all the crap is the humor that's fully embraced in this horror concept. She's not an evil robot, she's just been programmed to protect her human's life at all costs. It all collapses in the final act, but by god, it's fun getting there.

3 friends to the end out of 5

Note: This film was hacked apart for its PG-13 cut; opt for the unrated instead.

HOUSEBOUND [2014]

It's not often horror/comedies manage to effectively balance both genres to great effect but somehow writer/director Gerard Johnstone's feature length debut, Housebound, packs in the scares and laughs with great success.
Neighbors' Morgana O'Reilly plays an angry young woman put on house arrest at her mom's in the New Zealand countryside where she discovers there's many secrets to be revealed within the walls of the creepy old home.  It smugly inserts all the usual haunted house tropes then punches them square in the jaw with a hearty laugh and a sincere apology to keep it from becoming stale.  It's claustrophobic dizzy setting keeps the viewer on edge, so quite often you'll find your laughter is more nervous than humored which makes for a helluva good time.

3½ creepy-ass Teddy Ruxpins out of 5