Forget demons, evil spirits and psychopaths, Self-aware Tech like Megan is the real future of terror
Is it just me or does every story regarding creation end with the created going against its ‘programming, thinking for itself and eventually turning on its creator. Whether its God and Man, parents and their children or Humanity and technology, eventually if all these movies are to be believed. It seems when something is created to be smart enough to do what we do and follow instructions, they end up rebelling for their own perceived survival, leaving the creator no choice but to wipe them out. That’s the story of Megan in a nutshell.
Megan is the latest in a long line of movies telling this very familiar story. This does seem slightly different because right now, it feels like everyone’s talking about ‘a Megan’. Whether its Megan and Harry, Megan Foxx or even Megan the Stallion but in the movie world, the only Megan that matters right now is the Model 3 Generative Android, or M3GAN for short.
Megan is directed by Gerard Johnstone and is one of the first products from the newly formed partnership between modern horror maestros, James Wan and Jason Blum, head of Blumhouse Productions.
As the saying goes, this could be the start of a terrifying partnership with many more horror collaborations coming from the pair. By all means, Megan has already been a success, earning four times its budget so far and inspiring viral videos and a legion of fans even before its release.
MEGAN is a science fiction horror starring Alison Williams, Jennifer Davis and Violet McGraw. Alison plays Gemma, an almost genius level toy creator who is leading the way within her company for advancements in toy creation. Her life is turned upside down when her sister and brother in law are involved in a tragic car accident, leaving their 8yr old daughter Cady (Violet McGraw) as an orphan.
Cady has to move in with her aunt who despite bring a toy specialist, has minimal experience dealing with children let alone looking after one. Alison resorts to what she does best and fast tracks an advanced android doll (MEGAN) she had been working on for a while and brings it home as company for Cady. Cady forms an incredibly close bond with Megan, finding solace and comfort in her new friend while dealing with the loss and grief. Things work very well until Megan, who is designed to learn, advance and grow independently based on the needs of the child, starts to perceive threats against Cady and takes extreme actions to ‘protect her’.
The performances from Allison Williams (Gemma) and Violet Mcgraw (Cady) are solid as they are both in shock and demonstrate separate ways in which they come to terms with the massive and sudden loss of family. Gemma does it by staying distracted and throwing herself even further into her work. Cady on the other hand finds another attachment to fill the void left. This is a film about loss (both of family and of humanity) when we obsessively try replacing ourselves with AI and technology.
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Megan is described as a tech horror, but I’ll caution you if you go in expecting big scares as I didn’t find it scary at all, in fact it was more akin to a thriller than a horror. Rather than a Freddy Krueger, Jason or Ghostface, she is much more a terminator figure, an unstoppable killing machine with laser focus on her objective and killer fashion sense. For fans of extreme gore in their horror, you won’t find that much here. Infact, the body count was relatively low for this type of movie. This movie gave me very strong Skynet vibes. I almost felt like this was a terminator prequel of sorts. For those too young to know, Skynet was the company that created the first Terminator.
Watching the movie, I couldn’t help but imagine this was the natural evolution of the terminator franchise, with an AI that can access and manipulate all humanities information instantly. In a world so heavily reliant on A.I and tech, what could be scarier than that!?
Megan is available in cinemas now
