One thing you may not know about me: I’m a bit of a horror movie connoisseur. I’ve enjoyed them my entire adult life and have watched many a terrible, laughable one just to find one diamond in the rough.

So when M3GAN became available on Peacock, I had to give it a try.

M3GAN is about a girl whose parents are killed in a car accident, so she’s sent to live with her aunt, someone who is absolutely not ready to be a mother. She’s something of a genius inventor and has just created a life-sized, autonomous doll that is designed to be a child’s best friend. Before putting the doll, M3GAN, out to market, she decides to do a beta test on it with her niece.

You can probably guess how the movie progresses: M3GAN, given the ability to ‘learn’, learns too much and decides she’s in charge and kills quite a few people before the end.

I did wonder why the ‘genius inventor’ thought it necessary to give a child’s toy the strength of at least one power lifter, or why a simple ‘do no harm’ command wasn’t included in the doll’s code. Seems like a pretty glaring flaw in the design to me, but I guess they needed it to make the movie go.

At times, it felt like watching a 21st century Chucky movie, only it was slightly less campy and better acted. The acting in M3GAN is actually really well done and probably what made the film bearable. The was swearing, of course, and violence but none that was over the top. You see a guy get stabbed, a boy get his ear pulled off (with some pretty bad CGI), but nothing too awful.

I ended up enjoying it, but folks who don’t regularly endure some of the worst of its genre may not have the same appreciation. If you already have a Peacock streaming subscription, I’d say it’s worth a view!