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Find out what makes “M3GAN” tick when you bring home Gerard Johnstone’s film.

By justin waldman on March 21, 2023 • ( 0 )

This new absurdity from studios that don’t release monster hits in 4K is getting a little out of hand. There are so many great horror movies that are getting just Blu-ray releases as the highest quality of release or not being released at all, and it really does boggle the mind. However, when the movies do get the physical treatment, hopefully they at least come with something interesting like features as incentive to pony up the cash to grab a physical copy instead of a digital.

In the case of M3GAN, thankfully the Blu-ray combo pack does come with some actual incentive to make audiences want to sink their dollars into this release. Again, as previously mentioned, unfortunately this is a Blu-ray combo pack, and there is no physical 4K at the moment (Malignant proves that maybe a 4K will come out eventually, but never hold your breath). In this combo pack, audiences will get the Blu-ray, a DVD (not going to sit here and pretend to be an elitist that is 4K or bust, but can we stop with the DVD combo packs that have been slowly creeping back up? Give audiences a break and drop the price by a few dollars instead of having the DVD), and the digital copy. While this does give audiences a large variety to watch, at home, on the road, or at their grandparents’/parents’ house who haven’t upgraded to the 20^th century, it does come with an unrated cut, too. The unrated cut, though, is possibly only bloodier and more graphic than the theatrical cut as there is not even enough footage to increase the run time by a singular minute.

While, senior critic Hunter Heilman has already written an in-depth review of M3GAN, I will not entirely dive into the film, but will offer some small insight as to my thoughts, as well. M3GAN is simply nearly perfect, full stop. It is one of the most engaging and fun horror movies in recent years and just creates moment after moment that audiences can sink their teeth into and indulge in. Gerard Johnstone (Housebound) and writer Akela Cooper (Malignant), along with the concept and story created by James Wan (Malignant), manage to create a story that is simply sublime. It is riddled with subtext about the current state of affairs, parenting, and trying to make the absolute best out of a horrific situation. M3GAN truly is a film for people who love killer dolls, are tired of the same type of horror movies and want something new, and just simply enjoy solid filmmaking, storytelling, and good performances.

While there is no 4K, the Blu-ray does look spectacular, though there is no real reason for it not to look clean. As the movie is a new release, it is shot with the some of the best equipment out there and the disk certainly reflects that. However, there are a few interesting things to note on the home release. For starters, when starting the movie on the main menu, the bonus features are displayed and ready to play on the far right of the screen. More on that later, but when choosing to hit play, audiences are given two options — the theatrical or the unrated, but the unrated has an asterisk beside it. The asterisk states that if you choose the unrated version there is no DS (descriptive services) available, which truly is weird because it doesn’t feel like there is that much more to the unrated version. However, the special features (few that they are) are worth diving into. There are three features entitled “A new vision of horror”, “Bringing life to M3GAN”, and “Getting Hacked,” ringing up approximately 15 minutes of features. While the first feature offers a lot of insight into how the concept was created and why James Wan decided to break from his mold of only creating possessed dolls that end up being killers into killer doll movies. “Bringing life to M3GAN” and “Getting Hacked” are more about the creation of M3GAN herself and the craftmanship of the movie, certainly bringing forth a lot of behind-the-scenes information and how they created the film. With three features that certainly pack a lot of meat into them and don’t shy away from letting audiences get an inside look, a digital copy, and a DVD for those random nights, M3GAN certainly is worth the shelf real estate for this home release.

M3GAN Special Features: