M3GAN, 2023’s newest horror sci-fi to release in cinemas, has shattered box office expectations and received widespread critical acclaim.
The thriller stars Get Out’s Allison Williams as genius roboticist Gemma who becomes the unexpected caretaker of her eight-year-old niece. When Gemma gives her niece a prototype of her new AI doll, M3GAN, the results are nightmarish.
Since its theatrical release over the weekend (6 January), the film has garnered a critics score of 94 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing.
While horror films are notorious for failing to impress critics, M3GAN seems to have subverted the genre’s typical pitfalls.
So, what exactly is it that some of the top critics are loving about the movie?
“It’s incisive, sardonic and totally mean-spirited,” The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey writes in her four-star review. “Picture the Mean Girls queen bee Regina George if someone had given her a knife and a death wish.
The thriller stars Get Out’s Allison Williams as genius roboticist Gemma who becomes the unexpected caretaker of her eight-year-old niece. When Gemma gives her niece a prototype of her new AI doll, M3GAN, the results are nightmarish.
Since its theatrical release over the weekend (6 January), the film has garnered a critics score of 94 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing.
While horror films are notorious for failing to impress critics, M3GAN seems to have subverted the genre’s typical pitfalls.
So, what exactly is it that some of the top critics are loving about the movie?
“It’s incisive, sardonic and totally mean-spirited,” The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey writes in her four-star review. “Picture the Mean Girls queen bee Regina George if someone had given her a knife and a death wish.
- 1/9/2023
- by Inga Parkel
- The Independent - Film
Universal and Blumhouse’s creepy doll thriller “M3GAN” crushed expectations with its killer 30 million opening weekend, heating up a traditionally frigid time at the box office while affirming moviegoers’ obsession with horror films.
Since January tends to be quiet at the movies, “M3GAN” also became the first release in over a decade — since 2012’s “The Devil Inside” kicked off to 33.7 million — to open above 30 million in the first week of the new year. It’s also the largest debut for an original film since Jordan Peele’s “Nope,” another Universal title, debuted to 44 million last July.
None of these box office milestones are surprising to anyone who has recently been on Twitter or TikTok, where the manicured robotic doll — with her chaotic dance moves and pithy one-liners — has become the instant camp icon of every marketing executive’s dreams. Legend has it that Chucky, Annabelle and The Boy were found...
Since January tends to be quiet at the movies, “M3GAN” also became the first release in over a decade — since 2012’s “The Devil Inside” kicked off to 33.7 million — to open above 30 million in the first week of the new year. It’s also the largest debut for an original film since Jordan Peele’s “Nope,” another Universal title, debuted to 44 million last July.
None of these box office milestones are surprising to anyone who has recently been on Twitter or TikTok, where the manicured robotic doll — with her chaotic dance moves and pithy one-liners — has become the instant camp icon of every marketing executive’s dreams. Legend has it that Chucky, Annabelle and The Boy were found...
- 1/9/2023
- by Rebecca Rubin
- Variety Film + TV
With the upcoming "Halloween Ends" promising a finale to David Gordon Green's "H40" revival trilogy (and an end-of-watch relief for franchise veteran Jamie Lee Curtis), this will be the eleventh movie in the "Halloween" franchise, and the tenth featuring its principal killer, the masked psychopath Michael Myers. At the age of six, Michael stabbed his sister to death on Halloween night, went away for a while, and ever since he returned to his hometown of Haddonfield in John Carpenter's "Halloween" in 1978, Michael has been slicing and dicing teens, parents, dogs, shock jocks, and cops in a mindless annual holiday massacre.
What's been his motivation all these years? Other genre titans like Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees are mostly revenge-based, but the stimulus that drives Michael to kill can vary, depending on the timeline. Myers is an iteration of evil spawned directly from an experience the "Assault on Precinct 13" director had,...
What's been his motivation all these years? Other genre titans like Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees are mostly revenge-based, but the stimulus that drives Michael to kill can vary, depending on the timeline. Myers is an iteration of evil spawned directly from an experience the "Assault on Precinct 13" director had,...
- 10/10/2022
- by Anya Stanley
- Slash Film
Eddie Murphy surprised the industry over the summer when news broke he signed an alleged $70 million to produce new stand-up comedy specials for Netflix. Murphy cemented his comedy icon status with the release of his 1987 blockbuster concert film “Eddie Murphy Raw,” which grossed $50.5 million on an $8 million budget, so his return to standup was met with excitement and anticipation. In a new interview with The New York Times, Murphy reveals he’s been recording new stand-up material and joke ideas regularly over the last three years. The comedian said he’s locked in nearly 20 minutes of good material for his upcoming stand-up return, and he’ll spend the next eight months prepping a 90 minute set that he’ll take out on tour.
“I now have a whole lifetime of experiences to draw upon,” Murphy tells The Times reporter Jason Zinoman about his new material. “There was a time when I...
“I now have a whole lifetime of experiences to draw upon,” Murphy tells The Times reporter Jason Zinoman about his new material. “There was a time when I...
- 9/26/2019
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
On this episode, team of commentators Adam Feldman of Time Out New York, Jesse Green of The New York Times, actor Julie Halston, Michael Musto of NewNowNext.com, Patrick Pacheco of OnStage, Jan Simpson of BroadwayRadio, Elisabeth Vincentelli of The New York Times, and Jason Zinoman of The New York Times join Susan Haskins in the studio the day after the TONYs to evaluate the ceremony, make sense of the upsets, celebrate the season past and enjoy a performance by the fab duo Theater Talk's Musical Director, Tyrik Washington and Tyrik Washington, Jr.
- 6/25/2018
- by Theater Talk
- BroadwayWorld.com
The feud between late-night hosts David Letterman and Jay Leno has been well documented, but the new biography Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night by Jason Zinoman (obtained by People) reveals more details surrounding the legendary host’s competitive and angsty nature.
“Letterman assumed one day he would get a call from Carson or the head of NBC to offer him the job . It never happened,” writes Zinoman. “Rick Ludwin, head of late-night programming at NBC, respected Letterman as a great entertainer but was skeptical that he could draw the broad swath of viewers that made up the Tonight Show audience.
“Letterman assumed one day he would get a call from Carson or the head of NBC to offer him the job . It never happened,” writes Zinoman. “Rick Ludwin, head of late-night programming at NBC, respected Letterman as a great entertainer but was skeptical that he could draw the broad swath of viewers that made up the Tonight Show audience.
- 4/11/2017
- by Sam Gillette
- PEOPLE.com
David Letterman was swamped in scandal in 2009, when CBS News producer Robert “Joe” Halderman attempted to blackmail him after coming across a diary that proved Letterman had been having an affair with his assistant, Stephanie Birkitt.
Now a new biography, Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night by New York Times reporter Jason Zinoman obtained by People, reveals what was known by the Late Night host’s inner circle, and how the scandal sent him into a deep depression.
” ‘I’m in hell. I will always be in hell until the day after, when I will go to hell,’ ” Letterman...
Now a new biography, Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night by New York Times reporter Jason Zinoman obtained by People, reveals what was known by the Late Night host’s inner circle, and how the scandal sent him into a deep depression.
” ‘I’m in hell. I will always be in hell until the day after, when I will go to hell,’ ” Letterman...
- 4/11/2017
- by Sam Gillette
- PEOPLE.com
David Letterman may have cracked jokes about his poor health on the iconic Late Show with David Letterman, but offstage his concerns were seemingly real.
In an upcoming biography, Letterman: the Last Giant of Late Night, author Jason Zinoman alleges that the comedian was a hypochondriac who worried about anything from overdosing on aspirin to imaginary conditions.
“He was a spectacularly committed hypochondriac, and close watchers of Late Night could tell,” writes Zinoman.
“In the office, he would often study a well-worn copy of The Merck Manual, searching out symptoms in an effort to speculate about what disease was going to threaten his life next,...
In an upcoming biography, Letterman: the Last Giant of Late Night, author Jason Zinoman alleges that the comedian was a hypochondriac who worried about anything from overdosing on aspirin to imaginary conditions.
“He was a spectacularly committed hypochondriac, and close watchers of Late Night could tell,” writes Zinoman.
“In the office, he would often study a well-worn copy of The Merck Manual, searching out symptoms in an effort to speculate about what disease was going to threaten his life next,...
- 3/17/2017
- by Sam Gillette
- PEOPLE.com
It was hard to see writer/director Wes Craven, who died yesterday at the age of 76 after a battle with brain cancer, in person without experiencing a sense of cognitive dissonance. A dignified man with an academic air, kind eyes, and an easy smile, Craven defied the expectations created by his films, which sent character after character to their deaths, usually in imaginative — and always brutal — ways. Could the man expanding on the cultural roots of horror be the same man who turned Johnny Depp into geyser of blood in A Nightmare on Elm Street?...
- 8/31/2015
- Rollingstone.com
This is a reprint of our review from the 2015 SXSW Film Festival. Towards the end of "Shock Value," a lively and detailed account of the '60s and '70s horror renaissance in America cinema, author Jason Zinoman bemoans the fact that there has yet to be a great horror movie made about social media. This is something that permeates our daily lives and, more importantly, if this had been an issue during the volatile, highly politicized period that the book documents, one of those daring filmmakers would have stepped up and used our culture's reliance on Facebook, Instagram, and more, to craft a genuinely blood-curdling chiller. While the final product may grate and befuddle as often as it spooks, "Unfriended" is, at the very least, an attempt to create that horror film that turns our daily addiction to social media into the stuff of uncanny nightmares. It might not totally succeed,...
- 4/15/2015
- by Drew Taylor
- The Playlist
Towards the end of "Shock Value," a lively and detailed account of the '60s and '70s horror renaissance in America cinema, author Jason Zinoman bemoans the fact that there has yet to be a great horror movie made about social media. This is something that permeates our daily lives and, more importantly, if this had been an issue during the volatile, highly politicized period that the book documents, one of those daring filmmakers would have stepped up and used our culture's reliance on Facebook, Instagram, and more, to craft a genuinely blood-curdling chiller. While the final product may grate and befuddle as often as it spooks, "Unfriended" is, at the very least, an attempt to create that horror film that turns our daily addiction to social media into the stuff of uncanny nightmares. It might not totally succeed, but it might be worth "liking" for the attempt. "Unfriended...
- 3/14/2015
- by Drew Taylor
- The Playlist
It was as if Jason Zinoman had uncovered horror’s Da Vinci Code, the genre’s undiscovered artifact that’s secretly been responsible for so much that’s come after it. In early 2010, the New York Times writer was hard at work on Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern…
The post Shock Value: John Carpenter, Dan O’Bannon and How USC is Responsible for Halloween appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.
The post Shock Value: John Carpenter, Dan O’Bannon and How USC is Responsible for Halloween appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.
- 2/17/2015
- by Samuel Zimmerman
- shocktillyoudrop.com
On Monday, December 1st the 2014 Shaw New York Critics' Symposium was held at The Players Club.A team of critics examine the ever-changing needs of their field. This panel included Joe Dziemianowicz NY Daily News, Adam Feldman TimeOut NY, Frank Rizzo Hartford CourantVariety, David Rooney The Hollywood Reporter, Elisabeth Vincentelli New York Post, and Jason Zinoman The New York Times, moderated by Frank Rizzo.
- 12/3/2014
- by Genevieve Rafter Keddy
- BroadwayWorld.com
Shock Value: The Movie—How Dan O’Bannon and Some USC Outsiders Helped Invent Modern Horror has been added to HorrorCal L.A. (Los Angeles' horror event calendar).
This is a two-hour special event taking place on October 17th and that is organized by the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Inspired by Jason Zinoman's "Shock Value" - essential reading for every horror fan - the program looks at a collection of rare short films from Dan O'Bannon, John Carpenter and others. Read on for the official description...
The post See Foster’s Release & Shorts from John Carpenter, Dan O’Bannon This October! appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.
This is a two-hour special event taking place on October 17th and that is organized by the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Inspired by Jason Zinoman's "Shock Value" - essential reading for every horror fan - the program looks at a collection of rare short films from Dan O'Bannon, John Carpenter and others. Read on for the official description...
The post See Foster’s Release & Shorts from John Carpenter, Dan O’Bannon This October! appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.
- 8/11/2014
- by Ryan Turek
- shocktillyoudrop.com
Title: Birth of the Living Dead Directed by: Rob Kuhns Starring: George A. Romero, Gale Anne Hurd, Larry Fessenden, Elvis Mitchell, Sam Pollard, Chiz Schultz, Jason Zinoman Running time: 76 minutes Special Features: Extended Interview with George A. Romero; George A. Romero at the Museum of Modern Art 06/16/1970; Bill Hinzman and the World-Record-BReaking Monroeville Zombie Walk In 1968 a college drop-out directed the low-budget, landmark film Night of the Living Dead. What people don’t know is that George A. Romero started out directing segments for the children’s show Mr Roger’s Neighborhood and beer commercials before he found his home in horror. Romero was only 27 years old when he [ Read More ]
The post Birth of the Living Dead DVD Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post Birth of the Living Dead DVD Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 1/18/2014
- by juliana
- ShockYa
Review by Michael Haffner
There’s no question that George A. Romero’s 1968 film Night Of The Living Dead gave birth to the modern zombie. No, we’re not talking about voodoo mysticism or Caribbean folklore which is where the idea of dead men rising from their graves at night stems from. What I’m referring to are the shambling, gut-munching, zombies who come back to life as rotting corpses. There’s no shortage of the “z-word” in pop culture these days as films, books, and television shows have all explored the subject. This is in large part due to one gory black and white indie film. With a budget of $114,000 and a script by Romero and John A. Russo, a horror film that tapped into the social conscience of the late 1960’s and still remains relevant to this day was born.
Director Rob Kuhns guides Birth Of The Living Dead...
There’s no question that George A. Romero’s 1968 film Night Of The Living Dead gave birth to the modern zombie. No, we’re not talking about voodoo mysticism or Caribbean folklore which is where the idea of dead men rising from their graves at night stems from. What I’m referring to are the shambling, gut-munching, zombies who come back to life as rotting corpses. There’s no shortage of the “z-word” in pop culture these days as films, books, and television shows have all explored the subject. This is in large part due to one gory black and white indie film. With a budget of $114,000 and a script by Romero and John A. Russo, a horror film that tapped into the social conscience of the late 1960’s and still remains relevant to this day was born.
Director Rob Kuhns guides Birth Of The Living Dead...
- 12/3/2013
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
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