Glamorous girlboss robot M3GAN took the world by storm before her movie was even released, thanks to her viral TikTok style dances and generally fabulously murderous demeanour. Thanks to the M3GAN memes, the comedy horror movie has had one of the strongest January openings ever, meaning that a slew of sequels is surely on the way.
M3GAN is a new robot movie about an orphaned 11 year old Cady (Violet McGraw), who is sent to live with her Aunt Gemma (Allison Williams). Gemma works for a leading toy company and has been developing a robot child’s companion called M3GAN. Gemma pairs Cady with the M3GAN doll, and the robot becomes extremely protective of her ward…leading to murder and mayhem.
M3GAN actually began life as an R-rated horror movie script and was changed along the way to PG-13 – which will have had a positive effect on the box office. Screenwriter Akela Cooper says that the original script “was way gorier. Her body count in the script was higher than in the movie. It wasn’t a Gabriel [Malignant]-scale massacre, but she did kill a bunch more people, including a couple of characters whom James was like, ‘I like what you did with those people, but I want them to live.’ I was merciless!”
So, while there are fewer deaths in the released version of M3GAN than originally planned, the death count is still appropriate for a horror movie. So, you may be wondering about everyone who dies in M3GAN. It goes without saying that there are spoilers ahead!
Everyone who dies in M3GAN:
- Cady’s parents
- Brandon (obnoxious kid at the hippy school)
- Celia (Gemma’s neighbour) and her dog Dewey
- Gemma’s colleagues Tess and Cole (or do they?)
- Gemma’s boss David and his assistant Kurt
- M3GAN (or does she?)
Cady’s Parents
The catalyst for everything that happens in M3GAN is the fact that Cady’s parents die right at the start. The family are on a long-planned ski trip in the mountains, but they have forgotten to put snow tires on the car and they are stuck in a blizzard. Cady is in the back seat, playing with her ‘perpetual pet’ and tablet – a gift from her Aunt Gemma.
While Cady’s parents argue, suddenly a snow plough slams into the car. Cady survives the crash, but her parents do not. As a result of this, she is sent to live with her mother’s younger sister Gemma, who is single.
Brandon (Jack Cassidy)
Cady was being home-schooled by her mother before her death. Once she moves in with Gemma, Gemma suggests that Cady needs school so she has other kids to interact with. Gemma takes Cady to a progressive ‘outdoor school’ for the day, to see if she likes it.
Cady has a tantrum, and refuses to go to the school unless M3GAN comes too. Gemma reluctantly agrees, but says she has to leave M3GAN on the toy table, switched off. An obnoxious kid called Brandon starts bullying Cady. In one of the best scenes in the movie, M3GAN somehow appears and begins chasing Brandon through the woods. She pulls his ears, chases him like a creepy crab on all-fours, and eventually he runs into the road and gets run over by a car.
Gemma’s neighbour Celia (Lori Dungey) and her dog Dewey
From the moment that Cady arrives at Gemma’s house, it is obvious that Gemma is involved in a running-battle with her neighbour Celia. She has a loud, barking dog who frequently escapes through a hole in the fence. Celia also sprays her plants with chemicals, which get into Gemma’s front yard.
One day Cady and M3GAN are playing with a toy bow-and-arrow set. One of the arrows lands in Celia’s garden, M3GAN puts her arm through to retrieve it and the dog attacks her. Cady then puts her arm through, which the dog also bites. We later see M3GAN luring Dewey the dog through the hole with treats – we assume that she disposes of Dewey in some way – but don’t worry, you don’t see dog death on screen.
A little while later (after M3GAN has killed Brandon), M3GAN lures Celia out of her house late at night by pretending to bark like Dewey. Celia goes into a random shed or garage, and M3GAN attacks her. She finishes her off by spraying her with acidic pesticides.
Tess (Jen Van Epps) and Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez)
Gemma’s friends and colleagues Tess and Cole help her develop and build M3GAN, initially in secret, without their boss David knowing. Once Gemma becomes suspicious of M3GAN’s murderous ways, she decides not to launch M3GAN to the public. She calls Tess to tell her this, but M3GAN answers, pretending to be Tess.
Tess and Cole realise that M3GAN intercepted the call and that she needs to unplugged from their network. When Cole attempts to do this, M3GAN attacks him, knocking him unconscious. Tess then tries to stop M3GAN, and she is also left unconscious on the floor. M3GAN sets fire to the lab, and it’s implied that Tess and Cole will perish in the fire.
However! Tess and Cole pull up in a police car to Gemma’s house at the end – they are both injured, but alive. It is likely that these are the people that screenwriter Cooper is referring to above when she says; “there were a couple of characters whom James [Wan] was like, ‘I like what you did with those people, but I want them to live.'”
Gemma’s boss David (Ronny Chieng) and his assistant Kurt (Stephane Garneau-Monten)
The most famous moment from the trailer is M3GAN unhinged dance that she does in a corridor before chasing someone, armed with the blade from a conveniently-placed paper cutter (AKA guillotine). David runs towards the elevator, and M3GAN ends up slicing and dicing him in there.
David’s assistant Kurt had attempted to steal files related to M3GAN presumably to sell to a rival. M3GAN of course knows this, because she’s basically omniscient by this point. Kurt gets his throat cut by the paper cutter, also in the elevator. The elevator opens at what is supposed to be M3GAN’s launch party, with a blood-drenched M3GAN standing over the two bodies. Quite the entrance.
M3GAN
M3GAN basically seems indestructible and freakishly strong, but she does have one area of weakness. In her final showdown with Gemma, M3GAN gets her face sliced by a chainsaw, and is literally pulled into two pieces by Gemma’s old robot Bruce.
Neither of these things slow M3GAN down very much, and she’s back to her old choking ways in no time. Gemma manages to pull her face off and eyes out, but it’s not until Cady manages to plunge a screwdriver into M3GAN’s ‘brain’ that she is finally defeated.
But is M3GAN actually dead? There is a little tease at the end that suggests that she’s downloaded herself into Elsie – Gemma’s home voice-recognition device (similar to Alexa). It seems as though M3GAN will live on somehow, hence the sequel…
Check out the other new movies that could rival M3GAN’s supremacy in 2023.