Slasher dolls and killer robots: 13 movies to watch if you loved M3GAN

When 1989’s Puppet Master was denied a theatrical release and instead slashed its way straight into the home video market, nobody could have predicted it would spawn 14 sequels and spin-offs. For three and a half decades, this war band of dummies has refused to die, persisting in a series that’s wavered from marvelous to tasteless. The original is essential watching as a Brothers Quay-ish nightmare, while reboot gloriously relishes in B movie odiousness.

It’s easy to dismiss as derivative—because it is. The plot follows a young kid dealing with a killer doll à la Child’s Play, while some of the shots and even some of the lines are plucked from The Evil Dead and The Exorcist. However, as much as this late entry into the slasher subgenre’s first wave is a game of “spot the reference,” the film is carried by its inventive practical effects, as well as a taking-this-infinitely-more-seriously-than-needed Rip Torn.

A cash-in on both the Child’s Play and Puppet Master series, Demonic Toys rampages right into “so bad it’s good” territory. Peter Manoogian’s horror comedy follows, of course, a gang of playthings out for blood, yet also throws a plethora of other horror cliches at the wall, such as demonically possessed kids. Hammering the looniness home are the, let’s say, uneven performances, which run the gamut from over-the-top to “I have never given less of a crap.”

Making one puppet scary enough to make you shit yourself clearly didn’t cut it for James Wan and Leigh Whannell. So, the men behind Saw and bicycle-riding Billy reunited for this supernatural horror. follows protagonist Jamie, who returns to his hometown after a puppet arrives at their house and his wife mysteriously dies. Infinitely less blood-drenched than Saw, the film retreats to the classic horror tropes of mansions and possession—and is a rewarding left turn.

Saw and Dead Silence director James Wan yet again dabbled with evil dolls in The Conjuring, which featured Annabelle, a porcelain doll stuffed with the soul of a demon. The character’s creepiness was so intense that she received her own spin-off trilogy, of which is by far the best entry point. Not only is it the most chilling of its series, but it’s a prequel that tells the doll’s story from the very start.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. A nanny arrives at a mansion and quickly gets spooked by a seemingly inanimate doll… Okay, so ’s plot seems as familiar and exciting as gravel. However, despite it being a pretty clear cash-in on the success of The Conjuring and Annabelle, director William Brent Bell eventually subverts the haunted doll subgenre with a twist much more grounded in the horrors of real life.

In an age where AI was (and still is) becoming more everyday than ever, director Lars Klevberg pushed the reset button on . His reimagining cast an ever-charismatic Mark Hamill as the new Chucky: a high-tech doll that’s tampered with, then grows self-aware and murderous. The lack of the original’s Brad Dourif and voodoo silliness made this a controversial redo, but it’s still a chilling thought experiment on those robots you’re letting into your house.