One of the most enduring and evergreen tropes from the cinematic world has been killer dolls — a narrative made popular by films like the original 1988 classic horror,Child’s Play, that introduced us to Chucky. With this sub-genre growing in popularity, societal advancements in tech have evolved killer dolls too, including Chucky himself, who now blends the sci-fi favorite sentient AI trope to provide a more reality-grounded explanation for how he became a sociopathic killer.
In 2022, the critically and commercially successful horror-thriller filmM3GANused this plot device to perfection too. Introducing the world to a new killer doll, the now notorious M3GAN has also upped the ante for all who came before. Running onsome seriously scary rogue AIblended with some amazing tensegrity that enables her to move more fluidly than any other killer doll so far, M3GAN represents the ultimate killer doll. Here’s why she would beat all these other killer dolls in a fight.
10Billy From Saw
So, this isn’t really even a contest. “Billy”, the creepy-looking dolly created by the Jigsaw killer in James Wan’s famousSawfilms is certainly intimidating. He looks unnerving, has a frightening voice, and usually signifies your impending death since he’s used by Jigsaw to explain the sadistic traps his victims are placed in after they’ve been abducted and given a choice to make some horrific sacrificial choice to save themselves or die in an excruciating (but morbidly creative) way.
However, all these cool traits that have made him an icon of gore-horror movies ultimately mean nothing since Billy is nothing more than a puppet used by the real monster, John Kramer (Tobin Bell), the Jigsaw killer himself. Although he devolved into a psychopathic killer hellbent on teaching his victims to value their lives by torturing and killing them, he is just a man, and an elderly one at that, who’s also been a cancer patient and was even killed inSaw III.
As for Billy though, M3GAN may not be human, but she is real and not a puppet. Beating Billy, for M3GAN, would be as simple as throwing him in a bin. Beating Jigsaw on the other hand may not be that simple, since he’s a genius and hasproven virtually unkillable.
Ironically also named Billy (although the puppet fromSawisn’t officially named Billy in the films), this Billy was a ventriloquist doll from the 2007 James Wan horror film,Dead Silence.Billy seemingly does supernatural things, but the film later reveals that he’s ultimately controlled by his undead creator, a sociopathic ventriloquist named Mary Shaw. Shaw returns from death and uses her macabre obsession with ventriloquist dolls and supernatural powers to animate Billy.
While Billy can do supernatural things, his party tricks usually consist of just being creepy and moving stuff around. Plus, without Shaw, he’s basically just a doll. M3GAN, on the other hand, is strong, fast, intuitive, is continually learning and advancing, so can easily outsmart him, even in his supernatural state.
8Dolly From Dolly Dearest
1991’sDolly Dearestfeatured a story of an inhuman spirit being inadvertently released into a doll. This spirit was an ancient Mayan one called Sanzia. The doll is later found by an unsuspecting little girl who takes it home with her and soon starts possessing the child, showing some very violent streaks, and killing anyone that gets in its way.
While Dolly proved to be quitea formidable killer toy, since she relies on Sanzia for all her powers and ability to cause, she’s pretty harmless without him. While being imbued with the power to get inside the heads of others and even possess them, M3GAN doesn’t have a human mind or spirit, so unless Dolly/Sanzia can possess in binary, she won’t be able to manipulate M3GAN’s operating system in any way.
7Tiffany From Child’s Play
Appearing alongside her infamous ex-husband Chucky, Tiffany has appeared in many of the originalChild’s Playfilms. She was once a human and the girlfriend of Charles Lee Ray, a serial killer. Like him, she also dies and has her soul trapped in a doll’s body. Often as sadistic, evil, and ruthless as he is, Tiffany and Chucky are famous forleaving a trail of corpses in their wakein films likeBride of Chucky.
Related:Child’s Play 2: How the ’90s Horror Sequel Paved the Way for Chucky
While she’s certainly a handful, Tiffany in her doll state basically only has the strength, speed, and size of a doll. She can be quite dangerous with satanic rituals, and is deadly with a knife, but is ultimately no match for M3GAN’s superior physical abilities and her operating system that can be used in a variety of creative ways to cause havoc.
6The Zuni Fetish Doll From Trilogy of Terror
First appearing in thebrilliant horror anthologyTV filmTrilogy of Terrorin 1975, the Zuni fetish doll “He Who Kills” was a tiny but deadly little doll that was every bit as terrifying as he looked. With the evil spirit of an African demon trapped inside it (even though the Zuni people were Native American), the doll stalked, slashed, bit, clawed, and attacked a woman named Amelia in the third segment of the original film.
This doll was lightning-fast and ruthless as he pursued the woman relentlessly, eventually possessing her. However, despite his ferocity and speed, M3GAN proved in one of the most disturbing scenes from her first film that she could be just as quick, able to twist her body in frightening ways, and even bound on all fours like animals.
ME3GAN also has her own special kind of ruthlessness since she once ripped the ear off a little boy, and pursued him through a forest and onto a road where he was brutally run over by a car.
5Brahms from The Boy II
After we’re first introduced to the very creepy doll called Brahms inThe Boy,as disturbing as he is, by the end of the film, it turns out that he was just a doll and the real killer was an unhinged man living in the walls. However, inBrahms: The Boy II,we see thatthe story expands. Brahms is now actually possessed by a demon that lives in the doll and has the ability to possess children to do its awful bidding.
Related:How M3gan Stands Out from Other Scary Dolls in Horror Movies
Despite the ability to possess people, and cause chaos, again, it’s difficult to see how he could have any effect on M3GAN since she isn’t human, and does not possess a soul to possess. Again, this simply renders the fight one where a doll with no overt physical prowess has to take on one that can fight and has the speed, dexterity, and agility of a ferocious animal.
4Chucky From Child’s Play
Before the iconicChild’s Playfilmswere rebooted in 2019, the original saw this cult-favorite killer doll have a very different backstory. Originally, the doll was inhabited by the evil soul of a serial killer with ties to occult practices. This meant he had all the attributes of the killer, and used these to wreak havoc on countless people. With his sadistic attitude and homicidal nature, Chucky has been killing, maiming, practicing the dark arts, and psychologically torturing people for decades.
He’s also known forwisecracks and crude humor, generally just being nasty. While he is relentless, wily, and clever, keeps coming back, and never shies away from resorting to horrific violence, he’s generally not very strong or fast and mostly relies on surprise attacks and traps. In comparison to M3GAN, Chucky doesn’t have anything in his arsenal that could realistically beat her.
3Annabelle From The Conjuring Universe
James Wan’s success withThe ConjuringUniverse has made him an icon of horror. Unsurprisingly, he also had a part in the success ofM3GANsince he co-wrote the story and produced the film that introduced her to audiences. Before that though, Wan has become synonymous with another killer doll, the notorious and truly frightening,Annabelle.
With three feature films of her own, Annabelle has been terrifying audiences for a long time now and has shown herself to be almost impossible to contain. However, Annabelle, as a doll has no power and is merely a conduit for an inhuman spirit, though one capable of nightmarish actions. One of her scariest qualities is the way that she can mess with your mind, and that she’s also a beacon for other inhuman spirits — so basically able to unleash a myriad of other spirits on her victims.
Regardless of all this, M3GAN, unlike humans, isn’t susceptible to any of these powers. She’s not human, so she can’t be fooled by hallucinations or gimmickry, and most of all, doesn’t experience normal human emotions, so you can’t use fear against her. M3GAN’s operating system an AI is also capable of learning about an enemy, and figuring out ways to defeat them — thoughJames Wan himself may not agree.
2Chucky From the Child’s Play Reboot
Given that it’s her operating system that makes M3GAN so difficult to fight, and her AI programming that gives her the ability to learn, evolve, and advance, she does have one doll that can possibly match her. The Chucky doll from theChild’s Playreboot saw the iconic character given a new backstory.
Chucky is now also a very advanced child’s toy programmed with AI and linked to the network of a very powerful tech company that also uses it for a myriad of other products. This gives him the ability to sync with and control all the devices, toys, and other offerings from the multinational Kaslan Corporation. Chucky also had his safety protocols removed, so, utilizing the full breadth of his artificial intelligence, went on a rampage — even hacking cars and driving their passengers to their deaths.
Related:Chucky: Every Movie in the Horror Franchise, Ranked
While he would certainly give M3GAN a run for her money, Chucky’s only about one-third her size, and although much more agile than previous renditions of the doll, is no match for M3GAN’s litheness. So, this one may have to come down to a battle of the machines.
However, M3GAN has also already bested Chucky on another front — while Chucky used to be the epitome of the cool villain trope,M3GAN’s iconic dance sceneand wickedly infectious personality caused a TikTok trend, easily making her more popular with younger audiences.
1Slappy From Goosebumps
Slappy the ventriloquist doll was already an icon of books when he showed up in theGoosebumpsfilms. Not only is he a possessed doll, but he’s extremely nasty, and known for his sadistic nature, often insulting victims in degrading ways. His main aim is to try to trick children into becoming his slaves.
Slappy is also homicidal, so he won’t hesitate to kill children, once even trying to decapitate a child. However, if you know the character well from his various appearances in the books and films, he also has a bunch of powers. He can basically animate other dolls, deanimate and freeze people, turn people into dolls, shoot laser beams out of his eyes, control and manipulate people, teleport, and he even has telekinetic powers.
However, the films also used the story that Slappy, and all monsters and demons from the world ofGoosebumps,can be unleashed, or trapped in the books they come from. So, even though M3GAN is likely to have major problems fighting him, she can download and learn all the information necessary to defeat him. Physically, if she can get close enough to him, she could probably also beat the daylights out of him since Slappy has proven that he isn’t invulnerable to violence.
With all this going for her, it’s no wonderM3GAN’ssequelis already being made.
