Here's When You Can Watch The Unrated Version Of M3GAN, Featuring Lots More Gore
"M3GAN" was a perfectly fun, spooky film, but many viewers couldn't help but feel like it was held back a little by its PG-13 rating. Sure, that stretched-out ear scene was pretty gnarly, but the worst of the violence was kept implied, and that's a little disappointing to the more blood-thirsty members of the audience.
Luckily, there's an unrated version of the film releasing exclusively on Peacock on February 24, and it'll be available on Blu-Ray and DVD on March 21.The unrated version promises to give us "more distressing violence and profanity," as well as include "never-before-seen bonus content."
Some of the exclusive bonus features include "A New Vision of Horror," in which the cast and crew talk about the film's production and creation, including how the "initial idea" for an evil robot doll was come up with. There's also "Bringing Life to M3GAN," which will give viewers a closer look into "how animatronics, puppets, and actor Amie Donald helped make M3GAN as real as possible." Finally, there's "Getting Hacked," described as "a behind-the-scenes look at how cast and crew accomplished some of the film's complex stunts and gory deaths."
M3GAN's R-rated roots
The release of an unrated version of "M3GAN" is particularly exciting for anyone who's been following the production of this film since it started. Director Gerard Johnstone originally filmed the movie with an R-rating in mind, before deciding that the movie was "always so close to PG-13 anyway," and decided to reshoot and edit parts of the film to reflect that.
The director pointed to other beloved horror films like Sam Raimi's 2009 hit "Drag Me to Hell" as proof that a movie doesn't need its R-rating to be scary. In fact, sometimes not showing the gore can be even scarier than showing it. For instance, the original cut of "M3GAN" had a scene showing us M3GAN's cold-blooded murder of the neighbor's dog. The released film spares us the sight of the dog's actual death, but apparently, the director considered the PG-13 rating's handling of this plot point to be more disturbing than the original cut.
"I remember turning to my sound designer after a re-do and just saying, 'Holy s***, that's worse,'" he said in an interview with Games Radar. "We were trying to get this PG-13 rating and I was like, 'That is so much worse than what we had before.'"
Of course, it's easy to be a little skeptical of this claim. Is the PG-13 cut actually scarier without all the gore, or was Johnstone just saying this to build up hype for his upcoming film? The good news is that on February 26, you'll finally get the chance to decide for yourself.