Mixing horror and comedy still generates friction among some viewers, and strangeness among others. Is it possible that two more opposite tones than horror and joke coexist? Of course, hardline fans of fantasy know that it’s not only possible, but it takes being part of the genre cinema offer since time immemorial. In that sense, ‘M3GAN’ does not offer anything new.
Not for this reason it stops working quite well, especially when it resorts to thick satire on corporations and failed family relationships. Curiously, the latter was already a fundamental part of the previous film by Gerard Johnstone, the New Zealand director responsible for the new horror sensation. Much of what works in ‘M3GAN’ is already present in ‘Housebound’.
This house is falling on me
Available in streaming through platforms such as Planet Horror or Acontra+, Johnstone’s feature debut raises its own comic revision of the haunted house subgenre. Loaded with that “kiwi humor” so characteristic of the area and with which we are lately familiar thanks to Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, its family drama and supernatural terror is shown at its funniest.
The film follows Kylie, a criminal who has to stay under house arrest for months at her mother’s house after a mugging gone horribly wrong (bad level: her partner gets hit on the head with his own hammer). Her coexistence when her relationship with her mother and her stepfather is already broken will not be easy, but it will become more complicated when she finds out that her mother believes that the house is possessed by a spirit.
However, it will not be so misguided. Strange things will start to happen in the residence And his greatest support will come from the technician in charge of the technology who monitors the young woman so that she does not leave house arrest, who is also fond of the paranormal. But of course, it’s not exactly Ed Warren, and his great resources for detecting ghostly presences will be Polaroid photos and cassette tapes.
‘Housebound’: on the hunt for the ghost
This and the initial botched crime scene show that such a fresh and unleashed sense of humor which has then been impregnated in ‘M3GAN’, giving a special touch to that union of horror and comedy. You can even see connections with the Peter Jackson of his beginnings, fully immersed in the offal of series B with a lot of jokes in movies like ‘Braindead: Your mother ate my dog’ (Jackson himself also saw the connection, because he was quick to praise the film).
It doesn’t reach such levels of genius, but Johnstone’s work is highly appreciable nonetheless. The humor is goose in the best possible way, and it also manages to create intriguing atmospheres with cleverly used visuals within its limitations. A pearl that is quite worth recovering now that her new work is being a sensation and can place her as one of the interesting names in commercial terror.