2022 was such a milestone year for the horror genre. That momentum only looks to continue in 2023 and the first stop on every genre fans calendar is Blumhouse’s M3GAN. The horror movie, which sees a new take on the killer doll sub-genre, releases this Friday after one of the best marketing campaigns in recent memory. Universal pulled out all the stops for this potential hit, but now we’ve received more insight from director Gerard Johnstone into why the film got a PG-13 rating.
In an interview with Total Film and GamesRadar, Johnstone explained, “Making it PG-13 was something that happened after the fact, but it was always so close to PG-13 anyway.” He elaborated, further saying, “It seemed kind of a mistake not to embrace it. I even remember thinking early on, ‘This could be PG-13, and some of my favorite films like Drag Me to Hell are PG-13.’ So we made the decision to go PG-13 and actually reshot a couple of things.” Even though some horror fans prefer a hard-R, which was on full display last year in films like Halloween Ends and Terrifier 2, Johnstone is right on the money with these comments.
Whether a horror film receives an R-rating or not, that doesn’t necessarily determine its quality, and some of the best horror films of the last decade have actually been PG-13. Features like A Quiet Place, Split, Get Out, Happy Death Day, and the mega-successful Insidious franchise have all had the “tamer” rating. On top of that, most of those films listed were made by Blumhouse. The production company has become the modern masters of knowing how to scare the widest mainstream audience possible.
