The best horror movies of 2023
From Scream VI and M3gan to Evil Dead Rise and The Blackening, it's been a frighteningly good year for scary movies
Film Features Inside
Clockwise from bottom left: M3gan (Universal Pictures), Talk To Me (A24), Godzilla Minus One (Toho), and Evil Dead Rise (Warner Bros. Pictures) Graphic: The A.V. Club
It’s been a phenomenal year for horror cinema, with the return of more than one venerated horror franchise, the arrival of several new independent visions of terror, and of course, the debut of a killer doll with deadly dance moves. And while there were dozens of very good horror films, each with their own flavor and impact, only a handful can be considered the best of the best. So, from severed hands to demonic possessions, Jigsaw traps to seafaring vampires, these are the very best horror movies released in 2023.
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It started as a normal day for Mary. She woke
up, brushed her teeth, and went to use the bathroom. But when she opened the
door, she was met with a terrifying sight: a clown sitting on the toilet.Mary’s heart was still racing from the terrifying encounter with
the toilet clown when her friends Trish and Tom arrived at her house. She tried
to explain what had happened, but they just laughed it off.“Don’t
be silly, Mary,” Trish said. “There’s no such thing as toilet clowns.
You probably just had a bad dream.”Tom nodded
in agreement. “Yeah, it’s probably just a prank. Some kid dressed up like a
clown to scare you.”But as they
sat down to watch a movie, Mary couldn’t shake the feeling that something was
off. She kept glancing at the bathroom door, afraid that the clown would
return.Suddenly,
there was a loud banging on the door. Mary jumped up, heart pounding, and
opened the door to find Trish standing there, trembling and pale.“I saw
a clown in the bathroom,” Trish whispered. “It was sitting on the
toilet, just like you said.”Mary’s blood
ran cold. “We have to get out of here,” she said. “Now.”But as they
tried to leave, they heard Tom scream from the other bathroom. They ran to
investigate and found him backed into a corner, staring in horror at a clown in
the bathtub.The three
friends huddled together, too afraid to move. They could hear the clowns moving
around the house, cackling and whispering to each other.They knew
they had to come up with a plan, but they were paralyzed with fear. Every time
they tried to use the bathroom, they were confronted by a different, horrifying
toilet clown.Days turned
into weeks, and the friends grew increasingly afraid to use any bathroom. They
stopped eating and drinking, trying to avoid the inevitable.But
eventually, they couldn’t hold out any longer. They had to face their fears and
confront the clowns once and for all.With shaking
hands, they opened the bathroom doors and stepped inside. But to their
surprise, there were no clowns to be found. It was as if they had vanished into
thin air.The friends
looked at each other, confused and relieved. Had it all been a hallucination?As they left
the house, they heard a faint whisper in the distance. “We’ll be
back,” it said. “And next time, don’t forget to wipe.”
Sick was one of the better slashers in recent years, surprised by that one, with really great leads. Evil Dead Rises I think will be a horror classic.Swallowed was a bit of a stinker imo, one sleepy note throughout with Jena Malone at least providing us with some good scenes.
Sick was surprisingly great! I hope for more fresh horror like that this year. Infinity Pool was entertaining and bizarre. I have to check out the others on this list (other then scream, I wouldn’t bother watching that crap)
So people don’t have to minimize their browser windows or scroll through, I will present the list of films alongside their Metacritic/Rotten Tomatoes scores:
20. From Black – TBD/TBD
19. Sorry About the Demon – TBD/91%
18. The Pope’s Exorcist – 45/50%
17. Malum – TBD/83%
16. The Offering – 60/76%
15. Knock at the Cabin – 63/67%
14. Enys Men – 78/78%
13. Beau is Afraid – 62/70%
12. There’s Something Wrong with the Children – 53/63%
11. Unseen – TBD/80%
10. Swallowed – 53/80%
9. Sick – 62/86%
8. Scream VI – 61/77%
7. Infinity Pool – 72/87%
6. Huesera: The Bone Woman – 83/99%
5. Attachment – 64/95%
4. The Outwaters – 72/73%
3. Skinamarink – 66/71%
2. M3GAN – 72/93%
1. Evil Dead Rise – 69/84%
You are a beautiful person
Now that’s how you post a recap, much appreciated! I tend to lean towards Metacritic as a guide for on-the-fence offerings with full reviews when there are so many coming out each weekend, especially in the crowded summer and holiday times. Rotten Tomatoes and their league of zesty fanboys tends to overestimate ratings with loads of 99%-ers, gloss over fact checking, and I’ll never forgive them for posting a posthumous Let’s give a shout-out to the late John Carpenter…“John Carpenter Films List” and he had to correct them since he was still alive and kicking.
How you gonna ignore Godzilla??
Because they’re not a time traveler
Detective Otis Spunkchugger sat at his desk, staring at the piece of paper in front of him. It was a cryptic message that had been left at the scene of a new murder – “spunk chugger choke on ham strangler.”Spunkchugger knew that it had to be a clue, but he couldn’t make sense of it. What did it mean? Was the killer trying to taunt him again, or was there something more to the message?He brought in his team and they brainstormed possible meanings. Some suggested that it might be an anagram, while others thought it could be a reference to a location in town.As they worked, Spunkchugger couldn’t shake the feeling that he had seen the message before. It felt familiar, like he had read it somewhere.Then it hit him – the message was an anagram of “Choggenham Strangler.” But what did that mean? Was the killer trying to remind him of the original case?Spunkchugger dug deeper into the case files, looking for any clues that might shed light on the new murder. As he worked, he began to see patterns emerge.The new victim had been a member of the same charity organization as the original victims, and the message left behind by the killer echoed the words of the Choggenham Strangler’s final victim.Spunkchugger knew that the killer was trying to send a message, but what was it? He had to figure it out before it was too late.Finally, it clicked. The killer was trying to tell him that he was still out there, that he had never truly been caught. And he was using the same tactics as the Choggenham Strangler to throw Spunkchugger off his trail. And that he really like choking his ham, stroking his sausage.Spunkchugger raced to the location that the message had hinted at, and there he found the killer. It was the original accomplice of Richard Porter, the wealthy businessman who had been responsible for the Choggenham Strangler murders.The accomplice had been lying low, biding his time until he could strike again. And now, he had Spunkchugger right where he wanted him.“If you want the truth, then choke on it!” the accomplice sneered, echoing the words of the previous killer.But Spunkchugger was ready this time. He had decoded the message, he had seen through the killer’s tactics. He wasn’t going to let the same thing happen again. Besides, he hadn’t gotten his surname for not being able to swallow!In a tense standoff, Spunkchugger was able to apprehend the killer, finally putting an end to the nightmare that had haunted the town for so long.As he walked away from the scene, Spunkchugger knew that he had learned another valuable lesson. Sometimes, the clues were right in front of him, hidden in plain sight. And if he wanted to solve the case, he had to be willing to think outside the box and see beyond the obvious.
I just saw Evil Dead Rise the other day and it was okay. I enjoyed the 2013 one by Fede Álvarez a lot more but I’m glad it exist. Still wish we could’ve gotten a team up with Mia, Ash and the Ghost Beater Crew.
I know I harp on this a lot, but the more lingering praise I
see lavished on dreck like Scream 6, the more baffled I get. I’ve never
seen a horror series do so incredibly little to step outside of its own
box five sequels in. Michael Myers was dealing with a cult, and we had a
mask movie. We had a non-Jason Jason, and we didn’t even really
establish Jason until the second movie. We had variably zany, serious,
and barely-sub-textual Freddy movies. Leatherface was anti-gorefest,
full gorefest, and then was backed by the illuminati. Pinhead went to
space, Leprechaun went to space and Tha Hood.
And here are the Scream movies, happy to wallow in a 1996 idea of clever, and they’ve now gotten so scared of trying something beyond what
they’ve conditioned their audience to expect, they can bring back six
survivors of previous moves, stab four of them in the guts, and still
have all of them live to do all this shit again in Scream 7. I can’t
think of another horror series that has so abandoned itself to
inconsequential sameyness.
Never really got the general idea of Scream movies as something that lent itself to longevity. Even on a meta level things get thin real quick.
Unfortunately as long as they keep coming up with a character who’s related to one of the killers or victims there’s always going to be a reason for a sequel.
For God’s sake, can they come up with another motivation for Ghostface besides petty revenge?
Wasn’t that Scream 5? And Scream 4, now that I think about it.
Scream is hot garbage, no question. That’s what the masses want.
As a Scream-head, I find the beauty of the series is in how it’s basically the same movie every time, with incremental differences. Not to get too hoity-toity, but it lends itself to the whole meta theme. For example, in this one when they (spoiler) reveal one of the killers off the bat, I was blown away. Of course things are business as usual after 5 minutes, but for that brief period I had no idea what they were doing.In 7, I imagine they’ll go one step further.
The only good part on any Scream sequel is the opening sequence, basically the first 5 minutes.
Scream 6 was for me the worst of the franchise. Absolutely terrible from start to finish.
Scream is trash no question.
Even the 3rd Halloween was a completely different movie featuring an Irish death cult and no Michael Meyers
“I’ve never seen a horror series do so incredibly little to step outside of its own box five sequels in.”
Then you have literally never seen a horror sequel.
The *HALLMARK* of horror sequels (particularly slasher movies) is that they literally DO NOT STEP OUT OF THEIR OWN BOX.
The real subversion hidden in Scream is how it tricked America into embracing giallo by masking it as a slasher.
It’s easy to overlook what a solid murder mystery Scream is – the reveal that (spoilers for the original Scream… in a discussion of Scream 6) there were two killers was a great surprise.
They’re all whodunits disguised as slashers.
Scream’s main problem is that the main non-killer characters were so likable and popular. Most horror franchises veer away from their initial final girl/core group, with the killer as the main character uniting the franchise. Scream’s decided to go pretty much all-in on its core group, and even the new core group is literally related to the old group – it’s essentially a Star Wars problem. It’d be interesting to see a Ghostface who literally doesn’t care about Sydney or Billy or any of the originals, and just does something new, but that hasn’t been in the DNA of the series and it’s likely held it back.
Amen. Scream 6 was terrible. It was such a cop-out to bring back the old survivors, only to have all of them gut stabbed and survive yet again. Boooo!
See, to me, you’re actually pointing out one of the strengths of the Scream franchise. Since it’s not the same killer every time, they don’t have to resort to those kind of gimmicks, no lightening bringing him back to life, no sending him to space, just old school slasher, which is more my jam. Don’t get me wrong, I find a lot of those movies you mentioned entertaining in that Mystery Science Theater kind of way, but it’s nice to have a more grounded horror franchise out there.
“just old school slasher,”
I mean, Scream is very much *not* an “old school slasher”, it’s much more of a giallo in almost every way.
You don’t harp on it enough, as I agree with you wholesale. I have friends who are fans of the series and I always get shit for my indifference—not even dislike—of the series. It just does nothing for me. Even compared with other slashers or horror-comedies, it doesn’t distinguish itself on any way save its production budget and celebrity appeal. For a series that started out as some metacommentary on the repetitive tropes of the slasher genre, it has really carved out a pretty comfortable groove for itself, basically rehashing the same ideas over and over again, occasionally injecting some new blood into the cast. For all the “ambitious” (NYC instead of Woodsboro…what a shocker!) moves VI has made, it still just feels like the same old. I guarantee I will forget the plot of this one well before Scream VII comes out.And my own hot take, which I regularly harp on: New Nightmare treads much of same metatextual ground that the original Scream did, but does it better. Instead of a haughty “Oh we are so clever for noticing these common tropes in slasher movies!” sentiment, New Nightmare digs down to understand the power that stories have over us.
.
The introduction scene was great and original and tried something new. But from there it was downhill and they quickly returned to the “more of the same” and indeed it was worse than usual.
I basically agree though I think I feel less strongly about it than you do. We saw this new one on the strength of the reviews, and I feel like I forgot 90% of what happened before I was even blinking in the daylight outside the theater. I liked the first one for its clever metaness (though that same quality had a pretty short shelf life—bracing at the time, smug and not as smart as it thinks it is about a year after the fact). I liked 2 because it doubled down on the likeable characters from the first movie and tried to expand its cleverness with all the Stab stuff and the movie theater opening sequence. After that, it really feels like it’s a series that has been basically content to just repeat itself while really going nowhere interesting. And for movies that were posing as smarter and more self-aware than the other horror series, this seems especially scared, safe, and even cynical.I didn’t hate 6. I didn’t anything it. It was totally disposable and Eli Roth (of all people) ate its lunch just a few months later. In fact the ending of Thanksgiving has replaced any vague memory I still had of the ending of Scream 6.
I liked Knock at the Cabin, although the ending didn’t pack a lot of punch — but that may not be the fault of the people working on the film.Because in the novel, the cute kid dies and the world ends. I can see Hollywood being very reluctant to commit to that dark of an ending, and hey-ho, they didn’t.
Some odd picks here, and a fair number of streaming releases that I haven’t seen yet. Random notes:Ari Aster made his name as a horror director, but does anyone think Beau is Afraid is a horror movie? That’s kind of like putting Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” on a list of science-fiction stories. Scream VI is not unamusing, but I was surprised to see its workmanlike competence riding so high on a best list, well above things that feel more original. I wanted to yell “boo cowards” every time a once-dead character waved from a gurney.Infinity Pool would be my #1 for the year. It has some of the same existential/absurdist tendencies as Beau is Afraid, but it plays with gore and suspense in a way that ought to let the arthouse audience and the grindhouse audience harmoniously cohabit the theater in sicko solidarity. Evil Dead Rise is pretty good. It has enough nerve to make you forget that you’re watching the slick legacy sequel of a genre landmark…until you don’t. But placing it at the pinnacle seems like exactly the kind of franchise fanboy curve-grading that drives me nuts about the post-blog internet. It’s not as silly as the Scream thing, but even so.
Absolutely on Evil Dead Rise. Alyssa Sutherland was good, but the movie lacked a personality and suspense. Also all of the interesting imagery was used in the trailer. Comparable to the new Candyman, but that was more assured.I guess you can chalk some of this up to it being a streaming movie originally.
I thought Beau Is Afraid was real-life-as-horror, along the lines of Synecdoche, New York. Or I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Psychological horror, for lack of a better term.
I dug Rise. I thought it was a better way to expand the universe over the usual dumbness and had some decent homages. In watching the behind the scenes, the director/writer Lee Cronin is a huge fan of the originals and went to bat thinking this was the best way to go in a new movie.
I didn’t think it brought me out of it at all. I look forward to some new stuff in the Deadite Universe.
I mean, I would call “Beau is Afraid” a straight up comedy. A very dark comedy, leaning far into Lynch-esque subjectivity, but a comedy nonetheless. It was fucking hilarious.
It is a weird mix of Mon Oncle, Franz Kafka, a phone alarm on Saturday, and a bag of shrooms. Comedy is probably the best word we have for that, so let’s go with it.It was fucking hilarious. And some other things that snuck in through the jokes and lingered. But isn’t that what the great comedies do? Bringing Up Baby is not exactly an optimistic text. The moralism of Shrek and the Lego Movie (and seemingly half of everything else) is an anomaly
Yeah, I’d say Beau is horror in the sense that there’s a relatable terror if you struggle with bad anxiety (and especially if, like me, you went in mostly blind but familiar with Aster’s actual horror movies) but even that fades away extremely quickly. Certainly on my shortlist for the year, I thought it was brilliant if a bit saggy in the middle, but horror? Ehhh, only in the violence.
Jesus Skinamarink was garbage. Biggest waste of 2 hours finishing just slightly higher than Enys Men. Anyone who was “scared” by them probably sleeps with a nightlight
I could only handle about 15 minutes. Ridiculous.
I refuse to believe that in these best of lists that somehow Japan/South Korea/China et al on one side of the globe and Europe/Scandinavia on the other (and I haven’t even touched on the Southern Hemisphere yet) aren’t dominating a large part of all of these lists versus what we’re seeing here.
Thank you! Some of these are only marginally good at best—someone is trying to pad the list.. To include a lineup with such a singular focus you have to throw in films which are narrowly in the horror genre, which could only be achieved by someone who is really not paying attention to all the options in this world.
Seriously.Over half of this list is filled with boring, unoriginal and/or poorly executed dross.Of course, there are a few standouts, but overall…I don’t know – this list should have been, like, five movies long.
About halfway through the list, I was expecting Cocaine Bear to be the next slide.
Thanks for adding to the discourse by listing five, or three, or for fuck’s sake, even ONE SINGLE MOVIE that should be on the list.
I appreciate that you needed to be pretentious and condescending and not helpful at all.
Thanks.
When Evil Lurks is my favorite horror movie of this year. It’s an Argentine movie about what happens when you need an exorcist and there isn’t a priest. The director has said in interviews it’s about failing institutions and was inspired by the use of a pesticide that sickened workers. It’s a tough watch, but I loved the story, characters and world building.
Yes! When Evil Lurks was the best of the year by far (at least of what I managed to see).
Oh my god. The Outwaters and Skinamarink are trash. Both those movies are overhyped nonsense. If I had to pick one to watch again, it would be Skinamarink. The Outwaters is easily one of the wort horror movies I’ve seen all year. I can’t believe it made this list except for the fact that it is a horror movie so it was included. Total garbage. And Skinamarink is a ridiculous attempt at doing something “unique.” It’s not horror and it’s not scary in the slightest. It’s a bunch of low angles and images with very poor sound. Both movies made me disgusted with the horror genre.
“Both movies made me disgusted with the horror genre.”
What an utterly stupid thing to say. You’re disgusted with a genre because of what some people decided to make in that genre?
I hate to say it because I love found footage movies, but The Outwaters sucked.
Skinamarink is such a strange experiment. The audience I saw it with (a packed house) was openly laughing and mocking the film halfway through; I couldn’t tell if I was watching a practical joke or an art piece, but either way, endless blurry shots of corners and wainscoting weren’t remotely scary. I got what it was trying to do — visualize the childhood fear of waking up at 2am to indistinct things — but apart from some cheap jump-scares and a genuinely weird spooky face at the end, it was such a disappointment.
Yeah, it’s so rare we pass without giving something a shot, but I’ve seen enough clips and read enough feedback we haven’t wanted to watch it.The same director filmed a short called Heck, that sounds like the same concept and has a much shorter runtime of just under 30 minutes, and I even read in some Skinamarink reviews, to just skip it, and watch Heck for the same experience – so maybe we’ll eventually give that try 🙂
I’m glad Skinamarink exists, because it did legitimately affect people, and I’m really glad to see any indie horror movie make that big a splash, but it’s a film that actively, almost physically, irritated me to watch it.
I really struggled with it. Irritated me to no end as well. I was begging to see SOMETHING or decipher SOMETHING at SOME POINT! Drove me nuts, if you can’t tell.
I argued elsewhere that it feels like fourteen hours of the most interminable student film nonsense and about five minutes of horror so gut-churning intense that it gave me a headache. I don’t think that it justifies its runtime by any possible measure, but I will give it credit – in the fleeting moments where I felt like it worked, it -really- worked.
I mean…how often do you read in the comments that movie makers (or Hollywood) doesn’t try something new.
Why they don’t try something out, do experiments. Just go a whole new direction instead always the same. The same franchises, the same kind, the same gimmicks.
Then someone finally does it…and what are people doing? Put a giant dump on it, joke about it, call the director names, literally proof the point why most film makers DON’T do experiments.
Because your fucking heart will be ripped out by the internet crowd and for the next years you can listen/read what kind of piece of shit as a filmmaker you are.
Hell, if I were a director I would rather do Scream and Conjuring part 563857. Just give them the same what they watched before, instead doing something different. At worst they’ll ignore me, still watch the movie and I cash in and can ride into the sunset.
Why put myself into the crossfire of the internet? Fuck that shit…
This is my first time hearing about Brooklyn 45, but I really liked We Are Still Here so I’ll have to check it out.
It’s pretty fun, we watched it last week, has a real “stage play” sort of vibe (mostly a single room / single act), the confined space creates a sort of anxious intensity that works well, some great performances, kind of cool spin on a couple of themes (the horrors of war, suspicion/racism), the setup is quick, let’s do X and, oh it worked, now what? Definitely worth a watch, decently short runtime too (about 1-1/2 hours).
The premise sounded so cool until they mentioned Larry Fessenden. We Are Still Here was great until we had to sit thru his cut rate Jack Nicholson bs.
Skinamarink is very frightening for people who are scared of their hallways when they go to the bathroom in the night. Otherwise, it’s two hours of staring at a wall.
I have seen a few of these, and I look forward to seeing the others. And now for my “what about”:What about Terrifier 2?!??! Setting aside the crazy gore, I thought it was a genuinely suspenseful monster/slasher flick with a fantastic final girl and just enough WTF, off the wall stuff to make it a late night classic.
I thought Terrifier 2 was nowhere near as good as 1, BUT as far as this list goes, it came out last year.
it came out last year didn’t it?
Ah ok.
Terrifier SUCKS. There’s nothing beyond gore, and that’s pathetic.
Terrifier 2 was awesome. I really hope there’s a part 3. Love to see how they can top the gore.
Skinamarink is objectively not a good movie. It has the fakest “low-fi old footage” filter on it that loops every 10 seconds. It’s 2 hours of close-up footage of walls while children whisper to themselves. It has a unique plot that the filmmakers did not put any effort into explaining, and in fact they chose the worst way to even execute it.This is probably where you expect the “but” and some real praise about it being one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. That will not happen. An incredible lack of skill and imagination, and pure laziness have all convened perfectly to create this movie. It looks like you asked an AI to create a video of what boredom is. I actually would have enjoyed movie night more if I was called into work for an emergency. This movie sucks.
Counterpoint: Skinamarink is very, very good.
What do you like about it?
I mean mostly I’m commenting to deflate the notion that any movie is “objectively” bad. And while I appreciate you asking, I realize that anything I say next doesn’t really matter, I’m not going to change your mind; the movie either works for you or it doesn’t, maybe more so than any other movie I’ve encountered, which accounts for people’s wildly varied reactions and hardline stances regarding it. Its effect on you almost entirely depends on what you bring to it. (Also, calling something “boring” or “interesting” is always and only going to be a subjective claim.) I went in prepared to be a little bored, and I was, until a certain point (the scene with the parents on the bed), after which I was totally gripped. When I got out of the theater after watching it, I was drained and wrung out from being so tense through the whole rest of the movie. So many horror movies are obvious and schematic, and while that can be fun, I was thrilled by a movie that seemed like it could go in any direction. And I was a very easily frightened child, who spent many sleepless nights dreading what might be downstairs in his own darkened house – this movie put me right back into that state of mind. Did it need to be so deeply abstracted, or so padded with inert shots of ordinary objects and interiors? Maybe not, but it was, and it still had an incredible effect on me, so I wouldn’t change a thing.But I will grant you that the way the visual noise filter loops is annoying.
Yeah, I don’t know if you can call any piece of art “objectively bad” because art is very subjective. We all interact with and interpret it differently.
Skinamarink sucked for the following reasons: list“No, it was good!”What was good about it?“Umm, I don’t know.”Tells you all you need to know about this “movie”
Fucking THANK YOU
“Skinamarink is objectively not a good movie.”
Opinions are not objective.
PERIOD.
M3gan at #2? It was watch- but also very forgettable Totally agree about Evil Dead Rise tho.
The horror movies (and some that are marginally horror-ish) of 2023 (so far) FTFY
It’s felt like a really weak year for horror so far. Fingers crossed for July thru December…Also, ENYS MEN is such a unique film I hate to see it labelled as horror.
Same with Brooklyn 45. It’s interesting and would make a great play. But there’s very little horror in it until the final minutes. It’s mostly a showcase for some fantastic acting.
I love horror, and I love found footage, but Outwaters was absolutely terrible.
This does a pretty good job of showing just how bad horror movies have been this year.
The Offering and Attachment would make a great double feature, although I liked Attachment more.Evil Dead Rise rocks.M3gan, From Black, and There’s Something Wrong With The Children, were really good. Influencer was really good. Loved the ending.
Sorry About The Demon, Knock At The Cabin, Sick, Scream VI, Skinamarink were okay.
Oh, Jesus Wept! I love a good horror film, and on your recommendation I watched The Outwaters last night. It was incoherent, incomprehensible and dull, dull, dull. A found footage film in which nobody apparently knows how to hold or focus a camera, it has forty minutes at the start of meandering shots of people…um, doing stuff: singing, posing, smoking cigars, drinking, goofing around, doing anything except develop interesting characters. Lots of scenery. Then, just as I was dozing off, everything seemed to happen, but I had no idea what: Endless blurry shots, screams, dizzying whip-pans and total darkness for whole minutes, broken occasionally by a single beam of light picking out random things, too fragmented to tell what. Shots of shadows, shots of more darkness, someone stumbling and mumbling around the desert, occasionally saying, “Did you see that?” (No, I bloody didn’t! Hold the camera still, FFS!”). Snakes, tenacles, what looked like fairy lights, donkeys, self-immolation, all in an mashed-up blur that went on for over an hour before it just….ended. What a phenonemal waste of time.
I tricked myself into watching Becky recently. My brain associated a girl in a fox beanie with something of quality. I realized afterward that I’d been thinking of Dark. Don’t think I’ll be watching Wrath of…
Personally, I quite enjoyed Becky. It’s not outstanding, but it’s perfectly watchable. Wrath of Becky is dreadful…it was written in 3 weeks by a pair of writers who had not even seen the first one when they were hired, and they were given no direction from the studio beyond “write a sequel to Becky.” They shot the film in less time than it took to write the script.I should have turned it off and refunded the rental at Amazon 30 seconds in when the voiceover started out with, “I bet you’re wondering how I got here.”
Oh no. I was gunna check it out, but movies with voice over narration from the main character are big pet peeve of mine (with a couple of exceptions)
Yeah, I forget why I even decided to watch Becky one afternoon, but I liked it quite a bit.Was looking forward to Wrath of. Sad to read I’ll probably be disappointed.
From Black: “two people grieving the loss of separate children”Uggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh! That’s all I have to say. Complaining about this cliche has itself become cliched.
When did it fall out of favour to call something “lesbian”?
Talk To Me was one of the worst, most derivative, unimaginative, over-hyped, poorly acted (except for the amazing lead), dumb movies, horror or any other kind, of at least the past 25 years. Nearly every review I read after seeing it used not only the same talking points but often the same phrases from other reviews, leading me to believe there’s a better horror concept out there – a corporate payola scheme by A24 to elevate marginal directors to cult status.
It’s also a 2022 film, not 2023.
Whuh? it came out July 2023
Premiering at film festivals doesn’t constitute wide releases, bud. It’s a 2023 film.
Dont you dare call me bud! Only my probation officer gets to call me that!!
Considering how incoherent and rambling your “review” of this film is, maybe you should move away from mocking critics? I liked that movie a good bit and implying any good reviews of it are some kind of giant scheme is insane. Sorry you didn’t like it. There’s no conspiracy.
I thought the acting was quite good. Easy to see it as overhyped sure, all these A24 horror movies get hyped up so much. It’s gud!
Perpetrator is impenetrable and nonsensical, with Alicia Silverstone’s against-type performance one of the few saving graces.Skinamarink is irresponsible to recommend as a general-interest movie. It’s an experimental film with wildly varying mileage. I thought it was incredibly boring and ultimately pointless. I just tell people to watch the first five minutes and if you’re comfortable watching that for 90 more minutes, go for it.
Infinity Pool is amazing. I wouldn’t call it a horror film, but it’s definitely upsetting and has a lot to say.I’d pitch it as, “what if The White Lotus was also Black Mirror?”
You had me intrigued until you mentined The Outwaters, which is an incoherent mess, an illustration of what happens when the “found footage” appears to be done by someone who can’t hold a camera straight or in focus, and the result is endless shots of the ground, blurred indistinct images and lots of panting and running. That’s the last 40 minutes of it. The first 40 minutes is equally dull establishing footage that doesn’t make you miss anybody when the time comes.M3gan is good, rollicking fun, but suffers from its rating which result in it pulling its punches and coming across as quite tame, not quite a horror film. Last year’s Hatching took a similar thematic approach but much more imaginatively, as if the Brothers Grimm had gotten to M3gan first.
I agree. I hate to see horror movies hobbled by a PG-13 rating.
Of the ones I’ve watched, I really liked M3gan, Evil Dead Rise, and No One Will Save You (is Kaitlyn Dever eligible for an Academy award?)The one I thought were so so: The Pope’s Exorcist (Russell Crowe’s Italian accent was really scary though), Sick (basically a remake of Scream), Enys Men, Scream VI, Infinity Pool, and Knock At the Cabin.
Influencer, From Black, The Offering, Attachment, There’s Something Wrong With The Children, Huesera: Bone Woman, Brooklyn 45, and Skinamarink were all pretty good.
I hated Perpetrator (I thought Alicia Silverstone was miscast), and I really hated Outwaters, that movie absolutely sucked and I love found footage films.
I’ve been kind of enjoying Russel Crowes late-career thing of doing cheesy broad fake accents; his “middle aged guy who owns a Greek diner” take on Zeus was one of the few things I actually found funny in Thor 4.
“A young woman with a past named Valeria”
I should name my past as well.
The Last Voyage of The Demeter?
Don’t get the love for Evil Dead Rise at all. At least it wasn’t an overly polished PG horror flick, but it wasn’t really too far from it. Only decent part was the wraparound scenes, and even those felt tacked on.
Just felt boring & tedious to me.
Admittedly you morons don’t seem to be the brightest as is….
Just waiting to see where Saw X will land on this list. (And how low Exorcist will land)
M3gan at #2? Laughable. Not a scare to be had in that film. I’m sure it’s a big hit at tween girl’s sleepovers though.
Most of these aren’t Halloween related at all. Talk to Me was not good.
Lots of people talking about which movies are overhyped on here, so I thought I’d weigh in on The Offering. It has a 74% on RT, and is billed as putting “a unique — and often genuinely scary — spin on demonic possession horror tropes” but that is an incredibly generous description.It’s better than it should be, but still relies on some pretty tired clichés. Jump scares are pretty much the only trick the movie has to provoke a reaction unless you are really disturbed by ink bleeding and tiny pieces of wood cracking.There’s some nice flavour with the orthodox Jewish traditions, and there’s some (relatively) unique creepy imagery with the ghosts behind the curtain, but that’s about it.Ultimately it’s one of those movies where the demon’s abilities are poorly defined, which turns the last third of the movie into a frustrating mess. Can the demon only induce hallucinations…or is it physically powerful enough to telekinetically murder several people in quick succession? Ditto with all the rituals—do you need an occult specialist for them…or can anyone do them pretty easily?The movie gets points for, I suppose, not really bothering with the whole “is it really a demon, or is it actually mental illness/grief/dementia” angle, which is deeply played out. But you can see the final twist coming from a mile away, and none of the scares, and certainly not the creature design, are anything fresh.I will say that the 4 main actors all do a pretty damn good job with some very humdrum material. And it’s always nice to see S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Lance Hunter again. If you really like occult horror, you might get some mileage out of this. If you want a scary movie, you will almost certainly be let down.
Evil Dead Rises and Megan should not be ahead of Godzilla minus one. I liked both of them but Godzilla minus one is the 1st time ever I was scared for people vs. Godzilla. What a great movie.Talk to me was the best this year by a mile (that I saw) it lived up to the hype.I have to finish Sick, I got 20 minutes into it and I hated the characters so much.The Blackening was a horror comedy gem, I would give it a A-. Just fucking hilarious and as a Dark skin minority myself, I got a kick out of so much of it that others wouldn’t.
It’s odd, I don’t really consider Godzilla movies to be horror. Depending on the style they are either disaster movies or (giant) super hero movies. But you are right. It should be higher up this list of crap
The original Godzilla is absolutely a horror movie. There’s a scene I’d forgotten about in the non-Raymond Burr version where a mother huddles with her two children in a doorway as Godzilla rampages and tries to reassure them by saying, “We’ll be with your father soon.” Oof.
Its in both versions. I grew up on the Raymond Burr Godzilla!!! King of the Monsters! and the scene with the mom is there, untranslated, which made it more unnerving to me as a kid.
Huh, okay. I haven’t seen that version in so long, I must have blocked it out.
Yeah, it really is more drama/suspence but in this case it had some horror in it and it clearly is the best/2nd best movie on this list.
Godzilla Minus One was out fucking standing. I saw it last week it was a god and proper OG Toho Godzilla movie. Once the Godzilla music came up, it was hands in the air screaming YES. Funny enough one of my buddies co workers said the CGI was shit, granted it wasn’t Hollywood good, but I thought it was good, and shit the CGI water was lightyears ahead of Avatar’s water affects. Also when Godzilla used his nuclear breath and it was like an atomic bomb detonating *chefs kiss*
Yeah the breath turing into a bomb made me GASP! It was so great, I don’t see as many movies in a year like I use to but it was the best movie I’ve seen in 2023. The main character made me feel more for an actor in a Godzilla movie, than I ever did before.
Exactly it was so much better than it just being atomic breath, the utter devastation was so much more palpable especially when you know the metaphor, I think that’s the right term, of the original Godzilla movie back in the 50’s. And yeah they struck a good balance in the story, building up the human characters, a couple at least, enough for you to actually feel something for them. It’s funny my mom actually cried at the end when you find out she is still alive. My buddy and I were laughing because you DON’T cry at a Godzilla movie.
Oh I cried a few times during this movie, so did my buddy as he wiped away tears (last time I cried during a Godzilla movie was Godzilla vs. Destoroyah and I was 22 at the time). But yes, making it a Nuke coming out of his mouth, made you feel so sad for these people trying to rebulid and now going through this all over again!Seriously the only movie I gave an A to in 2023.
“But yes, making it a Nuke coming out of his mouth, made you feel so sad for these people trying to rebulid and now going through this all over again!”Right like they JUST started getting shit rebuilt and Godzilla pops up yeah fuck that and levels the city all over again, twice LOL.
Yup, like right after everything is “normal” a fucking giant Monster comes in and destorys everything all over again! What a wonderful gut punch!
LOL
The best! Just wrecking shit all the time!
It’s like Godzilla is just a giant Rick James, FUCK YO…CITY!!
Hot take: the atomic breath scene in the Ginza attack was better and more emotionally effecting than the one in Oppenheimer.
In terms of IN movie only 100%, and frankly the Godzilla blasts looked better, artistic expression rather than actual replication, but in wider context no, since well we all know what happened in Japan. I really enjoyed Oppenheimer, but the live action recreation of the test, was, well underwhelming. I was hoping he found some way to recreate the Edgarton.
I’m getting really sick of what whiny little fussbudget bitches people are about “bad” FX these days. Doesn’t matter how impressive it is, there’s always some snotbag calling the CGI “shit.”
Well there is room to complain about bad CGI on a huge big budget movie, the water effects in Avatar Way of the Water were pretty shit, which is sad, but no Godzilla’s CG was pretty darn good.
Monster movies are generally considered a sub-genre of horror, I guess, though I too kind of blinked in confusion initially when I saw Godzilla in this mix. If you include it at all, I think it may deserve to be #1 here. Not the scariest of course, but definitely the best movie in this list of the ones that I saw (which was more than a third of them, including several ranked above Minus One).
Yeah it would be the best of these movies if we just ranked them as movies and I to have seen a decent amount of these (I love horror movies).
A lot of your list I haven’t watched because they just aren’t the kind of horror I wish to stomach…and some I watched and found enjoyable on a basic level but certainly wouldn’t have placed on a list (Megan, Scream, The Blackening).For me, Infinity Pool was utter garbage, and it made me sour on Cronenberg Jr’s future films. Similarly, I was confounded by the love for Skinamarink, a true Emperor’s Clothes of horror.I love that you included a rarity like Brooklyn 45 and placed it so highly. When Evil Lurks was my by-far favorite horror film of the year (I think it is really a masterful piece of work and love that it made the #2 slot) *unless* we are counting Enys Men as horror, in which case, that gets the star. But I hate categorizing such a wonderfully crafted film as one piece of its complex DNA.
Talk to Me and Cobweb were the biggest disappointments. I’ll take Pope’s Exorcist and Wrath of Becky instead.
If anyone is wondering whether they should watch Skinamarink: Watch the first 10 minutes. If you find it creepy and atmospheric, keep watching. If (like me), you find it insufferable and annoying, stop. If it doesn’t grab you it isn’t gonna.
I found it creepy and atmospheric but 10 minutes was still enough, looking back. It went absolutely nowhere else (and I mean that both figuratively and quite literally).
I’m still disappointed in M3GAN’s final act, because for much of it’s run time, it was a shockingly smart, satirical, and affecting movie about the modern tech landscape. I still really liked it (especially compared to what I thought it would be going into it) but if it had stuck the landing it could’ve been an honest-to-goodness classic. Evil Dead Rise just made me appreciate Fede Alvarez’s take, which I remember not loving at the time. Plus there was some really bad CGI in place of makeup effects. Love Infinity Pool, thought it was better than Possessor which I had problems with. Not sure why it’s so low.
I see that there is a lot of understandable hate for The Outwaters in the comments, so I want to push back a little and say that I loved it. I think its one of the best representations of what cosmic horror (in the incomprehensible Lovecrafitan sense) would feel like. There a lot of artistry in the way its shot but the sound design is sublime. Its very much a vibes movie however and if you are not into what its trying to do you will not like it.
God I love these “best” lists that include every horror movie that came out this year
I’m just here to continue the Outwaters pile-on (so very bad) and also to say Huesera and When Evil Lurks are really, really good.
What a great list of “movies that exist” as of 2023.
Its not from this year but I only recently watched it so I’ll recommend a slow burn horror that I really enjoyed here:The Innocents (2021). https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4028464/
The Last Voyage Of The Demeter was an awesome take on the vampire genre.
When Evil Lurks was my favorite horror movie this year glad to see it made #2 on your list. That freakin’ dog scene!
At first I was thinking, “Oh no, so many dogs, this is clearly a horror movie where something bad definitely happens to the do—”“OH!”
I would put Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, The Nun 2, and Insidious Red Door above some of these listed here.
Terrible list! How’s MEGAN, SCREAM 6 and EVIL DEAD RISES even in the Top 10! Unbelievable!
What’s your top 3? This list is not good.
Because people dare to have different opinions than you. Shocking…I know.
The only movie I disagree with is The Outwaters. That movie absolutely sucked.
Initially, I really enjoyed this list, mainly because there were so many films unfamiliar to me. The descriptions an trailers got me excited and looking where/how to watch many of them.But then I got to the #1 and my expectations dropped. Really? It just wasn’t that good. The premise? Cool.The acting? Impressive.The feeling I had when I left the theater? Underwhelmed. If you think it stuck the landing, I guess we just differ.
The Outwaters is a massive pos. That film doesn’t deserve to be on any lists that have the word best in them. It’s one of the worst horror films of the year and anyone stating any differently is wrong.
I liked Dark Harvest and for me it was a good horror movie to watch with some friends on Halloween. We had fun with and it had a really good production quality. I wouldn’t be surprised if some want to watch it next year again.
That said…SPOILERS!!!!I think it was a mistake how the changed Sawtooth Jack. In the book he is way more intelligent, plans, thinks about his past, doesn’t kill everyone…because he doesn’t have to. Thats not his goal and never was.
This massacre in the cellar for example doesn’t happen in the book. Because he doesn’t want to kill if he doesn’t have to. He evades a lot of groups of children by pretending to be someone else (with the car). He puts traps and lets children kill each other.
In the book he is more of a victim. I felt way more for him, because he still was the person in some way. That knew their life was over and just had this left for them.In the movie he is still a victim, but in the end just a monster that brutally murders his way through town and that kills even children that hide and don’t want to hunt him. He makes detours to follow and murder someone. Doesn’t happen in the book, because again, not his goal and would put him in danger.
The whole motivation and with it feelings towards him are completely different.
Positive was the ending.
I honestly was surprised by it and didn’t thought the would go that way. And it was a fun way to still integrate the downfall of the town in it. But yeah, caught me offguard and that was pretty cool as someone who read the book several times.