10 Horrors From 2023 That Are Deliciously Wild and Weird As Hell
A special selection of unconventional and freaky horrors to fire up your Halloween
When Halloween month rolls around every year, people love revisiting their favorite scary movies they’ve seen umpteen times. It’s totally understandable — I mean, who doesn’t like to hit play on The Others, It Follows, or The Descent and enjoy some luscious gore and spine-chilling scares annually? — and many of us opt to do just that come October. It’s also a safe choice that spares us from a potential disappointment and wasting 90-plus minutes, but it does eliminate the prospect of finding a new gem, too.
As a horror fan, I tell you, there isn't a better feeling than discovering a fresh and original film that isn’t discussed to death on the internet and has the element of surprise to disturb you in all the right ways. Whether offering some nasty bloodshed or inventive freights (or better: both), unique and largely underseen horrors tend to fire up fear-lovers with a high dose of enthusiasm and excitement. It’s a thrill to talk about and recommend these films to fans who haven't heard about them yet. Of course, over time, some of these features blow up, and some don't — that's what makes it even more fun.
So, without further ado, here's a curated selection of 2023 features that had that effect on me to some degree.
Cobweb
Samuel Bodin’s feature debut is a perfect Halloween movie. No, I don’t mean it’s a perfect movie (far, far from it), but every single ingredient — from its one-hit premise to the devilishly sinister atmosphere to its early-aughts vibe — in it oozes Pumpkin Season energy. (It should be in theatres now and not in the middle of Summer when it was officially released.) Cobweb’s plot is essentially a rip-off of several better horrors (The Boy must be mentioned), but it’s so delightfully morbid to watch its nasty claws slowly extend and tear up human flesh like a rabid bobcat that you can’t resent the film for stealing most of its ideas from elsewhere. It also helps that Lizzy Caplan and Antony Starr play the unnerving psycho-parents to Woody Norman’s (C’mon C’mon) shy Peter, who just wants to find out who the spooky knocks and strange voices in the wall are coming from. Luckily for us — in a dark massacre of a finale that will tickle the sweet spot of those hungry for a yummy creature feature — he will.
Unwelcome
If you’ve been reading The Screen for a while, you must know that I'm fond of bonkers ideas, especially when they're dipped in some sort of macabre. Jon Wright's silly goblin-horror, Unwelcome, is precisely the kind that fits that description. Vaguely rooted in Irish folklore, his feature slowly descends into a chaotic B movie madness that proudly embraces practical effects instead of low-budget CGI, and the result is a creepy-cute horror comedy that revels in black humor as much as it does in creative kills and scares. (My full review)
Sick
It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of the Scream requels — I find them embarrassingly low-tier compared to what the franchise was able to do in its heyday. Kevin Williamson's screenplay of the original still reigns supreme (a masterpiece of suspense and ground-breaking meta-commentary on slashers), and it's hard to live up to. So, his welcome return to the genre with Sick served as a sort of remedy for me after being bummed out about Scream V and VI.
Integrating the pandemic into any plot effectively is a rare feat, but Williamson does it with skill and a biting punch-line. With a tight 80-minute runtime, Sick recalls some of the best aspects of Scream modernized into the current social climate better than the requels have ever hoped they would. After a brief exposition that establishes an eerie vibe with a cast that excels in every moment without being cringe, the movie becomes an edge-of-your-seat exercise slasher enthusiasts die for. (My full review)
Sanctuary
Technically, Zachary Wigon’s Sanctuary is an erotic psychological thriller, but the deranged lengths it goes to grants it a place on this list. It's been a while since watching two people playing a perverse roleplay, which frequently changes direction in the most unexpected ways, in a hotel room was so irresistibly riveting. Christopher Abbott and Margaret Qualley prove once again that their range is insane — deserving of the most exhilarating and complex leading roles — and the chemistry between them is highly explosive. Breaking hearts, hotel furniture, and character are what they do here, without allowing you to guess their next move, and by the time you get to the end of this 90-minute cat-and-mouse lunacy, your head will be spinning, I guarantee it. Sanctuary is destined to be a cult classic if it’s not one already.
Talk to Me
Australian filmmaker brothers Danny and Michael Phillippou’s feature debut is arguably the horror phenomenon of the year, and deservedly so. Although their film rides on familiar beats, its creative approach to vicious and malicious ghost stories, through the eyes of hedonist teenagers who use spirits as a party trick, is a celebration of the genre. Despite the overused motif of grief in contemporary horrors, Talk to Me strikes us as refreshing (deeply disturbing yet darkly humorous at times) and manages to live up to the hype the internet created for it bafflingly quick. With such a bombastic start, the Phillipous are certainly a director duo worth looking out for in the future.
Birth/Rebirth
One of the most slept-on feature debuts in 2023 is Laura Moss's unflinching body-horror, Birth/Rebirth. Given its sensitive and morally murky premise about child loss, I’m surprised it didn't trigger more discussions among viewers — especially after the wide critical praise it received during festivals and upon release.
It’s basically a David Cronenberg horror without Cronenberg. A modern Frankenstein story led by two excellent character actors (Marin Ireland and Judy Reyes’s atypical duo is oddly appealing) who both sacrifice a piece of themselves, literally and figuratively, to keep a little girl alive. Mixing a cold medical approach with a mother's unrelenting love for her kid results in a distressingly boundary-pushing and thought-provoking film that’s not afraid to ask uncomfortable questions and even answer some of them. Its raw, wince-inducing gore isn’t for the squeamish, but those seeking an unusual horror delicacy should definitely give it a watch.
No One Will Save You
Brian Duffield’s dialogue-free alien survival horror conquered the internet (social media mostly) shockingly fast, which might be the reason it became quite overhyped in a short time. While I don't think it's as mind-blowing as many claim, I give credit to its uncommon approach. Kaitlyn Dever proved several times (with Dopesick and Unbelievable in particular) that she can easily dominate any picture as the lead, and No One Will Save You relies on her charisma a great deal. She’s captivating to watch while chased by UFOs in a world that seems to have no other humans in it — and I'm among those who found the creature design pretty cool — but the narrative limits the premise rigorously clings to throughout diminish its potential to become a much better movie than it ends up being. Nevertheless, Duffield's effort deserves recognition.
Baby Ruby
Bluff of the year? Perhaps so. Fair warning: If you go in watching this flick with the expectation of wanting it to be a traditional pregnancy horror, you’ll be disappointed. It ain’t that. Yet if you're open to an experimental, nightmarish interpretation of what it means to become a new parent (with all its excruciatingly overwhelming aspects), you might get a kick out of it as I did. Baby Ruby’s most successful feat is creating a fantasy in our minds by showing very little and implying a lot. Seeing its poor reception, most viewers missed that, but if the twisted and contorted narrative clicks with you, the experience can be pretty rewarding. (My full review)
Appendage
Anxiety manifests in different ways. What if — writer-director Anna Zlokovic’s feature debut argues — one of those is that a slimy monster grows out of your intrusive thoughts, and then your actual body, to try to take over your life in order to create its own. As silly as Appendage gets with its bizarre, deep-voiced creatures that induce laughter more than fear, there’s an oddly compelling and provocative psychological theme buried in this Hulu original somewhere deep — and even if you don’t find it, you’ll have a lot of fun watching the grotesque turns this movie has to offer. The unusual girl duo of Hadley Robinson and Emily Hampshire is just a bonus.
Influencer
Influencer is surely not the first or the last social media horror about a psychopath, but its unwavering commitment to taking a mean-spirited story all the way without flinching makes it stand out. It adds to the allure that Cassandra Naud’s central performance chills you to the bone (her cold-blooded acting brings Aubrey Plaza to mind for some unrelated reason…) and doesn’t allow you to take your eyes off her. Her embodiment of beauty and danger collides smoothly with Thailand's breathtaking scenery that's as inviting as it is threatening, giving the impression that this stunningly sumptuous place can make someone vanish off the face of the earth without a trace. It's a good reminder that what’s too beautiful is also lethal sometimes.
With this special selection of horrors, the celebration of Spooky Season comes to an end at The Screen. In October, I reviewed Mike Flanagan's last epic horror show for Netflix, The Fall of the House of Usher, and John Carpenter’s unscripted true crime docu-series, John Carpenter’s Suburban Screams. If you want more, I'd recommend checking out the feature I wrote about Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs in September, which remains one of the darkest horrors ever made.
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