In this article we have collected new 2023 in the genre of horror especially for fearless fans to tickle nerves and see extravagant embodiments of human fears.
In the list and the continuation of cult franchises, and independent slashers, and bizarre experiments of new directors. The year 2023 spoils us with many of the freshest, most beautiful and interesting horror films, offering a wide choice for a quality evening’s entertainment.
Evil Dead Rise
- IMDB Rating – 6.7
- Genre: Horror
- Production: USA, New Zealand, Ireland / 2023
- Budget: $12,000,000
- Worldwide Box Office: $146,533,054
- Director: Lee Cronin
- Starring: Lily Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Gabrielle Echols, Morgan Davies, Nell Fisher, Noah Paul, Mark Mitchinson, Mirabai Pease, Richard Crouchley, Anne-Marie Thomas.
This creepy mess opens with a deceptively peaceful scene on the shore of a picturesque lake, where a lonely girl sits reading a book. And then a demon-possessed woman rises from the water and shatters the peaceful picture. However, the real story begins elsewhere.
Distraught over her sudden pregnancy, Beth decides to visit her sister Ellie, who is raising three children in a cramped Los Angeles apartment. After a small earthquake, a sinkhole opens up beneath the house, unleashing demonic forces. And what could have been a touching family reunion turns into a hellish adventure.
This is the fifth movie of the “Evil Dead” universe and simultaneously the second reboot movie released 40 years after the original, with author Sam Raimi serving as producer this time around.
Renfield
- IMDB Rating – 6.4
- Genre: Comedy, Horror, Crime, Action
- Production: USA / 2023
- Budget: $65,000,000
- Worldwide Box Office: $26,321,009
- Director: Chris McKay
- Starring: Nicholas Holt, Nicolas Cage, Aquafina, Ben Schwartz, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Brandon Scott Jones, Adrian Martinez, Camille Chen, Bess Rouse, Jenna Canell
A movie starring Nicolas Cage as Dracula is already reason enough to watch this horror comedy in which the Count himself and his faithful servant Renfield move to modern-day New Orleans.
Renfield’s task is to procure many, many victims for his master. At the same time, he contemplates his 90-year relationship with Dracula and realizes its toxicity, deciding to get rid of his co-dependency. True, the master does not agree with Renfield’s position and is willing to drown the world in blood to preserve his servant.
The vampire count’s real name is Vlad Tepes. “Dracula” – a nickname that translates to “Little Dragon.”
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey
- IMDB Rating – 2.9
- Genre: Horror
- Production: UK / 2023
- Budget: $100,000
- Worldwide Box Office: $4,941,200
- Director: Rhys Frake-Waterfield
- Starring: Nicholas Leon, Craig David Dowsett, Maria Taylor, Natasha Rose Mills, Danielle Ronald, Natasha Tosini, Paula Cois, Gillian Broderick, Chris Cordell, Toby Wynne-Davies
British small independent and absolutely crazy slasher with traditional for this genre low rating and smashing reviews from serious movie critics. But what can be serious in the story about two famous plush toys who became bloodthirsty killers because of childhood traumas?
After playing with Winnie the Pooh, Piglet and their friends, Christopher Robin leaves for college. Left in the picturesque but empty Stoakrove Forest, the animals had no sorrow until the first winter, which was a bleak period of hunger, fear and despair.
They hated Christopher and unleashed a bloody reign of terror on him and everyone around him when a grown-up Robin returned to the forest to introduce his wife to his childhood friends.
In January 2022, Alan Milne’s books were granted U.S. Public Domain status, allowing director Reece Freke to use them for his dystopian adaptation without violating copyright.
The Communion Girl
- IMDB Rating – 5.3
- Genre: Horror
- Production: Spain / 2022
- Worldwide box office receipts: $3,331,181
- Director: Victor Garcia
- Starring: Carla Campra, Aina Quiñones, Marc Soler, Carlos Oviedo, Olimpia Roche, Maria Molins, Xavi Lite, Ana Alarcón, Victor Sole, Sara Roche.
A novelty doll horror movie. Tense, disturbing action, a cute script and excellent acting in this movie provide a long and quality scare for little girls.
The events unfold in the Spanish town of Tarrgona. Sara is the new girl in town. Right after her younger sister Judith’s first communion, Sara goes to a nightclub with her new friends. Returning home, the young people find a porcelain doll dressed up in a traditional first communion dress. And the nightmare begins.
This movie is the Spanish-language debut of Victor Garcia.
Scream VI
- IMDB Rating – 6.6
- Genre: Horror, Thriller, Detective
- Production: USA, Canada / 2023
- Budget: $35,000,000
- Worldwide Box Office: $168,961,389
- Director: Matthew Bettinelli, Tyler Gillette
- Starring: Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Mason Gooding, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Courtney Cox, Skeet Ulrich, Roger L. Jackson, Dermot Mulroney, Jack Champion, Josh Segarra
The sixth movie in the iconic horror franchise is a direct sequel to 2022’s Scream, and should not be watched separately lest you get confused by the characters and events.
So, Tara and Sam, as well as Mindy and Chad, now live in New York City. Sam, who was suspected of being involved in the murders, is seeing a therapist and trying to make a new life. One day Sam gets a call from a police detective asking the sisters to come to the station for a talk. But on the way, the girls are suddenly attacked by “Ghostface”….
The filming of this movie took place in Canada, and started 3 weeks after the release of the 5th “Scream”, as it was successful.
The Pope’s Exorcist
- IMDB Rating – 6.1
- Genre: Horror
- Production: USA, UK, Spain / 2023
- Budget: $18,000,000
- Worldwide Box Office: $74,759,685
- Director: Julius Avery
- Starring: Russell Crowe, Daniel Dzovatto, Alexandra Essoe, Franco Nero, Peter DeSouza-Feijoni, Laurel Marsden, Cornell John, Ryan O’Grady, Bianca Bardot, Santi Baillon
A fresh Russell Crowe movie with horror steeped in Catholic faith, and certainly one of the best horror movies of 2023.
Close to the Pope, Father Amorth is an unorthodox priest who is not to everyone’s liking in the church. He travels around the world performing exorcism rites with the Pope’s blessing, convinced of his own chosenness.
One day he is invited to the house of the widow Julia, whose son Henry stopped talking after the death of his father, and one day changed strangely, as if he was possessed by a demon.
The story is based on the memoirs of Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican’s real-life chief exorcist in the second half of the 20th century, who performed more than 10,000 exorcism rites.
Insidious: The Red Door
- Genre: Horror
- Production: Canada, USA / 2023
- Director: Patrick Wilson
- Starring: Rose Byrne, Patrick Wilson, Ty Simpkins, Hiam Abbass, Lin Shaye, Andrew Astor, Joshua Hare, Peter Dugger
“Astral 5” is a direct sequel to one of the scariest horror movies ever, “Astral. Chapter 2” and is released in theaters on July 7, 2023. The actors from that installment return to their roles, and the events begin 10 years after the end of the second chapter.
Josh Lambert goes to the East together with his son Dalton, who enters an Ivy League college. The boy dreams of starting a new life, forgetting the nightmares of the past. But demons quickly catch up with the Lambert family, who now have to return home to try to destroy evil once and for all.
This movie was Patrick Wilson’s directorial debut.
The Exorcist: Believer
- Genre: Horror
- Production: USA / 2023
- Director: David Gordon Green
- Starring: Jennifer Nettles, Ellen Burstyn, Ann Dowd, Leslie Odom Jr., Rafael Sbarge, Lydia Jewett, E.J. Bonilla, Anthony Corone, Nora Elin Murphy
Another good exorcism movie, “The Exorcist: Believer” is set for release on October 13, 2023. If you’re a fan of the subject and you’re familiar with one of the greatest, iconic horror films of 1973, “The Exorcist,” rejoice – this movie is a direct sequel to “The Exorcist,” and actress Ellen Burstyn will return to her role as Chris McNeil.
Tanner is an unhappy single father who turns to the famous Chris MacNeil to cure his child of demonic possession. Plot details have yet to be revealed, but the movie promises to be interesting.
The makers of the movie have shared plans to produce two more films in the franchise.
Saw X
- Genre: Horror, Thriller, Detective
- Production: USA, Mexico, Canada / 2023
- Director: Kevin Grothert
- Starring: Tobin Bell, Steven Brand, Sunnyowe Makodi Lund, Michael Beach, Renata Vaca, Pauletta Hernandez, Octavio Hinojosa.
In October 2023, the long-awaited for fans of the cult franchise “Saw” already the 10th part of this unimaginable nightmare will finally appear in the box office. And the most exciting thing about all this is the fact that actor Tobin Bell is returning to the role of “Saw” himself.
A new game begins, in which the sinister maniac has prepared even more sophisticated traps for his victims, who will have no choice but to accept the rules of the cruelest competition for survival.
The release of the next film on October 27th seems to be becoming a franchise tradition. On the same day, but in different years, the first and third films of the cycle were released.
Gangnam Zombie
- IMDB Rating – 3.3
- Genre: Horror, Action
- Production: South Korea / 2023
- Worldwide Box Office: $357,318
- Director: Lee Soo-sung
- Starring: Ji Il-ju, Park Ji-yeon, Jo Kyung-hoon
This fresh Korean zombie movie doesn’t deserve high ratings, but it can definitely be a good one-time entertainment for horror fans, thanks to its light presentation and comedy elements. And these zombies have nothing to do with the famous “Train to Busan”.
The events unfold in a huge shopping center in Seoul’s prestigious Gangnam district. Here, right in the midst of COVID-19, and there was an outbreak of an unknown virus that turns people into the rising dead, hungry for living flesh. The store’s staff and numerous visitors will try to survive in this chaos, each in their own way.
The film was released on January 5, 2023, but it premiered earlier, at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
Преступница
- Genre: Horror
- Production: USA, France / 2023
- Director: Jennifer Reeder
- Starring: Josh Bywater, Avery Holliday, Casimer Jollett, Sasha Smith, Melanie Liburd, Chris Lowell, Kia McKiernan, Ireon Roach, Alicia Silverstone
The US and France have created a new horror movie with shades of Wansday. The main character of the story is young Johnny, a bully girl who is sent to live with a distant relative, Hilda.
Hilda lives in a luxurious mansion and keeps a family secret, which Johnny learns on the day of her 18th birthday. This secret explains to the girl all the strange things happening to her and her father.
Soon Johnny learns that in the town where she now lives, mysterious disappearances of young girls have begun. With her inherent self-confidence, the heroine goes to investigate these abductions…
The film was first screened in 2023 at the Berlin Film Festival as part of the Panorama program.
Big Shark
- IMDB Rating – 7.0
- Genre: Thriller, Detective, Adventure
- Production: USA / 2023
- Director: Tommy Wiseau
- Starring: Isaiah Laborde, Tommy Wiseau, Erika Mary Gillhini, Ashton Lee, Greg Sestero, Mark Valeriano, Wayne Douglas Morgan, Thomas Johnston, Caleb Naquin.
For those who have a fear of the monsters of the deep sea, good uncle director Tommy Wiseau has created an impressively creepy shark movie, with plenty of funny moments.
A group of scientists discover a whole new species of shark off the coast of America, larger than their relatives, bloodthirsty and very intelligent, who seem to prefer to eat human meat.
The story centers on three New Orleans firefighters, Patrick, Georgie and Tim, who encounter one of these sharks terrorizing the city.
The movie was filmed in New Orleans and Lafayette.
The Boogeyman
- IMDB Rating – 6.1
- Genre: Horror
- Production: USA, Canada / 2023
- Worldwide box office receipts: $60,619,693
- Director: Rob Savage
- Starring: Vivien Lyra Blair, Sophie Thatcher, Chris Messina, David Dastmalchian, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Maureen Ireland, Madison Hu, Maddie Nichols, Leanne Ross.
Cute adaptation of Stephen King’s story “And the Buca Came”, which was the basis for several short films.
The plot unfolds in the office of psychiatrist Harper, where Mr. Billings tells in detail and thoroughly about the terrible death of his three young children. Moreover, each of them, the man claims, died a brutal death at the paws of a monster that hides in a closet or closet. He is frightened, silent for a long time, grieving and trying to remember all the details. And then goes to sign up for the next sessions, which will not take place….
King’s short story was first published in 1978, being part of the author’s Night Shift collection.
Inside
- IMDB Rating – 5.5
- Genre: Thriller, Drama
- Production: Greece, Germany, Belgium / 2022
- US box office receipts: $897,190
- Directed by Vassilis Katsoupis
- Starring: Willem Defoe, Jene Bervuts, Elise Stuyck, Andrew Blumenthal, Vincent Eaton, Daniel White, Josiah Krug, Cornelia Buch, Ava von Voigt, Yul Samaré
A chilling survival horror, a phobia-inducing movie about a high-tech trap the protagonist falls into. Art thief Nemo (played by Willem Defoe) sneaks into a luxurious penthouse to steal a drawing by Schiele.
Nemo fails to disable the smart home security system, and it starts to work, but fails, locking the man inside and giving him a real test of endurance. Nemo is unable to get out, food is running out, and what’s happening in the apartment is driving him crazy. And it goes on and on…
The film premiered at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival on Feb. 20.
Knock at the Cabin
- IMDB Rating – 6.1
- Genre: Thriller
- Production: USA / 2023
- Budget: $20,000,000
- Worldwide Box Office: $54,760,947
- Director: M. Knight Shyamalan
- Starring: Dave Batista, Jonathan Groff, Ben Eldridge, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Rupert Grint, Abby Quinn, Kristen Tsui, McKenna Kerrigan, Ian Merrill Peakes.
When it comes to families facing a harrowing nightmare, M. Night Shyamalan has his own recipe for that dish, horror with slow-motion suspense, emphatically painterly visuals and an unexpected passage of believability.
An unconventional family, Eric, Andrew and their adopted Asian 7-year-old daughter Wen, live in a rural idyll at the edge of the world. Suddenly, a foursome of men from a nearby village, armed with improvised weapons, come to their home and demand that the family give one of them up for slaughter or else the world will end.
The movie is based on the book The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay.
Salem’s Lot
- Genre: Horror, thriller
- Production: USA / 2023
- Director: Gary Doberman
- Starring: Lewis Pullman, Spencer Trit Clark, Pilu Asbeck, Elfrey Woodard, John Benjamin Hickey, Bill Camp, Mackenzie Lee, Nicholas Crovetti, Debra Kristofferson, Kellan Rood
A fresh horror movie based on Stephen King’s books, the second adaptation of the novel of the same name. Successful writer Ben Mairs spent most of his childhood in the backwoods town of Salems Lot, Maine, and left there one day, never to return.
But the plot of a new book compels him to return to his hometown. Ben plans to write a thriller about his troubled childhood and discovers that the town is home to a vampire who is cruel, cunning, clever, and elusive.
Director Gary Doberman said the goal of his movie is to make vampires more frightening again by washing away the sexy-romantic halo that has arisen in pop culture recently.
Beau Is Afraid
- IMDB Rating – 6.9
- Genre: Comedy, Drama
- Production: USA, UK, Finland, Canada / 2023
- Budget: $35,000,000
- Worldwide Box Office: $10,970,965
- Director: Ari Aster
- Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Patty LuPone, Amy Ryan, Nathan Lane, Kylie Rogers, Denis Menochet, Parker Posey, Zoe Lister Jones, Armen Nakhapetyan, Julia Antonelli
A kaleidoscopic nightmare with notes of black comedy is a movie about phobias that overwhelm the protagonist. His fears are innumerable and he escapes from them as best he can.
But one day Bo decides to make an extremely important trip to another city, to his rich mother. For the unfortunate Bo, who even looks out of the window with fear, it becomes a serious test of the psyche. As luck would have it, he meets some weirdos on the way who seem to embody all of Bo’s fears.
The movie was shot entirely in Montreal and its suburbs. Traffic was even suspended in some neighborhoods for the filming.
Marui Video
- IMDB Rating – 4.9
- Genre: Horror, Detective
- Production: South Korea / 2023
- Worldwide Box Office: $1,321,380
- Director: Yoon Joon-hyun
- Starring: Seo Hyun-woo, Jo Min-kyung, Ahn Hyun-bin
A pseudo-documentary South Korean nightmare, “Marui Video,” set in the “Found Footage” genre, is about a group of journalists who, in 2019, find a strange video footage from the Tongsongjang Hotel that depicts a real brutal murder from 1992. But the creepiest thing about this footage is the image of a real ghost.
Meticulous journalists, in cooperation with the prosecutor’s office, are trying to investigate the crime. And the further they go, the more frightening and grim details are revealed in the case.
The movie has been named the best horror movie of 2023 in Korea.
Dante’s Hell
- Genre: Horror, Fantasy, Thriller, Drama, Detective, Adventure, Family
- Production: USA / 2023
- Budget: $1,000,000
- Director: Boris Acosta
- Starring: Eric Roberts, Vittorio Gassman, Jeff Conaway, Franco Nero, Silvia Colloca, Jenn Gotzon, Vincent Spano, Shirley Brener, Helen Cardona, Christina Julie Kim
On June 25, 2023, one of the creepiest horror movies of the season is released, with even the trailer being mesmerizing, frightening and underwhelming. It’s an adaptation of the first part of Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, in which Dante, following the spirit of the poet Virgil, descends into Hell and explores it.
Accompanied by Dino Di Durante’s gorgeous effects and paintings, Dante and Virgil’s journey is breathtaking in its realism and detail. This is the kind of nightmare that vividly and vividly depicts all the sins of mankind, woven together in one monstrous endless suffering.
“Dante’s Hell” is the feature debut of director Boris Acosta. He plans to make several more films as he continues his adaptation of The Divine Comedy.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter
- Genre: Horror
- Production: USA / 2023
- Director: Andre Evredal
- Starring: Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian, Chris Whalley, John John Briones, Stefan Kapicic, Martin Furulund, Nikolai Nicolaeff, Woody Norman
The release date for this unique vampire movie is August 11, 2023. And it is very scary indeed. “Demeter” – a merchant ship, transporting from the Balkan country to London locked boxes with unknown cargo.
Already at sea, the crew discovers that all the livestock on the ship has been killed and exsanguinated, and then they discover something nightmarish hidden in the cargo hold. The crew of the ship is trapped in the middle of boundless waters on their fragile ship together with the most cruel and bloodthirsty vampire Dracula.
The movie is based on Bram Stoker’s classic novel “Dracula”, which tells about the voyage of the ship. By the way, this episode is based on the legend of the English town of Whitby, where the Russian ship “Dmitry” sank in 1885, and then coffins and corpses of sailors were brought ashore for many days.
