Joseph lists his top 10 horror films of 2023.
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For the Best Horror Shorts of 2023, we cherry-picked our favorite short films from the festivals we attended this year. We also selected a few films from the game-changing streaming short film distributor Alter. We've got many of these full short films linked to this post. Give them a watch!
★★★ out of ★★★★★
Intensity 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Quicksand (2023) is a straightforward wilderness survival horror movie that pits a struggling married couple in a pool of quicksand in a Columbian mountain bog. It's a stylishly shot film and features a pair of fine acting performances. However, to call the quicksand quick would be a misnomer, as the couple struggles... slowly... against the fate of getting sucked to the bottom of this quagmire.
It was the best of years and the worst of years. Really, 2023 contained some of the best horror films of ALL time, but it also contained a lot of duds. Not just crappy little indy films that couldn’t scratch to nickels together, but the big boys laid down garbage all over the cinema interstate.
We may see some incredible holdover fare early in the year, followed by a dusty lull. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll see some great horror films back on the scene in late 2024. Until then, here are…the Best Horror Films of 2023
The end of 2023 means another Top 10! So much good stuff to choose from, but a few things stabbed just a bit deeper than the rest.
★★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
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The Argentinian possession as apandemic film When Evil Lurks took the horror community by storm this year. It is a tale spun by South America's greatest horror director, Demián Rugna, and it is bound to become a modern classic. With his latest feature film, Rugna has written the new rules for possession horror in a George Romero fashion. Brilliant and brutal, but also a downer.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
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After more than 15 years Eli Roth has made good on his promise and has come home for Thanksgiving!
★★★★★ out of ★★★★★
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Godzilla Minus One: Oh, my... Godzilla! Takahashi Yamazaki created a powerful, emotionally resonant, and visually spectacular film. More than any other film in this esteemed franchise run, Godzilla is a reflection of a country in catharsis. It is steeped in survivor's guilt, post-traumatic shock disorder, family bonds, and the restoration of a nation's belief in itself... by way of Kaiju. As a film-going experience, this will get your blood pumping. Go see it on the biggest screen possible.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
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Tentacled cosmic horrors besiege a seaside Greek town, and it's up to the patrons of a local taverna to save the city. The directors refer to this as "My Big Fat Greek Monster Movie." Minore punches well above its weight class, featuring top-shelf cinematography, complimented with high-end visual FX and an excellent ensemble cast.
★★★ out of ★★★★★
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Films like Scream and its ilk are self-referential in a coy way that employ a major wink of the eye towards the audience. They’re cute and bashful about their oblique references to horror films of the 1970s and 80s. When a film names itself Bad CGI Gator it’s anything but coy, and instead opts for brash aesthetic that screams “I DON’T REALLY CARE WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THE TITLE OF MY FILM!”
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
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Joseph Perry reviews show creator and writer/director Trevor Solway’s Tales from the Rez, a six-part Canadian horror anthology series with a focus on ghost stories from Canada’s indigenous peoples.
★★ out of ★★★★★
Intensity 🩸🩸 for frequent but mild violence and gore
Slotherhouse has a silly and promising premise but squanders the potential by pulling its punches. This cautionary tale of chasing popularity and jealousy within a college sorority has a fun puppet monster but ceases to entertain with uninteresting characters and inconsequential kills. The puppet sloth is fun for a while, but after a while the movie becomes tedious.
★★.5 out of ★★★★★
An exceptionally silly film that breathes some new life into a rather (un)dead horror sub-genre — zombies. As We Know It takes a couple interesting pokes at horror comedy, zombies, and the process of getting to know people that you might really hate.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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Positively leaping into the #1 spot of my "How Did I Miss This?" ranking, Maurice Devereaux's Montreal-based End Of The Line is a wicked little surprise. A gory mix of religious fanatics, old skool pagers, subway demons, and possibly tainted muffins!
⭐️⭐️ out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Intensity: 🩸🩸
Airell Anthony Hayles is back with what might be the first in his Santa Horror trilogy! Werewolf Santa premiered at this year's FrightFest London and shows you don't need piles of cash to make an entertaining horror/comedy monster flick.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2 out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Intensity: 🩸🩸
Paco Plaza's supernatural, semi-religious horror tour de force, Verónica, humanizes the demonic harassment sub-genre. Just Say No to Ouija boards, kids!
While last year’s the Black Phone brought vans fully back into our collective psyche’s focus, vans and their association to serial killers have been around forever. Sometimes the fears are warranted and sometimes they’re not. Sometimes the fears are a highly inflated statistical figment of our imagination and sometimes they’re rooted firmly in…the truth.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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The Bloomquist Brothers return with another well written genre romp, Founders Day! Election season can be hazardous to your health.
★★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Mike Flanagan is back with another fantastic series for Netflix: The Fall of the House of Usher.
Just in time for Halloween, Liz sat down and chatted with film and television editor, Jeremy Cohen to talk about his most recent project Totally Killer!
★★ out of ★★★★★
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Gods of the Deep (2023) takes a group of intrepid explorers into the depth of an Antarctic trench to discover why there is an Ancient Temple. This HP Lovecraft World Premiere was unintentionally silly, and full of bad logic and cheap sets, but might qualify as so bad it's good.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Intensity: 🩸🩸🩸
Lauren LaVera -- star of Terrifier 2 -- returns to the Horror fold with a practical-effects-laden Euro Horror tale of witchcraft, demons, and human sacrifice. Oh, my!
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
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Legendary Television and Apple + have teamed up to deliver a globe and timeline trotting adventure that follows the pursuit of truth about the mysterious and devastating Godzilla and his fellow Titans. Expect lots of great character study and adventuring, with just enough kaiju action to remind you of the stakes in play. Top shelf production values and the use of both Wyatt and Kurt Russell playing the same character in different ages makes for fine popcorn fare.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
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Frogman injects some fresh air into the somewhat stale shaky cam horror sub-genre. A trio of friends go in search of the elusive cryptid, the Frogman of Loveland Colorado, and manage to uncover something sinister. Well drawn characters and properly edited shaky cam standards combine for one of the best found footage films in years.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
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Cosmic Horror fans rejoice! Suitable Flesh is a sexy and gory return to the fun Lovecraftian films of Stuart Gordon. This time, with Joe Lynch at the Helm, and a terrific cast with Heather Graham, Judah Lewis, and Barbara Crampton, this is a naughty and wicked body-swap romp.
Joseph reviews four fear-fare shorts from Austria's SLASH Filmfestival.
★★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Avoid the life, keep your life! This Halloween is going to be Totally Killer!
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
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You know the story. You’ve got the gist of the Catholic Church’s involvement in exorcisms. Little kids probably freak you out. You either terrified of demonic possession or you’re not. Point is, you probably have a well-defined idea of what the Exorcist: Believer is going offer.
★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ 🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸 Directed by Ward Hiney As a big fan of the documentaries from...