Best New Horror Movies of 2023 (So Far)

• Bones and All
• Infinity Pool
• Attachment
• M3GAN
• Malum
• Evil Dead Rise
• Huesera: The Bone Woman
• Talk to Me

(We know this was a late-2022 release, but we missed it and we loved it, so it’s here.)

So Luca Guadagnino made a tender love story about cannibals. No, really. But it probably does make sense coming from the dude who made the Desire Trilogy and the 2018 Suspiria remake.

Maren (Taylor Russell), a teenager with uncontrollable cannibalistic urges, lives on the run with her father. When he abandons her, she heads out to seek answers from her similarly afflicted mother. Maren meets other “Eaters,” learning their culture and ethics, and ultimately falls for the brooding Lee (Timothée Chalamet). They travel together, falling in love between tense encounters that lead to messy feedings and spontaneous relocations. But do they have a future, or are they doomed to dine alone forever?

Well-acted and beautifully shot, Bones and All is an endearing, gut-wrenching, gory romance that will charm horror fans and non-fans alike. Watch it with someone delicious.

The Cronenberg name evokes uncomfortable imagery, sounds, topics, and situations. With Infinity Pool, Brandon Cronenberg proves he inherited his knack for disturbing audiences from his legendary dad David (director of Videodrome, Scanners, and Rabid).

At a beachside resort in a corrupt (fictional) country, novelist James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) and his wife encounter a mysterious femme-fatale, Gabi (Mia Goth), who claims to love James’ only book. Gabi seduces James into a dizzying world of crime, corruption, cloning, drugs, sex, and murder.

Like any good film noir, Infinity Pool makes you feel fascinated, trapped, and a bit sick. When the (literal) body horror kicks in, you hit maximum quease—but, oddly, you don’t want to stop the ride.

Uh-oh. Another horro-mance? Why not?

Falling in love is exhilarating and terrifying. Is it real? Will it last? Can you get along with your new partner’s family? Carry their baggage? Assimilate into their culture? Adopt their beliefs? Be happy?

Danish actress Maja and British student Leah fall hard and fast for each other. Maja follows Leah back to England, where they live with Leah’s strict Orthodox Jewish/Kabbalistic mother, Chana. Although not unwelcoming, Chana is cold and protective of Leah. Maja tries to assimilate, visiting a Kabbalistic bookstore, thinking her interest will charm her love’s mother. Chana, however, fails to respond to Maja’s overtures. It turns out that Maja’s Gentility isn’t the issue: It’s Leah—and the dybbuk (demon) within her.

Gabriel Bier Gislason’s Attachment is a refreshing Jewish mysticism twist on the possession tale, which has grown stagnant in its Christian normativity. It’s also a nice change from rote, heteronormative romances and unnecessary lesbian eroticism present in some horror films. Instead, Attachment is just a sweet romance with higher stakes—and, for some of us, a new monster to dread.

Did we need this movie right now? I mean, we’re already freaked out about AI replacing us at work, in the bedroom, and ultimately on the planet. Now we’re gonna bring Uncanny Valley into it?

It’s not like we haven’t read or watched similar sci-fi stories about AI improving our lives before taking them. But now this story is the nightly news. The battle is afoot, and the actors and writers who make these movies are the first ones going on strike to protest AI (among other things).

That timeliness makes director Gerard Johnston’s M3GAN utterly chilling. M3GAN is like a sophisticated Chucky doll, calculating and sinister. Sometimes she’s protecting her charge, just as humans taught her to do. Other times, she’s a diabolical killing machine. And, because the threat of artificial intelligence is top of mind, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more in danger than when I watched M3GAN. And, as a horror fan, I love that.

You’ve got to respect a filmmaker who’ll go back and remake one of his movies. Anthony DiBlasi could’ve moved on to another project instead of this reimagining of his 2014 film Last Shift. But, like some folks are happy that Sam Raimi kinda-sorta remade The Evil Dead (see Evil Dead 2), we’re delighted with DiBlasi’s do-over.

Malum follows rookie cop Jessica Loren (Jessica Sula). It’s her first night on the job—and she’s working at the precinct where her father worked. The precinct also is also the scene of his bloody psychotic break involving a cult crazier than the Manson Family.

Unlike the Mansons in the late Sixties, the Malum cult is legit connected to Satan—and they’re already dead. They’ve also come to keep Jessica company on this last late-night shift, tormenting her with bump-in-the-night creeps, hallucinations, gory murders, and one of the most pants-poopingly scary demons we’ve ever seen.

Speaking of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead movies, I kinda totally hate Fede Álvarez’s Evil Dead (2013), the first reboot in the series. The story and characters were unlikable, and the Deadites looked like videogame monsters instead of Raimi’s famously freaky-chunky oozers. So I worried that Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise would be another disappointment.

Instead, Evil Dead Rise uses and artfully updates everything that worked so well in the original The Evil Dead. The fast-moving, first-person Deadite POV shots, you’re in the real world but definitely no longer in Kansas, withering demonic voices, and gobs of gooey gore. Cronin then boosts the terror and the stakes with added character depth (so you feel the deaths) and almost no humor (except the eyeball scene, LMAO).

The upshot? A fast-paced, action-packed, and very scary film.

Michelle Garza Cervera’s Mexican folk/body-horror tale is the highest-rated 2023 horror film on Rotten Tomatoes—certified fresh with 97% critical approval based on 91 reviews. We’re not sure it’s that good, but, like Attachment (currently in 2nd at 95%), Huesera: The Bone Woman is culturally and thematically fresh. And it’s terrifying for anyone who’s questioned their identity or circumstances.

Valeria (Natalia Solián) is young, pregnant, and tormented by an evil spirit. Similar to The Babadook, the terror comes from a mother’s anxieties. The presence represents Valeria’s doubts and fears about her husband, sexuality, impending motherhood—and post-partum depression.

Even without the post-partum poltergeist, that’s a scary mental load. It gets worse when the spirit manifests as a herky-jerky, bone-crunching creature. Fortunately, Valeria’s aunt and her friends are a coven of brujas.

A new party drug is circulating in the Australian teen scene: demonic possession. It works like this: Partygoers shake hands with a graffitied plaster cast housing a medium’s embalmed hand, inviting slimy demons to squat in their bods. Once inside, the evil spirit reads minds, spills secrets, and makes you do things—like hurt yourself. Then Mia (Sophie Wild) steals the hand to channel her late mother, and things go horribly wrong.

The debut feature film from YouTubers Danny and Michael Phillipou (RackaRacka) recently surpassed Hereditary as A24’s highest-grossing domestic (U.S. and Canada) horror film. Some even say Talk to Me rivals Hereditary in the scares department. So check out Talk to Me—‘cause you wanna be cool, don’t you?