The best horror movies of 2023, ranked by scariness

Horror’s already looking great in 2023. Some of the most respected masters in horror are making their greatest work in many years. New talents and established franchises have broken records with new features. And it’s still only March.

With so many good horror movies out in just a few months, it’s already time to start listing the best of the best, and giving options for everyone from the scaredy-cats to the horror-curious to the freaks (in a good way) who can’t get enough fright and gore. No matter what you like, there’s probably already a 2023 horror movie for you, and to help you find it, we put together a list of the year’s best horror so far, ranked by how likely they are to give you a chill — and what kind of chill that might be.

Because everyone deserves the exact fright they want, we’ve ordered them based on scariness. Scariness isn’t an easy thing to define, so we’ve divided the topic up into two categories: terror, which could be anything from creepiness to something genuinely frightful, and gore, which is just about how bloody a movie ends up getting. Every category is given a rating from five. Then, we multiply the numbers to calculate a scientific scariness score.

For those looking to get scared, these are the top horror films of 2023. They’re ranked in order from most frightening to least. And for a broader look at the year in movies, here’s our list of the best movies of 2023 so far.


M3GAN

The killer AI doll M3GAN (Amie Donald) grabs her creator Gemma (Allison Williams) by the face in M3GAN

Universal Pictures

Run time: 1h 42m
Director: Gerard Johnstone
Cast:Allison Williams, Violet McGraw and Ronny Chieng

Comedy horror with comedy emphasis M3GAN This is without a doubt one of our favorite and most entertaining movies. It’s also one of the best. Gemma is a toy engineer obsessed who was given the task of caring for Cady, her niece. Gemma decides to build a robot for Cady’s care. But instead of being able to do anything actually, things go awry. Murder and mayhem ensue, but thanks to the movie’s constant barrage of jokes and its PG-13 rating, it stays fun and creepy without ever actually getting too far outside the comfort zone of just about any moviegoer. —Austen Goslin

M3GAN: How terrifying is that?

Score for total scariness: 3/10

M3GANYou can stream the video on Peacock. This item is also available digitally for rental and purchase Amazon, Apple TVGoogle Play Vudu.

Sick

A woman wearing sunglasses and a blue face mask sits behind the wheel of a vehicle with a passenger beside them wearing a purple face mask.

Peacock Image

Run time: 1h 23m
Director: John Hyams
Cast: Gideon Adlon, Bethlehem Million, Dylan Sprayberry

John Hyams is one of my favorite directors working today, so it’s no surprise that his COVID-19 slasher Sick The movie was good, even though many of its COVID elements did not land. This movie is a masterful blend of action, tension and pacing. It runs for 80 minutes and follows two college-aged students, who visit a cabin hidden in the woods just before the COVID outbreak.

This one is more frightening than it is tense, but there are still some bloody scenes, as well as broken bones. —Pete Volk

Is it scary to be sick?

Scariness Score: Total 5/10

SickYou can stream the video on Peacock.

Infinity Pool

James (Alexander Skarsgård) in close-up drips blood out of his mouth while kneeling and wearing a black dog collar in Infinity Pool

Image by Neon

Run time: 1h 57m
Director: Brandon Cronenberg
Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Mia Goth, Cleopatra Coleman

Brandon Cronenberg’s third feature is a dystopian vision of the world as nothing more than a playground for the uber-wealthy (yes, even more than it already is). The movie is set at a resort where the wealthy go to get away in a country where all of its strict laws can be bent, broken, or otherwise twisted if you’ve got the money. There’s cloning, murder parties, drug-fueled orgies, and Alexander Skarsgård on a leash, so basically everything you need for a good tropical vacation, or a good trippy horror movie that asks a lot of questions about how you know you’re really you or if you’ve been replaced by something lesser. There’s plenty of gore. Infinity PoolIt is more subtle and focuses on the blood of the clones, as well showing close-ups and images of victims dying in terrible ways. —AG

Infinity Pool: How terrifying is that?

Score for total scariness: 6/10

Infinity PoolDigital rental and purchase available Amazon, AppleGoogle Play Vudu. This uncut version can be rented and streamed on NEON Cinema.

The Cabin is Knock

Dave Bautista standing in front of several other people in Knock at the Cabin

Universal Pictures

Run time: 1h 40m
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast:Dave Bautista and Jonathan Groff. Ben Aldridge

Seldom is a day gone by that has not been documented. The Cabin is KnockIt hasn’t crossed my mind since the time that I went to see it at theaters. M. Night Shyamalan’s latest psychological horror thriller centers on a family, Eric, Andrew, and Wen (Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, and Kristen Cui), who are terrorized by a group of four heavily-armed kidnappers while vacationing in a remote cabin located in rural Pennsylvania. They are not threatening to hurt them, nor will they demand ransom. Leonard (Dave Bautista), the unofficial leader of the group, tells the family that he and his “associates” have been commanded by a higher power to plead with the family to sacrifice one of their own. What is the alternative? With the possible exception of family members, every human being on earth will die.

Based on Paul G. Tremblay’s 2018 novel The Cabin At the End of the World, the terror of Shyamalan’s film is not found in its moments of gore, which are bracing yet brief. Nor is it attributable to the global scenes of apocalyptic imagery that unfold outside of the cabin’s walls, the kind of cataclysmic spectacle one would expect from a late-aughts Roland Emmerich disaster epic. The film is not about the surface scares. They are just window dressing for an even more disturbing and troubling problem that runs throughout its entirety. However, it does have a defining thematic center. What is it that God wants most from people who have lost so much? We are often asked to show love to those we don’t like, and would even sacrifice our happiness for those who wouldn’t spare a moment of their happiness.

It’s not exactly the type of question horror audiences are used to being asked, which more often skew toward more sensationalized subjects such as “Wouldn’t it be fucked up if someone like, kidnapped somebody and tortured them?” or “Wouldn’t if be fucked up if rich people like, cloned themselves and had weird sex and went on killing sprees?” The Cabin is Knock doesn’t propose such easy and escapist scenarios, but rather poses one that challenges its audience to look inward and ruminate not only on disparity between one’s beliefs and what one does unto others, but with the question how much they are willing to sacrifice for sake of a stranger.

Perhaps one reason is that The Cabin is Knock affected me so deeply is because, after I walked out of the theater and drove home, I couldn’t stop turning a question around in my mind. This question is still relevant today: What if Eric, Andrew and Wen were faced with this scenario and were forced to choose their love for themselves over those of the others? —Toussaint Egan

What is Knock at the Cabin like?

Score for total scariness: 6/10

The Cabin is KnockDigital rental and purchase available Amazon, Apple TVGoogle Play Vudu.

Skinamarink

A young boy sits in a dim, blue hallway with his back to the camera, facing a series of open doorways, in a typically grainy, fuzzy shot from the horror movie Skinamarink

Image by Shudder

Run time: 1h 40m
Director: Kyle Edward Ball
Cast: Lucas Paul, Dali Rose Tetreault, Ross Paul

There’s a scene in The Empire Strikes backYoda, Luke Skywalker’s master, commands him to enter the cave to help him in Jedi training. When asked by his apprentice what is inside the cave, Yoda gravely replies, “Only what you take with you.”

Yoda could easily have been talking about the Dark Side of the Force even though he was actually describing the Force’s Dark Side. Skinamarink. The feature horror debut of director Kyle Edward Ball has more than earned its reputation as one of the year’s most surprising and divisive releases. Produced on a crowdfunded budget of $15,000 and filmed in Ball’s childhood home in Canada, the film has been equated as cult favorite on par with that of Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s seminal found-footage horror classic Blair Witch ProjectIts controversial content is not the only reason.

Skinamarink’s narrative is confounding at times and more often than not inscrutable, with its focus primarily on skewed off-center hallway shots, chasmic shadows, and flickering television screens beaming reflections of ghoulishly distorted cartoons. The basic gist of the film’s premise concerns two children, 4-year-old Kevin and his 6-year-old sister Kaylee, who awaken one night to find that their father has seemingly disappeared… along with every door and window in the house. Their mother is seen lying in bed until her mysterious disappearance. Even worse, Kaylee and Kevin aren’t the only ones who suffer from this condition. Someone — or something — is also inside the house, twisting reality into ever more phantasmagorical shapes, and it wants the pair to come upstairs and play a game with them… or And Other.

The truth be told SkinamarinkThis film isn’t going to be available for all who view it. This is mostly attributable to the fact that, much like the cave Yoda urges his young Padawan to enter, what you’ll get out of the film is entirely dependent on what you bring into it. You’re in for a long, frustrating film if this is the first time you see it. You can approach this film however. Skinamarink with the mindset of, say, a latchkey kid with an overactive imagination who grew up in the ’90s, you’ll discover a film as primordial and terrifying as any of your most unspeakable childhood nightmares. It’s possible that your mileage might vary. It is best to observe it.

But, here’s a tip: please turn off your smartphone and restart it AllWhen you’re watching, the lights are on Skinamarink. This really makes all the difference. —Toussaint Egan

What is Skinamarink like?

Score for total scariness: 6/10

SkinamarinkYou can stream it on ShakeAMC Plus. This is available digitally for rental and purchase. Amazon, Apple TVGoogle Play Vudu.

The Outwaters

A young blonde woman wearing a colorful top iss seen through desert plants in The Outwaters.

Image: Cinedigm

Run time: 1h 50m
Director: Robbie Banfitch
Cast: Robbie Banfitch, Angela Basolis, Scott Schamell

The OutwatersThis is a movie made from found footage about friends who disappear while visiting the Mojave desert. While most found footage is more about the horror you don’t see and the mysteriousness of the disappearances of the characters,The Outwaters prefers to keep its violence front and center, putting together what’s sure to be one of the gnarliest horror movies of the year with incredible-looking blood and guts. On top of that, the movie’s full of disconcerting images and creepy cosmic horror — at least when it’s bright enough for you to see what’s going on. —AG

The Outwaters: How terrifying is that?

Score for total scariness: 9/10

The OutwatersPrime Video via Screambox is free for anyone with a Hoopla library card, digital rental, purchase, or use of the video for your own personal entertainment. Amazon, AppleGoogle Play Vudu.

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