Last year was a great year for horror. It gave us the return of Ghostface, along with iconic performances from Keke Palmer, Jenna Ortega, Mia Goth and Rachel Sennott, and of course the rise of cannibal love, boomer serial killers, terrifying clowns and menacing deadly smiles. But don’t worry, 2023 has an impressive lineup of movies to rival it.
They’re filled with gory, disturbing and twisted scenes you’ll never be able to unsee, and we’ve listed all the ones worth seeing and their release dates below. Some trends in the upcoming offering? More reboots of legendary supernatural classics, bears going on murderous rampages, Euphoria stars in their scream queen era and a baby-voiced Mia Goth once again being unhinged and iconic. What more could you want?
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M3GAN
Iconic AI robotic doll M3GAN goes on a genocidal rampage to kill anyone who gets in the way of her owner, the orphaned and lonely Katie, and in the process becomes a gay icon. Need we say more?
Release date: 6 January 2023
Skinamarink
This directorial debut from Kyle Edward Ball is, in our opinion, the scariest horror film to premiere last year. The movie, now being released on Shudder, plays on both shocking jumpscares and a lingering air of malevolence that will leave you deeply disturbed. It tells the tale of two children who wake up in the night to discover their dad has disappeared, as have all the doors and windows of their house. The frightened children spend the rest of the movie seeking protection in the darkness, but find themselves left alone with a croaking voice coming from the shadows, inviting them to commit dark and violent acts against themselves.
Release date: 13 January 2023
Sick
Another pandemic era horror finally getting a release date, this Peacock Original movie from Scream (1996) writer Kevin Williamson follows two best friends who get Covid and decide to quarantine together at a lake house. But in retribution for trying to have fun while the rest of us were stuck inside making TikTok coffees, the girls find themselves stalked by a masked-up killer.
Release date: 13 January 2023
Missing
Created as part of the same universe as Run (2020) and Searching (2018), the editors of those movies have directed mystery thriller Missing. Set entirely over video calls, DMs and Google searches on a laptop screen, We watch as June (Euphoria’s Storm Reid) tries to find her missing mum (Nia Long of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air fame) and in the process discovers a life her mother has been hiding from her all this time.
Release date: 20 January 2023
Alone At Night
Originally only available to watch when you purchased a $263 NFT in the summer of 2022, this porn slasher movie starring Pretty Little Liars actress Ashley Benson alongside an iconic lineup of Sky Ferreira, Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson will finally get a (limited) cinematic release.
Release date: 20 January 2023
Infinity Pool
From Brandon Cronenberg, son of the famed master of body horror, comes this gruesome sci-fi thriller about an island resort with dark and morbid secrets lying outside its walls. Come for Alexander Skarsgård on a leather leash, stay for Mia Goth’s unhinged behaviour and surprisingly real accent.
Release date: 27 January 2023
Knock at the Cabin
An adaptation of the novel The Cabin At The End Of The World, this M.Night Shyamalan psychological apocalyptic horror follows a couple played by Ben Aldridge (Fleabag) and Jonathan Groff (Glee), and their adopted child, all staying at a cabin that is intruded by a group of cultish doomsday-truthers (played by wrestler Dave Bautista, Nikki Amuka-Bird (Old), Abby Quinn (Black Mirror) and Rupert Grint. The unlikely crew hold the family hostage until they decide which one of them will be their sacrifice to stop the end of the world.
Release date: 3 February 2023
The Outwaters
In this terrifying found footage horror (that has already built up a cult following after showing at various film festivals) four friends head out to the Mojave Desert in California to film a music video. But as the shoot is disturbed by strange noises and manic animals, it soon becomes clear something much more malevolent is going on.
Release date: 7 February 2023
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey
After the characters in beloved children’s stories Winnie-The-Pooh went into public domain at the beginning of last year — meaning they were no longer owned by Disney — Rhys Frake-Waterfield decided to make the most of it. Thus: his directorial debut with this absolutely deranged slasher. With Christopher Robin having forgotten about his cuddly childhood besties when he went to college, Pooh and Piglet have gone feral, eating all their other friends and now seeking vengeance on Christopher, his girlfriend and a group of party girls holidaying in a nearby cabin. Cute!
Release date: 15 February 2023
Cocaine Bear
This movie directed by Elizabeth Banks is based on a true story (no, really!) about a black bear (later dubbed Pablo Eskobear) that ingested an entire duffle bag full of cocaine in 1985. In reality, the bear overdosed, died and was later turned into a stuffed display at a shopping mall. But in this comedy thriller the script is flipped; the bear goes on a murderous slasher rampage of a small Georgia town as the locals unite to fight against its pinging wrath.
Release date: 24 February 2023
Scream VI
The sixth movie in the iconic slasher movie franchise, originally created by the late Wes Craven, is the first to not feature protagonist and scream queen final girl Sidney Prescott. Instead, returning from the previous movie – and being terrorised by Ghostface in the streets of New York City – is Courtney Cox, Wednesday star Jenna Ortega, Melissa Barrera, Yellowjackets’ Jasmin Savoy-Brown and Booksmart’s Mason Gooding. There’s also the return of Hayden Panettiere (Scream 4) and new addition Samara Weaving (The Babysitter).
Release date: 10 March 2023
Reinfeld
If there was anyone who was born to play centuries-old Transylvanian vampire Dracula, it’s Nic Cage. But this horror-comedy based on the original Bram Stoker books actually follows Reinfeld (played by Nicholas Hoult), Dracula’s tired assistant and victim provider who seeks out a new life in New Orleans and subsequently falls in love with a traffic cop (Awkwafina). However, The Count is not as ready to let go.
Release date: 14 April 2023
Beau Is Afraid
Ari Aster, director of two of the most popular recent slow burn horror movies, Hereditary and Midsommar, brings his new disturbing decade-spanning epic Beau is Afraid. It stars Joaquin Phoenix as a man run over by a crazed couple, who later finds himself trapped in their house. Spiralling and tripping, to escape he must come to terms with his childhood traumas and deepest fears.
Release date: 21 April 2023
Run Rabbit Run
From The Handmaid’s Tale director Daina Reid and starring Succession actress Sarah Snook comes this twisted story set to stream on Netflix about a fertility doctor with a staunch view on life and death. Her worldview is challenged when she starts noticing new, disturbing behaviour in her daughter and is forced to confront haunting memories from her own past.
Release date: 28 June 2023
The Boogeyman
An adaptation of the short story of the same name by Stephen King from 1973, The Boogeyman follow two sisters — one played by Yellowjackets’ Sophie Thatcher — whose house has been haunted by a sadistic presence lurking in their wardrobes and under their beds while they sleep. If the trailer is anything to go by, the movie is guaranteed to keep you up at night staring at the oddly-shaped shadows in your room.
Release date: 2 June 2023
The Blackening
Playing on the trope that the Black character is always the first to die in a horror movie, this meta comedy horror movie follows an all-Black group of friends at a cabin in the woods being terrorised by a masked killer.
Release date: 16 June 2023
Insidious: Fear of the Dark
The fifth movie in the Insidious franchise revisits Josh and Dalton Lambert (Patrick Wilson and Ty Simpkins), the father and son with a gift for astral projection, as well as Josh’s wife Renai (Rose Byrne) 10 years after we left them in Insidious: Chapter 2. While much of the plot is still under wraps, a statement from Sony reads that when Josh takes his son off to uni, “Dalton’s college dream becomes a nightmare when the repressed demons of his past suddenly return to haunt them both.” Get ready for more lipstick-face demon jumpscares!
Release date: 7 July 2023
Haunted Mansion
Who remembers the creepy Disney movie The Haunted Mansion? Starring Eddie Murphy, the 2003 film was inspired by a fright-filled gothic house ride of the same name in Disneyworld. Well, 20 years later comes a reboot comes. This time, the story is about a single mum and her son looking for a new life who decide to move into a strangely affordable mansion. They quickly realise, of course, why it is so affordable. The all-star cast is made up of Rosario Dawson, LaKeith Stanfield, Owen Wilson, Tiffany Haddish, Winona Ryder, Danny DeVito, Jared Leto, Dan Levy and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Release date: 28 July 2023
Talk To Me
A creepy, incredibly-violent Aussie horror from A24, the movie follows a group of teens who’s new party game is a mysterious sculpture of a hand that allows them to contact, and temporarily be inhabited, by the dead. Naturally, the teens hedonism turns dangerous when one of the undead souls is hiding a more nefarious plan.
Release date: 28 July 2023
All Fun and Games
Playing on the old mantra “it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt”, a group of siblings (two of whom are played by Asa Butterfield (Sex Education) and Natalie Dyer (Stranger Things)) are caught up in deadly children’s games such as tag, hangman, flashlight and Simon Says (how very Squid Game) but with a demonic twist.
Release date: 1 September 2023
The Nun 2
Four years after pious nun Sister Irene, played by Taissa Farmiga, banished the demonic spirit of Valak from a monastery, she finds herself once again praying with all her might to fight the malevolent force once more. Also starring is Euphoria’s Storm Reid, Anna Popplewell (The Chronicles of Narnia) and Jonas Bloquet, who played the hot French local Frenchie in the first movie.
Release date: 8 September 2023
The Exorcist: Believer
This is the first of three movies from Jason Blum and David Gordon Green (who directed the new generation of Halloween movies) set to revive the legendary 70s supernatural horror. The opening instalment will act as a direct sequel to the 1973 movie, and will see Ellen Burstyn reprise her role as Chris, the mother of the possessed Reagan. Leslie Odom Jr. will also star in a yet undisclosed role.
Release date: 13 October 2023
Saw X
Evil puppet Jigsaw returns for some more deadly fun and games and twisty puzzles in the tenth movie in the Saw franchise ready to terrorise a whole new crowd.
Release date: 27 October 2023
Five Nights at Freddy’s
Based on the popular video game, this supernatural horror follows the staff and visitors of an amusement park who discover that the cutesy animatronic mascots become ruthless killers coming after anyone in the park after midnight. Produced by Blumhouse, it stars Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games), Elizabeth Lail (You) and Mathew Lillard (Scream), who has shared he’s signed on to do three movies, the other two adaptations of the second and third games in the franchise.
Release date: 27 October 2023
Thanksgiving
Addison Rae goes from it girl to horror scream queen in this festive slasher by Eli Roth. Following a Black Friday travesty, a puritan-costumed serial killer named John Carver looks to create a carving board out of the locals of this Massachusetts town, and Addison and her friends have seemingly been invited to sit at the table.
Release date: 17 November 2023
Cuckoo
Starring Euphoria actor and i-D cover icon Hunter Schafer, not a lot is currently known about this Tilman Singer movie other than it follows a 17-year-old girl called Gretchen who moves to an alpine resort after her mother’s death and finds herself being followed by a mysterious and creepy woman. The movie wrapped filming in July 2022 though and so fingers crossed it won’t be too long until we can see Hunter’s scream queen debut in cinemas.
Release date: TBD 2023
Salem’s Lot
Top Gun: Maverick star Lewis Pullman leads this adaptation of Stephen King’s 1975 novel which tells the story of a creatively drained writer seeking inspiration. As part of that search he returns to his hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine. But while there he finds the area is being ravaged by a powerful, ancient vampire looking to turn all the locals into a colony of bloodsuckers.
Release date: TBD 2023
The Deliverance
A Netflix horror thriller based on the true-case of the demonic possession of the Ammons family. In 2011, a woman, her preteen kids and her mother moved into a house in Gary, Indiana, only for them to find it plagued by swarms of black flies, boot prints and shadowy male figures lurking in the corners and claimed powerful forces were violently pushing, harming and levitating the children. This upcoming movie reunites The United States vs Billie Holiday director Lee Daniel and star Andra Day alongside Mo’Nique, Caleb McLaughlin (Stranger Things) and Glen Close.
Release date: TBD 2023
This article was originally published on 30 January 2023 and has since been updated.