Ah, horror, our most beautiful, freaky, and misunderstood genre. IGN is full of horror nerds that love and celebrate it every chance we get, and since the Oscars seem to have so much trouble giving films in the genre their due, we’ll just have to step in and do it ourselves. After debating the topic in a spooky cabin in the woods, our staff members have cast their votes, and now it’s time to reveal IGN’s pick for the best horror movie of 2023.
Horror movies have been produced for nearly as long as the medium’s been around and there’s a good reason for that - audiences love being scared and they keep coming back for more. Plus, they’re relatively cheap to make, and that leads to some really exciting “Little Murder Engine That Could” narratives when they take off unexpectedly. Skinamarink kicked off 2023, a liminal nightmare directed by Kyle Edward Ball which raked in a $2 million box office haul off of a $15,000 budget… a roughly 13,000% return on investment. Blumhouse saw similar success more recently, with the long-awaited Five Nights at Freddy’s adaptation defying expectations, middling reviews, and a day-and-date release on Peacock to gross over $136 million against its $20 million budget. So we know horror’s a relatively safe bet at the box office, but what’s less sure is whether they’ll be any good or not.
Our nominees this year represent a wide breadth of the genre’s offerings this year, all of which happen to feature up-and-coming filmmakers who are ensuring that we’ve got a very terrifying next generation of horror to look forward to. We’re going to run through the runner-ups that got a decent chunk of the vote and then reveal the one horror movie that took it all home.
You can view the results by flipping through the slideshow gallery below or keep scrolling to read them as an article.
Runner-Up: M3GAN
A modern take on the Child’s Play premise “What if your doll was a psycho killer?”, M3GAN danced her way to social media stardom and, with a sequel already greenlit, has cemented herself as a modern horror movie icon in short order. Directed by Gerald Johnstone (Housebound), the titular robot bestie imprints on her creator’s young niece, and the bond that grows between the two quickly becomes a convincing case for instituting screen time rules for your kids… at least their tablets won’t run you through with a katana if you try to turn them off. Probably. Boasting a character design which benefits from a mix of practical performance and CG affectations, M3GAN’s arrival was wonderfully timed to all of 2023’s AI advancements, and her freaky gymnastics and dead-eyed glare may give you pause by the time Google and Apple start trying to convince you to adopt a little AI buddy of your own.
Screenwriter Akela Cooper does great work balancing M3GAN’s horror and self-aware comedy, a clear step forward from 2021’s tonally turbulent Malignant - she even notched another big horror hit in 2023, with both story and script credits on The Nun II. M3GAN took about a fifth of the total IGN staff vote in this category - more than all of our honorable mentions (listed at the end of this article) combined - but as strong as first impressions here were, our first runner up pulled ahead by just a couple votes.
Runner-Up: Scream VI
With another fifth of the vote, Scream VI continues the franchise’s modern renaissance by moving the action to New York City, a true rite of passage for any long-running horror series. Directing team Radio Silence return after helming the fifth film, continuing their efforts to weave the stories of the legacy cast and new stars together into a new generation of masked mayhem. Scream VI goes harder than any before in its meta commentary, turning that high-powered perception slightly away from the horror genre at large and back onto itself in a way that felt true to fans’ expectations for the series to evolve with the times.
While franchise star Neve Campbell’s absence is an undeniable sore spot, the return of Scream vets Courteney Cox and Hayden Panettiere proved a success, as did the choice to keep its protagonists grouped together rather than splitting them up for the middle of the movie. And, of course, Scream VI takes full advantage of its New York City setting, playing up the claustrophobia inherent in packed subway trains and tiny apartments alike. It’s one of the best Scream movies yet… but our winner’s less interested in screaming and more on talking.
Winner: Talk to Me
It started, as many horror stories do, with whispers. Not out of the dark, but from somewhere even more terrifying: film festivals. Audiences were getting their first taste of Danny and Michael Philippou’s directorial debut, and anyone who doubted the RackaRacka guys were invited to grab a mummified hand, say “talk to me,” and have the doubt and the sh*t scared right out of them. Talk to Me is a stellar arrival for the Philippou brothers on the big screen, a genuinely well-crafted tale of ghosts and grief, and IGN’s runaway Best Horror Movie of 2023 with almost half of our vote, more than both runners-up combined.
Talk to Me borrows from the frameworks of The Monkey’s Paw and the Bloody Mary urban legend with its central MacGuffin: a disembodied, chalk-white hand which serves as a conduit to communicate with the spirits of the dead, a volatile gambit which requires the utmost care in order not to give the spirits an opportunity to wreak havoc through those that have reached out to them. Too bad the kids in possession of that hand are exploiting it for social media glory! The increasing carelessness with which the characters treat this powerful curio serves as an excellent metaphor for the dangers of substance abuse, especially in the face of the grief that lead character Mia is processing. Talk to Me’s exploration of these themes is nuanced and challenging, and provides an incredibly strong structure for the Philippous to ramp up tension throughout the film.
If you’ve ever spent any time watching RackaRacka videos on YouTube, you’ll know these brothers are total livewires, a pair of Aussie backyard wrestlers with seemingly bottomless energy, but the restraint and patience with which Talk to Me unfolds is utterly unbearable at times and makes the moments of explosive and disturbing violence absolutely sing. Performances are likewise strong all around, with Mia actress Sophie Wilde in particular making quite the impact in her first feature film appearance. And there’s a lot to be said for nailing your opening and closing scenes, and those that bookend Talk to Me each leave an indelible, foreboding impression.
Let's give Talk to Me a hand for being IGN’s pick for the best horror movie of 2023! Just, maybe, you know… not that hand.
Honorable Mentions
- Evil Dead Rise
- When Evil Lurks
- Totally Killer
