The Halloween season is almost here, which means a hectic Fall release schedule filled with horror looms just around the corner. Some of the year’s biggest horror releases are still ahead, including The Nun II, Saw X, The Exorcist: Believer, and Five Nights at Freddy’s.
Of course, they join countless movies already released these past eight months. As always, many titles might’ve slipped through the cracks, despite being available to stream now.
Whether you’re looking to get ahead on curating Halloween watchlists or catching up on 2023 horror before the year is through, here are twenty 2023 releases you can stream right now.
65 – Netflix
A high concept sci-fi effort from Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the writers behind A Quiet Place and writers/directors of Haunt. Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblatt star as the unlucky pair that find themselves on a hostile planet filled with creatures and obstacles. Driver takes his role seriously in this straightforward, polished sci-fi adventure filled with dinosaur mayhem.
Cocaine Bear – Prime Video
Cocaine Bear, directed by Elizabeth Banks.
A title like Cocaine Bear speaks for itself. It sums up the premise, but perhaps more importantly, it suggests an outrageous tone with energy to match. While drawing from the 1985 true crime account that left cocaine scattered across the wilderness and both a bear and the drug smuggler responsible dead, Cocaine Bear finds highly entertaining ways to fill in those story gaps with glorious violence, humor, and an incisive depiction of humanity at its best and worst.
Enys Men – Hulu
In the spring of 1973, The Volunteer (Mary Woodvine) spends each day on an uninhabited island of the British coast adhering to a specific routine. However, as the April days approach May, The Volunteer’s monotony gets upended by strange visions that increase with haunting regularity. The old, familiar adage defining insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result feels at home in writer/director Mark Jenkin’s abstract folk horror feature.
Evil Dead Rise – Max
Writer/Director Lee Cronin transports the familiar franchise cabin setting to a Los Angeles high-rise apartment to plunge a family into Deadite hell. In Cronin’s attempts to forge new ground, the filmmaker always retains sight of what makes an Evil Dead movie, well, Evil Dead. The filmmaker pays tribute to the features that came before through iconic camera work, quotable lines, hero shots, beloved weaponry, and an admirable commitment to spilling the most blood possible. But it’s Alyssa Sutherland’s absolutely demented performance as the central Deadite foe that steals the movie.
Family Dinner – SCREAMBOX
Writer/Director Peter Hengl’s feature debut combines the discomfort and cringe of awkward family dynamics at the dinner table with Easter holiday folk horror. Fifteen-year-old Simi (Nina Katlein) arrives at her Aunt Claudia’s (Pia Hierzegger) house just before Easter, hoping to get her aunt’s help to lose weight. Aunt Claudia’s strict caloric restrictions become the least of Simi’s problems when Claudia’s family starts to behave strangely. Easter brings the slow-simmering folk horror to a roaring boil. Fraught psychological dread explodes in violence.
Ghastly Brothers – SCREAMBOX
It’s Ghostbusters meets Beetlejuice in this gateway horror comedy. In the SCREAMBOX exclusive, “Lilith is sent to boarding school where she meets the Ghastly brothers, a pair of strange ghost hunters. Together, they need to rid the school of the demons who have made it their home!” Come for the charming gateway horror fun, but stay for the horror references and nods, including a cameo from Cub director Jonas Govaerts.
Holy Shit! – SCREAMBOX
There’s something extra intense about claustrophobic, single location thrillers and this one will leave you shouting “Holy Shit!” Lukas Rinker’s bonkers black comedy sees an architect locked inside a portable toilet at a construction site that’s equipped to detonate. Expect things to get more than a little weird.
Huesera: The Bone Woman – AMC+, Shudder
When so many pregnancy horror movies isolate the mother-to-be, breeding mistrust from everyone around her, Huesera internalizes it. Refreshingly, it’s less about motherhood and more about the loss of self. Director Michelle Garza Cervera, who co-wrote with Abia Castillo, repurposes a Mexican folktale for a modern tale of maternal fears. Cervera uses the Huesera to create unsettling moments that build tangible dread and suspense. More prominent than the atmosphere, though, is how the haunting figure is employed to crack open main character Valeria’s (Natalia Soliá) psyche and expose repressed emotions and anxieties.
Infinity Pool – Hulu
Writer/Director Brandon Cronenberg returns to the deep well of surreal, grotesque sci-fi horror for his latest. It sees James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) thrown into the deep end of depravity when fellow affluent tourists teach him a loophole to avoid punishment for crimes. It’s not just the shocking escalation or Cronenberg’s approach that keeps Infinity Pool so engaging and occasionally repulsive, but the committed performances by Skarsgård and co-star Mia Goth. The increasingly complex layers added to James and Gabi reveal there’s far more to Infinity Pool than simply the rich eating the rich. Cronenberg’s sense of style, an unrelenting sense of dread and tension, and two utterly captivating, depraved leads ensure these provocative waters are worth wading into.
Kids vs. Aliens – AMC+, Shudder
In Kids vs. Aliens, produced by Bloody Disgusting, Cinepocalypse, and Studio71, Gary (Dominic Mariche) wants to make wrestling home movies with his best buds. Gary’s annoyed that his older sister Samantha (Phoebe Rex) wants to skip their wrestling fun to hang with the cool kids. When the siblings’ parents head out of town on Halloween weekend, a teen house party turns to terror when aliens attack, forcing the siblings to band together to survive the night. Prepare to cheer, “F*ck space!”
Knock at the Cabin – Prime Video
M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin adapts author Paul Tremblay’s Cabin at the End of the World, a grim novel that asks the impossible of its characters with no painless solution. The deceptive simplicity of the source material gives way to existential, moral conundrums in the face of a potential apocalypse. Shyamalan gives his spin on the story, injecting recurring themes of faith and optimism. In other words, expect a vastly different outcome from the source material.
M3GAN – Prime Video
M3GAN reunited producer James Wan and screenwriter Akela Cooper, responsible for 2021’s highly entertaining Malignant, and put Housebound’s Gerard Johnstone at the helm. It resulted in a murderous killer doll with style and dance moves, ensuring the year kicked off with a meme-able horror comedy that had everyone talking.
Project Wolf Hunting – Hi-Yah!, SCREAMBOX
Don’t miss the splatterfest that plays like Con Air meets Jason Takes Manhattan and Predator. In the film, “During transport from the Philippines to South Korea, a group of dangerous criminals unites to stage a coordinated escape attempt. As the jailbreak escalates into a bloody, all-out riot, the fugitives and their allies from the outside exact a brutal terror campaign against the special agents onboard the ship.” Truly, it’s one of the year’s goriest films.
Renfield – Peacock
Director Chris McKay (The Tomorrow War) and writer Ryan Ridley (“Rick and Morty”) bring Universal classic characters Dracula (Nicolas Cage) and Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) into the modern world for a horror-comedy about a toxic relationship between a megalomaniac and his bug-eating servant. McKay unleashes the gore and laughs in spades in his tribute to these classic characters.
Scream VI – Paramount+
Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Scream, Ready or Not) continue their streak of hitting that perfect blend of suspenseful thrills and biting humor. Here the filmmakers up the ante, delivering inventive, edge-of-your-seat set pieces that showcase the urban setting and how savage Ghostface is this round. The kills are merciless and visceral, and the chase sequences are impressive and plentiful. It’s also surprising how this sequel engages with Scream 2 in plot and theme. Dense arcs and themes aside, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett ensure that you’ll never want for entertainment here; it’s a bloody feast for the slasher fan.
Sick – Peacock
It’s hard to believe that 2023 began with a Friday the 13th debut for this timely slasher, written by Kevin Williamson and Katelyn Crabb. John Hyams (Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, “Black Summer”) directed the pandemic-set story that sees two best friends fight for their lives when masked invaders crash their quarantine home. Look for callbacks to Williamson’s previous works and a breathless commitment to suspenseful chase sequences.
The Outwaters – Plex, Roku Channel, SCREAMBOX, Tubi
Despite a familiar initial setup, there’s nothing conventional about found footage nightmare The Outwaters. Nothing will prepare you for the disturbing journey writer/director Robbie Banfitch has in store, either. Banfitch mercilessly lulls viewers with a soothing intro before ripping open a dark abyss beneath them, flinging them into an immersive pit of visceral madness.
Unwelcome – AMC+, Shudder
Grabbers director Jon Wright’s latest blends modernism with Irish mythology. Described in a pitch as “Gremlins meets Straw Dogs,” Unwelcome introduces the far darrig, tiny bloodthirsty fae also dubbed redcaps for their signature red hats. While the early home invasion set up might polarize, the third act goes big on creature feature carnage.
We Have a Ghost – Netflix
We Have A Ghost. (L to R) David Harbour as Ernest, Anthony Mackie as Frank, Jahi Winston as Kevin in We Have A Ghost. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022.
Writer/Director Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day, Freaky) evokes the family-friendly Amblin movies of yesterday for his latest. Wearing its formative gateway horror influences on its sleeves, We Have a Ghost blends nostalgic family adventure-induced charm with Landon’s distinct ability to render authentic characters to an affecting degree. While it threatens to overstay its welcome, the tender adventure delivers ghostly charm, poignant family bonds, and humor that’ll appeal to new generations of budding genre fans.
We Might Hurt Each Other – SCREAMBOX
Lithuania’s first slasher pays tribute to the golden age of the subgenre while infusing an influence from Eastern European folklore. It follows a group of students that find trouble post-graduation when they destroy local folk art. A quick pace, excellent cinematography, surprise turns, and gruesome kills make for a welcome slasher entry.
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