Horror Movies

Horror Movie Package!

Reviews of the scary movies from 2023. All the takes are different, but very thought-provoking.

Film 1: Five Nights at Freddys

How did a point-and-click indie horror game become one of the biggest multimedia sensations of the last decade? No jump scare could be more surprising than the sheer runaway success of Five Nights at Freddy's. At the same time, it's not so hard to see what the fuss is about. The first game especially is a novel and ingenious assault on the nerves. Set in an abandoned Chuck E. Cheese-style pizzeria where the animatronic attractions lurch to life at night, the original FNaF drew its cruel power from how helpless it left the player feeling. You have no weapons, no escape route, nothing but a limited range of defensive actions, all linked to a rapidly depleting power source. It was an exercise in nightmare minimalism – a surveillance simulator of doom. The fanbase was deserved, if still unfathomably massive.

Film 2: The Exorcist: Believer

There have been a bunch of Exorcist installments in the intervening 50 years, some more successful than others. The Exorcist: Believer, the newest film in the franchise, is meant to operate as a loose sequel to the 1973 original. Director David Gordon Green claims the rest of the films “fall into the acceptable mythology” of his new film (though their events aren’t mentioned in the movie). Should it be successful, Believer is planned as the start of a trilogy sequel-reboot of the series, much like the Halloween films that were released between 2018 and 2022. (Green helmed those too, along with writers Danny McBride and Scott Teems, who return for this film.)

As a film, it’s at best serviceable, stronger in its world-building than in its climactic exorcism and nowhere near as unnerving as the original. Yet Believer is a fascinating artifact of 2023. It highlights in myriad ways how much the world has changed since the original’s release. Hollywood isn’t the same, and neither is American religious culture.

Film 3: Knock at the Cabin

I don't know why I keep on falling for it. I keep on watching movies by M Night Shyamalan, and continue to hope to walk away with the excitement and awe I felt when I watched movies like The Sixth Sense, Signs, and The Visit. Instead, I keep on walking away shaking my head, thinking about the lost potential and opportunity. He continues to have very interesting ideas with very poor execution. The concept of this movie is excellent. The directorial choices, the storyline, the decisions made by characters were to be honest with you kind of blah. I didn't care enough about any of the characters to really care what happened to them. For a director that's known for his plot twists, this movie sure could've used one.

Film 4: Nun

The creepy, somber mood, so expertly established in The Nun‘s early scenes, doesn’t last: Once everyone gets to the abbey, the film simply gives up the ghost and cynically indulges every horror trick in the book. Hands burst through doors and grab people; crosses magically turn upside down; nuns go flying or are set aflame. Along the way, we are inundated with creepy reflections and figures plunging out of the darkness and, of course, those obligatory oh-god-what’s-that-over-your-shoulder shots. A little of this stuff goes a long way, and a lot of this stuff doesn’t go very long at all. True horror requires anticipation to work properly, but it’s hard to anticipate anything when everything’s already being thrown at us. The dread dissipates. Our screams become nothing but weary sighs.