Is 'M3GAN' or 'Skinamarink' better?

(Image credit: Paramount Pictures / Spyglass Media Group)

published 13 March 2023

Just a few months in, 2023 is already shaping up to be a strong year for horror. January alone delivered a new horror icon, an acclaimed pandemic-themed slasher, and a low-budget experimental film that had all of TikTok sleeping with the lights on. Since then, we've also gotten well-reviewed new entries into not one, but two of the most iconic horror franchises of all time.

Here's our guide — which will be updated throughout the year — to the horror films critics say are worth checking out in 2023, ranked in ascending order of greatness:

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The movie, from director John Swab, is instead a gross, grimy grindhouse slasher — think of it as the 2023 equivalent of last year's X, though it never quite reaches the heights of that Texas Chain Saw Massacre throwback. Candy Land revolves around a group of truck-stop sex workers who take in a young woman, Remy, from a religious cult after she is seemingly abandoned. Remy is trained in becoming a "lot lizard" like them, but as the film explores the dangers of extreme religious devotion, it becomes clear not all is what it seems, and people start turning up dead.

Candy Land feels like it's pulled straight out of the 1970s — complete with old-school wipe transitions — and it isn't afraid to lean into trashy exploitation territory with plenty of gory kills, explicit sex, and morally reprehensible people. But what makes the movie stand out is that Swab treats all the sex worker characters compassionately, depicting their jobs as legitimate work and the group as its own sort of family. The film shines "a light on a world that many look down upon" and, in the process, makes viewers "fall in love with its imperfect characters," Dread Central's Mary Beth McAndrews notes. Indeed, the leads are likable and sharply drawn, not mere caricatures, and Olivia Luccardi's Remy is especially compelling.

Swab captures the dinginess of the film's locale and ensures the truck stop always feels like a real place with a history, and there's something oddly engrossing about learning the ins and outs of an operation that these characters have down to a science. The bloody kill scenes also look impressive for a film that clearly doesn't have the biggest budget in the world. While "less conceptually adventurous" than Ti West's X and its prequel Pearl, the film is "not without its fair share of pleasurable nastiness," writes The New York Times' Beatrice Loayza.

The Peacock original follows two young girls who quarantine at a lake house during the COVID-19 pandemic, only to find themselves terrorized by a masked killer. Williamson, the writer behind the Scream series, co-wrote and produced the film, and you can see the DNA of that franchise on display, especially when it comes to the nail-biting chase sequences. Much like Scream, a highlight is a tense faceoff with the killer in the cold open, which plays out mostly in one continuous shot. After that exhilarating start, Sick takes some time to kick back into motion. But once it does, it never slows down even for a second, making for a propulsive second half that provides a "white knuckle adrenaline rush," Bloody Disgusting's Joe Lipsett wrote. If you were one of those Scream fans disappointed by the lack of great chase scenes in the 2022 revival, look no further than Sick.

The movie really leans into the COVID of it all, and the pandemic isn't just a backdrop or something that's quickly brushed aside like at the start of Glass Onion. Not only do we see real news broadcasts featuring Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, but the story is fundamentally about life during lockdown, so much so that it couldn't have been told in a pre-pandemic world. A third-act reveal, in particular, makes that clear, and is what differentiates Sick from every other home invasion thriller of its kind. By the end, Williamson uses the pandemic to speak to our current cultural moment, much like he did with Scream, helping Sick to ultimately serve "as an amusing time capsule for the collective fear that has seized us these past three years," Variety's Peter Debruge said.

On the popular film podcast Blank Check, hosts Griffin Newman and David Sims discuss the phenomenon of directors becoming so successful that studios are willing to greenlight virtually any project from them, even ones other filmmakers would struggle to get off the ground. In recent Hollywood history, there may be no greater example of a so-called "blank check" movie than Ari Aster's Beau Is Afraid. After the filmmaker delivered A24 two back-to-back hits with Hereditary and Midsommar, it's evident he has been let off the leash with his third movie and given total creative control. The result is a wholly unique fever dream of a film unlike anything else out there, which will resonate with certain viewers and baffle just as many.

Joaquin Phoenix stars as Beau Wassermann, a man dealing with crippling anxiety who goes on a strange journey home to his mother, and much of the movie plays out like a comically exaggerated spoof of catastrophic thinking. You know all those dark, worst-case scenario thoughts that run through your head when you suffer from anxiety? Well, Aster imagines a world in which every single one of these possible tragedies, from oversleeping before a flight to someone stealing your keys, happen constantly to a single person. Beau lives in a cartoon universe that seems like it's controlled by off-screen movie gods conspiring to make him miserable through a variety of totally preposterous situations, and in a dark sort of way, this makes for one of the most weirdly hilarious movies of 2023. "It often feels like Greek tragedy filtered through Looney Tunes," Peter Travers observed at ABC News.

Genre fans should be warned that Beau Is Afraid doesn't deliver traditional horror in the same way Hereditary and Midsommar did and features virtually no overt scares, though it captures the eerie feeling of living through a nightmare thanks to its otherworldly dream logic. At a whopping three hours, the film may be too unwieldy for its own good, as it trails off somewhat after a killer first hour. Still, in an age of safe franchise installments, seeing a director so willing to alienate viewers so he can deliver a singular cinematic vision is thrilling.

Is there any horror franchise with as much tonal whiplash between entries as Evil Dead? The series started by offering fairly straight-faced, nasty horror with Sam Raimi's 1981 original, only to progress into something like a live-action cartoon by embracing goofy slapstick comedy in Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness. Then, the 2013 remake returned to grisly horror, only for the TV series Ash vs Evil Dead to bring back the comedy. The latest barf-inducing entry, Evil Dead Rise, is more tonally in line with the 1981 original and 2013 remake, but this time, the traditional cabin in the woods setting has been abandoned. The film instead moves the madness to an apartment complex and focuses on the relationship between Beth (Lily Sullivan) and her sister, Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), who becomes possessed after her children find the Book of the Dead in their building.

Like its predecessor, Evil Dead Rise is a relentless, gross movie overflowing with vomit, buckets of blood, and visceral gore that will leave audiences wincing in their seats. In other words, it's precisely what Evil Dead devotees have been craving. "When the shocks come, they ramp up with frightening frequency," Clint Worthington noted at Consequence. Some fans may be left wanting more of the signature Raimi silliness, but there are occasional bursts of the kind of humor associated with Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness. The cartoonish gags are few and far between, but more present than in the 2013 remake. Lily Sullivan makes for a strong heroine, but Alyssa Sutherland is the film's MVP, delivering one of the most terrifying performances in the series.

A few of Evil Dead Rise's most memorable moments can be a bit too reminiscent of the best gags from Evil Dead's past, so the film sometimes comes across like an effective greatest hits compilation more than anything else. But moving to an apartment building does prevent it from feeling like a complete rehash, even if the new setting isn't always fully utilized the way it could have been. After all, once the bloody action gets going, the events play out fairly similar to the way they might have in an isolated cabin. Still, while it does little that's radically new for the series, Evil Dead devotees are sure to find Rise more groovy than not.

Namely, while 2022's Scream delivered few truly great chase scenes, Scream VI goes above and beyond with some of the most nerve-shredding set pieces of the series. This makes for a far scarier film than the last one, and moving the action to New York City helps keep this long-running franchise fresh. Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett fully utilize the setting for unique scares that couldn't have been accomplished back in Woodsboro, and one involving a ladder is an instant all-timer. "Some of the set pieces in this chapter will take your breath away," IGN's Amelia Emberwing noted. After the 2022 movie skimped on developing some of its characters, it's also refreshing to see Scream VI slow down and take more time to flesh out the "core four," especially Tara (Jenna Ortega) and Chad (Mason Gooding). The film "never forgets to put enough meat on the bones of the ensemble cast's characters," The Playlist's Simon Thompson points out.

On the flip side, two of the strongest aspects of the previous Scream, the smart meta commentary and the whodunit mystery, are a bit lacking here. The 2022 film was filled with razor-sharp observations about legacy sequels, movie culture, and online fandom, but Scream VI has less new to say. Its satirization of film franchises isn't too distinct from what the series has already covered, and it only skims the surface of the tropes of "requel sequels." The identity of the killer is also easier to guess than last time, and the motive isn't as unique or incisive as the fifth film's toxic fan angle. If the template is something like Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Scream VI could have used more of that movie's willingness to subvert expectations and take audiences in bold new directions. The desire to blow up the Scream formula is present in a jaw-dropping cold open, but less so after that. The film also sometimes pulls its punches in a way that can undermine the stakes.

But unlike Paranormal Activity, Skinamarink plays out more like an experimental art project than a traditional narrative feature. It's all about maintaining a sickeningly evil tone and is comparable to a feature-length Creepypasta, but there's little in the way of plot or even characters; we almost never see the kids, but simply hear them whispering to one another, and much of the movie just consists of still shots of hallways, doors, and floors shot from low angles. For some audiences, this "no plot, just vibes" style gets tiring, creating a painfully slow viewing experience — as evidenced by the 44 percent audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

But those who fell into Skinamarink's twisted trance have walked away shaken. Ball's aim is to capture that bone-chilling sensation of being a child and waking up in the middle of the night with the petrifying sense that something is lurking around the corner. It might be the closest any movie has come to depicting the experience of having a nightmare on screen. Like a bad dream, it's strange, abstract, and sometimes nonsensical, but oppressively eerie in a way that leaves you begging to wake up. Collider's Chase Hutchinson described the "orchestra of abject horror" as "one of the decade's most exciting cinematic visions," while The A.V. Club's Matthew Jackson raved the "singularly nightmarish piece of horror filmmaking" is "one of the year's must-see genre films," and Pajiba's Jason Adams said, "To be quite frank I wasn't sure that I even could be this scared by a movie anymore."

M3GAN became an internet obsession as soon as its trailer dropped in October, due in large part to the title character's goofy pre-murder dance. Thankfully, that's precisely the tone the movie is going for, mixing comedy and horror to make for a laugh riot that's always in on the joke. BuzzFeed News' Izzy Ampil noted M3GAN is "both weirder and funnier than expected even after months of hype," though, coming from the writer of the gloriously wacky Malignant, we should have expected nothing less. But this isn't a "turn off your brain to enjoy the ride" situation: M3GAN still tells a solid, if familiar, cautionary tale about the dangers of becoming overly reliant on technology in raising kids, and it doesn't gloss over fleshing out its characters merely because it knows we're all just here for some laughs.

If there's a downside to M3GAN, it's the studio's decision to opt for a PG-13 rating rather than an R, which left some feeling like it was skimping on the blood during the kill scenes in a distracting way; this "dulls the edges of some of the more memorable sequences that might have benefited from even more gore," Derek Smith argued at Slant. But a bloodier, uncut cut has since been made available on Peacock. Even with the original version, though, most critics felt the PG-13 rating isn't a deal-breaker because in this case, M3GAN's personality is the star of the show. The film understands how absurdly funny it is to see this well-dressed, American Girl doll-esque robot acting like an unpredictable nut, and when she randomly delivers a lullaby performance of "Titanium" like a weird little creep, it has the crowd hooting and hollering more than any gory kill could.

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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.