# Horror Movie Thread - October 2023 Edition

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/horror-movie-thread-october-2023-edition/991754>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** movies\
**Created:** [October 18, 2023, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/horror-movie-thread-october-2023-edition/991754 "2023-10-18T14:28:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2023, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/horror-movie-thread-october-2023-edition/991754/1 "2023-10-18T14:28:44Z")

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'Tis the season! I thought it’d be fun to start a thread discussing the current state of all things horror: tropes, favorite types of horror movies, recent (or classic) horror movies we’ve seen and can recommend, etc. I’ll get things started!

**Criminally overused horror tropes that need to be retired:**

- Character closes door of bathroom medicine cabinet. _Eeeeek_– there’s a scary thing in the mirror right behind character! They turn around and nothing’s there.
- Main character has something horrible happen to them by the Scary Thing early on in the movie. Wow, that’s a twist! But _ **psych** _! It was just a nightmare. This is such a hoary old trope that the ‘double nightmare’ fakeout where they seemingly wake up, but it’s still a nightmare, is also a trope.
- Jump scare turns out to just be a cat. ROWRRR!

**Favorite types of horror movies:**

I much prefer the creepy psychological horror movies to blood and guts slashers, though I’ll watch an occasional slasher movie. I have a nostalgic sweet spot for rewatching the 80s slashers.

I like the occasional horror-comedy; it’s very difficult to successfully combine those two genres; If it’s a failure you have a movie that’s neither scary nor funny. But when it is successful it can work very well, especially if the humor is in the form of social satire.

**Recent horror movies:**

I’ve only seen 5 movies from the below AVClub list of The best horror movies of 2023, but I’ve seen a few more of these on our streaming subscriptions, or as DVD rentals at the library, which I want to watch. The 5 I have seen are:

- **M3GAN** - A horror-comedy with elements of social satire I thought worked very well, and I enjoyed.
- **No One Will Save You** - An odd alien invasion movie with virtually zero dialogue. A strange stylistic choice. Still not sure if I liked it or not.
- **The Boogeyman** - Just watched this one last weekend. Well-made, but pretty derivative of several other horror movies, I thought.
- **Knock At The Cabin** - OK for an M. Night Shyamalan movie (I realize that’s a low bar).
- **The Pope’s Exorcist** - I saw this on library DVD rental or streaming several months ago. I was surprised it was a 2023 movie. I seem to remember enjoying it at the time, but I remember virtually nothing about it now, for whatever that means.

> **[The best horror movies of 2023 (Halloween edition)](https://www.avclub.com/the-best-horror-movies-of-2023-1850375041/slides/23)**
>
> From Scream VI and M3gan to Evil Dead Rise and The Blackening, it's been a horrifically good year for scary movies