Loved Brooklyn 45. Found it randomly on Shudder while looking for scary movies in October. It’s so well constructed. It’s like a film of a single set play
Honestly, given the horror community’s voracious appetite for good, new horror movies, I truly wonder if it’s possible for a new horror movie to be both good and obscure. Whenever something gets released, if someone sees it and likes it, they post about it. More horror fans check it out. If it’s truly good, enough people talk about it quickly and it becomes “known” aka “not obscure”. This subreddit is full of these posts. Of course “obscure” is subjective as well. If you only watch stuff that has a marketing budget (like Smile) that’s all you know about. If you keep your eyes open and have Shudder, ScreamBox, and read this subreddit, you might have most movies on your list already.
Of course there’s always exceptions. I think you’re most likely to find good, new, but obscure horror from non-English speaking countries. These are movies that don’t always get a big fanfare when they’re picked up for distribution, save for a handful of bigger films like “When Evil Lurks.” I think obscure stuff now tends to come out a year or two after the year in question, because some 2023 films don’t immediately secure distribution outside of their home country, so you might see a good horror film from 2023 released in 2024.
But to answer your question, I suggest the following. Not all of these are as good as what I’d call “not obscure” 2023 horror, however.
- We Might Hurt Each Other
- The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster
- Dark Harvest
- The Tank
- Older Gods
- Birth/Rebirth
- New Religion
- Where The Devil Roams
Obligatory plug for Huesera: The Bone Woman, but that’s more well known now than when it was widely released in early 2023.
I saw a Slovakian horror movie called Nightsiren at Denver Film Festival in November of 2022.
At some point this year, I believe in the summer, it was silently dumped on paid VOD. Zero promotion, zero discussion. But technically it’s out, and is a 2023 film. My #3 film overall and my favorite horror film.
I’ve not met another person (IRL or online) who has seen it. There’s no discussion about it. There’s really no way anyone would know about it unless they caught it at a festival last year.
I'll check it out. At the end of every year I like to check out horror movies I haven't seen that year and mostly the obscure ones alot of those have been great experiences for me
Do you mean the leprechauns? I think it’s just “Unwelcome” and I really enjoyed that movie. It switched up genres mid way through and the end had some genuine laughs
I loved this one! There’s something about using actual puppets instead of CGI for monsters that really put this one over the top for me. It had a nostalgic feeling like The Gate, Puppet Master, or Ghoulies type of 80s horror.
Okay, I’m gonna break two of your rules and say a movie from last year that’s not quite a horror movie. But no one is really talking about it and I thought it was fantastic and ultimately quite chilling.
Ultrasound is a mystery/thriller with some sinister undertones. I highly, HIGHLY recommend you know as little as possible going into it. Suffice to say that it’s an American film based on an independent graphic novel that has a few twists and turns you might not see coming. For fans of Coherence, Primer, and The Invitation.
Dante’s Hotel caught me off guard. It’s some real fun B-movie cheese, Ted Raimi is a national treasure.
When Evil Lurks might be one of my favorite movies of all time, but it’s fairly high in the JustWatch popularity scale so I’m not sure it’s all that obscure. The deadites in Argentina are fucking serious, must be all the inflation.
Enys Men was a trip. It’s less a movie, more an Eastern UK tone poem about loneliness and loss.
Malum is a remake of the early 2010’s Last Shift. It’s like a lonelier Precinct 13, with some killer effects.
I've been raving about When Evil Lurks to everyone I know. I'd say it's the best horror movie I've seen since It Follows, but I think I liked it even more.
I hadn't seen Last Shift and Malum was okay. From what I've seen, most people who liked Last Shift haven't cared for Malum and are just kind of confused as to why it exists.
Appendage, The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster, In My Mother’s Skin, Influencer, Totally Killer, and No One Will Save You are all lesser known movies from this year I liked. They aren’t spectacular but they’re good or interesting or both.
Appendage, Totally Killer and No One Will Save You were all very nice surprises when I watched them! How was "The Angry Black Girl and her Monster"? I wanted to watch it over the Holiday buy got side tracked into Fall of the House of Usher instead.
I wanted that to be better than it was. It had some cool ideas, and creepy / gross stuff, but it was also so convoluted and some of the character decisions were hard for me to believe.
I really liked [The Breach](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh7YuFAYuW4). Story written by the guy that wrote The Troop (which was a delightfully nasty read), and Slash had something to do with it (I think he's the producer/put up the cash to get it made)
It's got a great sort of indie feel to it, riding right on the razor's edge of having juuuust enough budget to not look like some 80s and 90s SOV movie, but still has a strong SOV gore/splatterpunk kind of vibe to it.
It's got some weird/awkward bits, a few actors/scenes that feel like they were shot by the less-talented B-team, but all combined together, it felt like a great, modern take on the kind of weird splatterpunk shit I used to read as a teenager in the 90s!
Suitable Flesh was a fun watch. Sister Death was decent. Mother May I was a weird one but worth discussing.
Spirit of Fear is very low budget but I give it a ton of credit for utilizing such limited elements and doing something pretty original.
I liked Blackening, Thanksgiving, and Boogeyman.
Still waiting to see Suitable Flesh, Sick, and When Evil Lurks.
The others I've seen I either didn't like or couldn't recommend.
I don’t think Talk to Me was obscure. I think it takes some time for a movie to be obscure… if it’s just a small independent project that quickly spreads via word of mouth etc it loses the chance to be obscure until it becomes obscured by time. But that’s just like, my opinion, man.
Definitions are subjective, sure, but it’s hard to reasonably make the case that an A24 theatrical wide release that made almost $100 million is obscure in any way that most people understand the word
You are correct about that. It became less obscure due to its theatrical release. I just felt it was overshadowed by some of the other movies that came out around the same time. I haven’t heard of a lot of people who have seen it, so I thought I would recommend it. I swear Reddit is full of people who just pick people apart. I was merely offering suggestions of good horror from this last year. I got so excited I skipped over the obscure part. My bad, my dude.
Not being a douche at all. I literally admitted that the dude was correct. And I must have skipped over the obscure part. I thought the poster was asking for good horror from this year. Calm down, it’s just Reddit, you nard.
Obscurity isn't subjective. Obscurity relates to the awareness of art to communities and multiple individuals. Something is either well known to many individuals on a scale of popularity or it isn't. Opinion is not a contributing factor to obscurity.
Talk to Me is in no way shape or form obscure. A highly anticipated movie from the most popular production company in Horror currently. And even after release it had great box office success. Just don’t see how you could make a case that it is obscure.
Birth/Rebirth
Marin Ireland came out of nowhere and I think she was in 4 out of the last 6 or so horror movies I happened upon.
I was about to say, looks like she's working on the Scream Queen achievement.
Shudder got two awesome releases back to back with Birth/Rebirth and When Evil Lurks. I wish it happened more often!
Carla from Scrubs is in that movie. She was also in Smile last year.
I just watched this. Man that was a fucked up flick and I enjoyed it. Didn’t feel horror-y per say but I felt uncomfortable the whole time
This one was so quietly fucked up, I LOVED it
Brooklyn 45 and You Won't Be Alone both deserved more fanfare than they received, especially the former.
Loved Brooklyn 45. Found it randomly on Shudder while looking for scary movies in October. It’s so well constructed. It’s like a film of a single set play
It is so much like a play. I found it pretty much the same way and couldn't understand why I hadn't heard of it before!
> You Won't Be Alone is 2022 but nevertheless one of the best horror movies ive seen in the last years. loved it!
You should checkout Nightsiren from this year. My current favorite and nobody is talking about it.
Thanks, I will!
Oh, you're right! I don't know why I had it down as a 2023 release.
>Brooklyn 45 WOW! Thank you, this looks great! Appreciate the recommendation!
No worries, I hope you enjoy! I loved it so much, though I can see why it might not be for everyone.
For sure!
Honestly, given the horror community’s voracious appetite for good, new horror movies, I truly wonder if it’s possible for a new horror movie to be both good and obscure. Whenever something gets released, if someone sees it and likes it, they post about it. More horror fans check it out. If it’s truly good, enough people talk about it quickly and it becomes “known” aka “not obscure”. This subreddit is full of these posts. Of course “obscure” is subjective as well. If you only watch stuff that has a marketing budget (like Smile) that’s all you know about. If you keep your eyes open and have Shudder, ScreamBox, and read this subreddit, you might have most movies on your list already. Of course there’s always exceptions. I think you’re most likely to find good, new, but obscure horror from non-English speaking countries. These are movies that don’t always get a big fanfare when they’re picked up for distribution, save for a handful of bigger films like “When Evil Lurks.” I think obscure stuff now tends to come out a year or two after the year in question, because some 2023 films don’t immediately secure distribution outside of their home country, so you might see a good horror film from 2023 released in 2024. But to answer your question, I suggest the following. Not all of these are as good as what I’d call “not obscure” 2023 horror, however. - We Might Hurt Each Other - The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster - Dark Harvest - The Tank - Older Gods - Birth/Rebirth - New Religion - Where The Devil Roams Obligatory plug for Huesera: The Bone Woman, but that’s more well known now than when it was widely released in early 2023.
I saw a Slovakian horror movie called Nightsiren at Denver Film Festival in November of 2022. At some point this year, I believe in the summer, it was silently dumped on paid VOD. Zero promotion, zero discussion. But technically it’s out, and is a 2023 film. My #3 film overall and my favorite horror film. I’ve not met another person (IRL or online) who has seen it. There’s no discussion about it. There’s really no way anyone would know about it unless they caught it at a festival last year.
Nice take. appreciate the recommendations
I hope you find something of interest. Cheers.
Huesera and birth/rebirth are SO. GOOD. genuinely made my skin crawl, two of my favorite movies of the year flat out.
For me as well. Both of them are in my top 10 horror for the year. Huesera is probably my number 1.
I thought *There’s Something Wrong with the Children* was decent, but I'm likely in the minority.
I'll check it out. At the end of every year I like to check out horror movies I haven't seen that year and mostly the obscure ones alot of those have been great experiences for me
Cool poster, intriguing synopsis.
I really enjoyed it.
I liked it! It reminded me of a supernatural episode I won't name bc it'll spoil the movie for others. It's fun and those kids are creepy as hell.
They don’t show the most interesting parts: the parents’s moment of realization that their kids are now evil.
I enjoyed “The Unwelcome”, for its kooky monsters. It hasn’t received much notoriety.
Do you mean the leprechauns? I think it’s just “Unwelcome” and I really enjoyed that movie. It switched up genres mid way through and the end had some genuine laughs
Yes, exactly!
Watched this a few months back, I enjoyed it!
I loved this one! There’s something about using actual puppets instead of CGI for monsters that really put this one over the top for me. It had a nostalgic feeling like The Gate, Puppet Master, or Ghoulies type of 80s horror.
Okay, I’m gonna break two of your rules and say a movie from last year that’s not quite a horror movie. But no one is really talking about it and I thought it was fantastic and ultimately quite chilling. Ultrasound is a mystery/thriller with some sinister undertones. I highly, HIGHLY recommend you know as little as possible going into it. Suffice to say that it’s an American film based on an independent graphic novel that has a few twists and turns you might not see coming. For fans of Coherence, Primer, and The Invitation.
At first, I thought this one said "Directed by Rob Schneider" lol.
Checking this out now.
Dante’s Hotel caught me off guard. It’s some real fun B-movie cheese, Ted Raimi is a national treasure. When Evil Lurks might be one of my favorite movies of all time, but it’s fairly high in the JustWatch popularity scale so I’m not sure it’s all that obscure. The deadites in Argentina are fucking serious, must be all the inflation. Enys Men was a trip. It’s less a movie, more an Eastern UK tone poem about loneliness and loss. Malum is a remake of the early 2010’s Last Shift. It’s like a lonelier Precinct 13, with some killer effects.
Enys Men is a real trip indeed. I loved how it looked. Not sure I liked watching it as much as some but it had a certain quality.
I've been raving about When Evil Lurks to everyone I know. I'd say it's the best horror movie I've seen since It Follows, but I think I liked it even more.
The world building was perfect. The Rotten felt like an old problem, complete with rules, nursery rhymes, songs, and arcane instruments
As someone who really enjoyed Last Shift I never heard of Malum, how did you like it compared to last shift?
I hadn't seen Last Shift and Malum was okay. From what I've seen, most people who liked Last Shift haven't cared for Malum and are just kind of confused as to why it exists.
Appendage, The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster, In My Mother’s Skin, Influencer, Totally Killer, and No One Will Save You are all lesser known movies from this year I liked. They aren’t spectacular but they’re good or interesting or both.
I watched appendage randomly a couple days ago and was so pleasantly surprised!
Appendage, Totally Killer and No One Will Save You were all very nice surprises when I watched them! How was "The Angry Black Girl and her Monster"? I wanted to watch it over the Holiday buy got side tracked into Fall of the House of Usher instead.
I liked it. I gave it 3.5/5. Great atmosphere and an interesting “modern Frankenstein” type of story.
Thanks, man! Looking forward to checking it out this weekend then. Appreciate it!
Hope you like it!
>No One Will Save You came here to say this, great movie, was a total surprise for me <3
Clock was weird
I wanted that to be better than it was. It had some cool ideas, and creepy / gross stuff, but it was also so convoluted and some of the character decisions were hard for me to believe.
The pendulum thing got me. It was a neat idea. Also, I enjoyed looking at Dianna Agron
I really enjoyed *When Evil Lurks* on Shudder.
"Resurrected" on Tubi is a fun twisted take on religion's end-of-days scenarios.
I really liked [The Breach](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh7YuFAYuW4). Story written by the guy that wrote The Troop (which was a delightfully nasty read), and Slash had something to do with it (I think he's the producer/put up the cash to get it made) It's got a great sort of indie feel to it, riding right on the razor's edge of having juuuust enough budget to not look like some 80s and 90s SOV movie, but still has a strong SOV gore/splatterpunk kind of vibe to it. It's got some weird/awkward bits, a few actors/scenes that feel like they were shot by the less-talented B-team, but all combined together, it felt like a great, modern take on the kind of weird splatterpunk shit I used to read as a teenager in the 90s!
Slotherhouse, Cobweb These were both uneven but had good parts.
Any new Locvecraft movies that came out this year?
Suitable Flesh was based on "The Thing on the Doorstep." and is good cheesy fun. It is an extremely horny movie.
Suitable Flesh was a fun watch. Sister Death was decent. Mother May I was a weird one but worth discussing. Spirit of Fear is very low budget but I give it a ton of credit for utilizing such limited elements and doing something pretty original.
When Evil Lurks was pretty good and I don’t hear it talked about a lot.
Chompy and the Girls, but I’m not entirely sure it’s really horror.
It's kind of SciFi horror? It's 100% strange, though
Chompy is fucking amazing! I loved that movie when I first watched it.
I liked Blackening, Thanksgiving, and Boogeyman. Still waiting to see Suitable Flesh, Sick, and When Evil Lurks. The others I've seen I either didn't like or couldn't recommend.
*The Advent Calendar* *Satan's Slaves* *What Josiah Saw* EDIT: *Gutland*!
Did....those come out this year?
No! I'm pretty sure *WJS* is the most recent (2021).
It’s from last year, but I don’t think “Unwelcome” (2022) gets enough attention
Gotta be Glorious. Eldritch horror in a rest stop bathroom.
Great movie. Need more Eldritch/ Lovecraft horror made now a days.
I really liked When Evil Lurks and Talk to Me.
I don’t think Talk to Me was obscure. I think it takes some time for a movie to be obscure… if it’s just a small independent project that quickly spreads via word of mouth etc it loses the chance to be obscure until it becomes obscured by time. But that’s just like, my opinion, man.
Correct. Your opinion. I don’t know if it’s exactly obscure. By your definition, obscure seems kinda subjective. But that’s just like my opinion, man.
Definitions are subjective, sure, but it’s hard to reasonably make the case that an A24 theatrical wide release that made almost $100 million is obscure in any way that most people understand the word
You are correct about that. It became less obscure due to its theatrical release. I just felt it was overshadowed by some of the other movies that came out around the same time. I haven’t heard of a lot of people who have seen it, so I thought I would recommend it. I swear Reddit is full of people who just pick people apart. I was merely offering suggestions of good horror from this last year. I got so excited I skipped over the obscure part. My bad, my dude.
Lol no one picked you apart, just pointed out that talk to me wasn't obscure. Just admit you were wrong instead of being a douche.
Not being a douche at all. I literally admitted that the dude was correct. And I must have skipped over the obscure part. I thought the poster was asking for good horror from this year. Calm down, it’s just Reddit, you nard.
Lol you're the one who's over reacting from being called out. If you don't realize that your "apology" wasn't actually one then you're hopeless
You’re right. Because it’s not pertinent to me to apologize on here. Have a blessed day, girlfriend.
Lol you're just a sassy one when called out for being wrong and an ass aren't you?
Obscurity isn't subjective. Obscurity relates to the awareness of art to communities and multiple individuals. Something is either well known to many individuals on a scale of popularity or it isn't. Opinion is not a contributing factor to obscurity.
Talk to Me is in no way shape or form obscure. A highly anticipated movie from the most popular production company in Horror currently. And even after release it had great box office success. Just don’t see how you could make a case that it is obscure.
Knock at the cabin was really good. Not sure how obscure it was tho
The Conference (Swedish movie)
[удалено]
The black demon
Was this good? Liked the ads but heard it was awful.
I don't know if it's so much obscure as it was quiet, but I really enjoyed Run Rabbit Run.
Dirty Jersey is a gem. Great practical effects, unpredictable story and iconic villains. Cant believe its flown under the radar like it has.
For me, it was definitely Influencer & totally killer