Here are Cinephile Corner’s 10 recommendations for horror movies like The Monkey:
Five Nights at Freddy’s
The Five Nights at Freddy’s movie adaptation succumbs to the pitfalls of a poorly executed narrative, sidelining its potentially terrifying animatronic characters in favor of a tepid and uninspiring trauma story. Josh Hutcherson gives a commendable performance, but there’s not enough support around him to make this movie work.
Read our review of Five Nights at Freddy’s
M3GAN
Don’t mistaken M3GAN as another Child’s Play. Yes, it does have a similar narrative pattern and killer doll, but aspects of M3GAN beyond that separate it from an idea done numerous times in Hollywood before. James Wan and Gerard Johnstone team up for a relatively fun start to 2023.
Evil Dead Rise
There aren’t many horror franchises able to reinvent themselves as often as Evil Dead does while still maintaining relevancy and quality. Maybe it’s because Sam Raimi holds his creation so close to his heart that only a select few are able to take on the premise, or maybe it’s because the premise seems simple and malleable enough to make nearly anything work. It can shoot for the downright zany and ludicrous with Evil Dead II or Army of Darkness, or it can strive to be like Lee Cronin’s newest spin Evil Dead Rise – a movie so sick and twisted that you can’t help but give it its dues by the time the credits roll.
Read our review of Evil Dead Rise
Longlegs
Longlegs makes good on the promise of being a freaky horror tale that injects dread in every frame and through every nook and cranny possible. Director Oz Perkins, if for nothing else, continues to prove himself as a singular horror director, with a style that no soul could replicate and a thirst for the absurd, demented, and disturbed. Maika Monroe and Blair Underwood offer enough to have you engaged, and Perkins is talented enough behind the camera to keep things rolling.
Talk to Me
Talk to Me is the latest elevated horror movie from A24, a studio that’s completely redefined and reimagined the state of the genre, introducing new ideas and themes into it over the past decade. Talk to Me attempts to do the same, pitting trauma and coping mechanisms with demonic forces to a scary degree.
Cocaine Bear
Cocaine Bear reinvents the boundaries of cinema and what’s possible for the medium moving forward. An absolutely groundbreaking work that sets the tone for 2023. Just kidding. But it’s still goofy and wild. And a bear does cocaine, confirmed.
Read our review of Cocaine Bear
Scream 5
Scream 5 resurrects a franchise gone for far too long. Although not a perfect transition into the modern age, the newest Scream movie offers plenty of fun and camp that gels with the common core of this franchise’s ideas.
The Blackcoat’s Daughter
A sinister, slow-burning delight, The Blackcoat’s Daughter solidifies Oz Perkins as a director capable of true psychological horror—one who, despite some missteps in recent efforts, continues to intrigue me.
Read our review of The Blackcoat’s Daughter
Renfield
Nicolas Cage‘s version of Dracula sure is unique. A movie about the bloodthirsty vampire teaming with Nicholas Hoult for centuries may sound good on paper, but Renfield is too concerned with various subplots that don’t amount to much.
Thanksgiving
Eli Roth, a significant figure in gnarly genre filmmaking, takes a stab at the holiday horror subgenre with Thanksgiving, a movie that successfully balances gore, satire, and a twisted sense of humor. Roth, known for his unapologetically brutal style, delivers a horror-thriller that not only embraces the conventions of the genre but also winks at them, creating an entertaining if not entirely groundbreaking Thanksgiving slasher.