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It’s been a robust year for genre film. Horror’s continued dominance at the box office has effectively spilled over into fantasy, thrillers, and sci-fi in ways that defy easy classification. So much so that it’s difficult to overlook the 2023 genre movies that employ horror techniques, draw inspiration from our favorite genre, or simply dabble in it.
These horror adjacent movies may not fully plunge into the genre, but they’re also not afraid to wear their horror influences on their sleeves, whether through style or bloodletting.
Here are the top ten best horror adjacent movies of 2023.
10. A Haunting in Venice
Director and star Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot gets reeled into another whodunnit, but this time Branagh leans into the Halloween setting with stunning style to infuse this murder mystery with atmospheric mood. A Haunting in Venice looks and feels like a vintage ghost story, complete with nods to Edgar Allan Poe.
These horror adjacent movies may not fully plunge into the genre, but they’re also not afraid to wear their horror influences on their sleeves, whether through style or bloodletting.
Here are the top ten best horror adjacent movies of 2023.
10. A Haunting in Venice
Director and star Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot gets reeled into another whodunnit, but this time Branagh leans into the Halloween setting with stunning style to infuse this murder mystery with atmospheric mood. A Haunting in Venice looks and feels like a vintage ghost story, complete with nods to Edgar Allan Poe.
- 12/24/2023
- by Meagan Navarro
- bloody-disgusting.com
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The eerily contemplative opening frames of “Falcon Lake” depict an idyllic lake on a summer night, a scene so calmly off-putting that you just know something has to be amiss. The shot remains unchanged for so long that when a body finally rises out of the water, it feels more like an inevitable moment of catharsis than a jump scare. That ominous serenity continues throughout “Falcon Lake,” yet the first truly startling moment in Charlotte Le Bon’s directorial debut is the sight of a Nintendo Switch.
Thanks to Le Bon’s dreamlike pacing and Kristof Brandl’s grainy cinematography, the film’s opening scenes of a nuclear family heading out for a lake house vacation come across as a long-buried memory unfolding before our eyes. The establishing shots would seamlessly fit into an ABC-era “Twin Peaks” episode, and the fashion could be ripped straight from a mid-90s Vineyard Vines catalog.
Thanks to Le Bon’s dreamlike pacing and Kristof Brandl’s grainy cinematography, the film’s opening scenes of a nuclear family heading out for a lake house vacation come across as a long-buried memory unfolding before our eyes. The establishing shots would seamlessly fit into an ABC-era “Twin Peaks” episode, and the fashion could be ripped straight from a mid-90s Vineyard Vines catalog.
- 6/2/2023
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
![Sara Montpetit](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNGNhZmRmM2QtYjg0Ny00YjJmLWEwZTktYTkzYmI2Y2ZjYzJhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTAyMzYwNzgw._V1_QL75_UX140_CR0,1,140,207_.jpg)
![Sara Montpetit](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNGNhZmRmM2QtYjg0Ny00YjJmLWEwZTktYTkzYmI2Y2ZjYzJhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTAyMzYwNzgw._V1_QL75_UX140_CR0,1,140,207_.jpg)
Going on holiday with parents who are wrapped up in their own experiences can feel like being a ghost. Adolescence can inspire similar feelings. Bastien (Joseph Engel) is old enough to get along with older kids, old enough to experience sexual desire, but not able to compete with kids just a few years older whose bodies now look adult. An intense bond with the older Chloé (Sara Montpetit) seems to welcome him into the adult world, yet when she looks away, when she gives her attention to somebody else, it’s like he doesn’t exist.
“A boy drowned in the wild part of the lake,” claims Chloé, who likes telling ghost stories. Is it childish to make things up? She isn’t fully adult yet. There are things she doesn’t feel ready for, despite what the older boys want. Surrounded by trees, the lake makes a good setting for fantasies of various kinds.
“A boy drowned in the wild part of the lake,” claims Chloé, who likes telling ghost stories. Is it childish to make things up? She isn’t fully adult yet. There are things she doesn’t feel ready for, despite what the older boys want. Surrounded by trees, the lake makes a good setting for fantasies of various kinds.
- 5/31/2023
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
![Charlotte Le Bon](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BM2FiODRjYzQtMjU1NS00YzNmLTg5MGItNTFkZTM3MTFlOWI3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTE1MTYxNDAw._V1_QL75_UY207_CR10,0,140,207_.jpg)
![Charlotte Le Bon](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BM2FiODRjYzQtMjU1NS00YzNmLTg5MGItNTFkZTM3MTFlOWI3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTE1MTYxNDAw._V1_QL75_UY207_CR10,0,140,207_.jpg)
Every cinematic cabin in the woods suggests a place out of time. If you believe the movies, they’re either a) a dread-inducing home to all manner of spirits and masked killers which directly tie the cabin back to its haunted past; or b) an idyllic getaway for a teenager during a formative coming-of-age experience. The directorial debut of Canadian actress Charlotte Le Bon is an unusual, immediately arresting combination, grounding its deeply sincere account of first love within the realm of gothic horror––here the urban myth of a girl who drowned in the nearby lake many summers prior.
This is a tale with which Chloé (Sara Montpetit) is obsessed. Throughout the course of Falcon Lake we see Chloe elaborately stage her own death, floating face-down in the lake only to turn upright and keep swimming like nothing happened. She may be, at 16, the oldest of the kids on the family holiday,...
This is a tale with which Chloé (Sara Montpetit) is obsessed. Throughout the course of Falcon Lake we see Chloe elaborately stage her own death, floating face-down in the lake only to turn upright and keep swimming like nothing happened. She may be, at 16, the oldest of the kids on the family holiday,...
- 5/31/2023
- by Alistair Ryder
- The Film Stage
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"Some ghosts don't realize they're dead." First love will haunt you. Yellow Veil Pics has revealed an official trailer for a mysterious little indie film titled Falcon Lake, directed by the Quebecois actress Charlotte Le Bon making her feature directorial debut. A shy teenager on a summer vacation experiences the joy and pain of young adulthood when he forges an unlikely bond with an older girl. This premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in the Directors' Fortnight section last year, and is arriving to watch in the US in June this summer. Bastien and Chloé spend their summer vacation with their families at a lake cabin in Quebec, haunted by a ghost legend. Ready to overcome his worst fears to earn a place in Chloé's heart, the holiday becomes a pivotal moment for him. Falcon Lake stars Joseph Engel, Sara Montpetit, Monia Chokri, Arthur Igual, and Karine Gonthier-Hyndman. This is quite an alluring trailer,...
- 4/27/2023
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
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The Lost Patient (Le patient) is an Arte TV thriller directed by Christophe Charrier, starring Txomin Vergez and Clotilde Hesme.
A story that has some potential, but it goes unused.
Premise
Thomas has been in a coma for three years when he wakes up and remembers nothing. His psychologist, Anna, informs him that his family has been murdered and that he is the only survivor of the massacre while his sister Laura is still missing.
Movie Review
This feature is a French thriller produced by Arte TV that does not stand out neither in its cinematography, nor – in its difficult condition of being a TV production – in its story. It reduces what could have been good story to a simplistic, and a not a majorly artistic, endeavor.
Txomin Vergez’s performance is good enough, although not outstanding in this a movie that leaves one somewhat indifferent.
‘The Lost Patient’ is laden with clichés,...
A story that has some potential, but it goes unused.
Premise
Thomas has been in a coma for three years when he wakes up and remembers nothing. His psychologist, Anna, informs him that his family has been murdered and that he is the only survivor of the massacre while his sister Laura is still missing.
Movie Review
This feature is a French thriller produced by Arte TV that does not stand out neither in its cinematography, nor – in its difficult condition of being a TV production – in its story. It reduces what could have been good story to a simplistic, and a not a majorly artistic, endeavor.
Txomin Vergez’s performance is good enough, although not outstanding in this a movie that leaves one somewhat indifferent.
‘The Lost Patient’ is laden with clichés,...
- 12/6/2022
- by Veronica Loop
- Martin Cid Magazine - Movies
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There’s a reason so many horror films — specifically the classic slashers of the ’70s and ’80s — make teenagers their imperiled protagonists. It makes for fun, squirmy viewing to see the relatable vulnerabilities of that age, with its fumbling sexual encounters and peer-pressure anxieties, sliced open by whichever knife-wielding maniac or mask-wearing ghoul happens to be lumbering about. But Charlotte Le Bon’s striking, stylish, sweetly scary debut reverses the polarity, putting the wittily observed tale of a teenage crush front and center of a ghoul-free horror film, where all that goes bump in the night is an embarrassed kid trying to clean his sheets after a wet dream. Coming-of-age movies are usually, like growing up itself, some combination of funny, sad, rueful, awkward or frightening, but rarely are they so successfully all those things at once as in “Falcon Lake.”
This ambitious yet nimbly assured tonal mash-up is introduced in the opening shot,...
This ambitious yet nimbly assured tonal mash-up is introduced in the opening shot,...
- 6/4/2022
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
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