Welcome back to the second annual Scare Value Awards. Essentially, our version of a 2023 Horror Movie Awards. Today we will award some more traditional awards. We’ll crown Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Director and name the Best Picture of 2023.
We will also unveil which classic movie will join James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein in this year’s class of the Scare Value Hall of Fame. Only the greatest, most important or most influential movies in horror history will be a part of this exclusive club.
You can check out Part 1 of our awards here. We crowned the Best Final Girl, Best Killer, Best Twist, Best Gore Effects and Best Kill. It’s been another great year for horror…let’s hand out some more awards.
2023 Scare Value Awards
Best Screenplay
Screenplays are the foundation of all great movies. Just look at last year’s Scare Value Award winner The Menu. It’s true of any genre. This year’s best horror screenplays elevate their films to greatness. The nominees for Best Screenplay are…
Ted Geoghegan – Brooklyn 45
Andy Faulkner, Callie Hernandez, Will Madden, Pete Ohs and Ashley Denise Robinson – Jethica
Andrew Bowser – Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls
Wesley Taylor and Alex Wyse – Summoning Sylvia
David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver and Jen D’Angelo – Totally Killer
The five nominees represent movies whose screenplays can be considered one of its stars. Totally Killer goes above and beyond in the details to create a great time travel movie. Set-ups and payoffs galore. Brooklyn 45 locks its characters in a room with the ghosts of their past…and a screenplay that makes it all work. Jethica sets a unique tone for its ghost story…one that is driven by an excellent script. Onyx the Fortuitous gives us a fully realized world of magic and comedy…turning an internet character into a movie star. Summoning Sylvia delivers non-stop comedic asides that add up to, perhaps, the funniest movie of the year.
Totally Killer takes so much care with its time travel elements that you can’t help but be impressed. Summoning Sylvia is a brilliant comedic script. But one screenplay stood out this year as deeper and more haunting than the rest.
The Scary Goes To…
Ted Geoghegan – Brooklyn 45
Brooklyn 45 is streaming on Shudder
Best Director
Jordan Peele took home our inaugural Best Director award for his beautiful spectacle Nope. With a new movie hitting theaters at the end of 2024…we’ll no doubt see him competing for another next year. This year sees five very different approaches land nominations. The nominees for Best Director are…
Takashi Yamazaki – Godzilla Minus One
Ryan Stevens Harris – Moon Garden
Robbie Banfitch – The Outwaters
Ken’ichi Ugana – Visitors
John Adams, Zelda Adams and Toby Poser – Where the Devil Roams
Ugana shows off completely unhinged storytelling in a totally unique way. Visitors is the wildest movie of the year. The Adams Family delivers a gorgeous and unforgettable world in Where the Devil Roams. Banfitch breaks through the found footage model to create a cosmic horror experience that you can’t look away from in The Outwaters. Yamazaki molds one of the greatest kaiju films of all time. Godzilla Minus One is an epic that tramples most of the movies in the franchise’s long history. Moon Garden‘s world succeeds due to the unique vision and perfect execution of director Ryan Stevens Harris.
It’s easy to make a case for any of these nominees. They all got their uncompromised visions up on the screen. This may be this year’s most difficult category. Narrowing it down to two or three was hard enough…let alone choosing just one. Inevitably it came down to the biggest picture vs. a pure independent production.
The Scary Goes To…
John Adams, Zelda Adams and Toby Poser – Where the Devil Roams
Where the Devil Roams is available on VOD
Best Actor
Neal Ward’s astonishing turn in Feed Me took top honors last year. This year’s group of nominees features a few soulful performances amidst horror…a showy performance in a horror/comedy…and a terrifying performance in a tragic story. The nominees for Best Actor are…
Dave Bautista – Knock at the Cabin
Tobin Bell – Saw X
Nicolas Cage – Renfield
Tim Pocock – Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism
LaKeith Stanfield – Haunted Mansion
The Saw franchise realized that its greatest trick has always been Tobin Bell’s performance as John Kramer. Saw X finally gives him the canvas to paint his masterpiece. Podcast favorite Nicolas Cage makes for a perfect Dracula in Renfield. Funny and violent and…well…Nic Cage. Dave Bautista’s gentle giant in Knock at the Cabin makes the entire concept work. Soft spoken and tormented by an unpleasant duty…Bautista turns in the most interesting performance of his career. Tim Pocock is a terrifying presence in Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism. His portrayal of the charismatic exorcism specialist is horrifying. LaKeith Stanfield gives an excellent performance in a bad movie. He’s so good that he manages to land an emotional story amidst a lot of noise and nonsense. He can bring you to tears if you aren’t rolling your eyes at the rest of the movie.
Stanfield has to deal with a giant handicap given the movie he’s in. Bell finally gets the time and story he deserves in perhaps the finest Saw movie. Pocock’s performance is the kind of thing you won’t soon forget. Bautista does the heavy lifting with a quiet demeanor. Nic Cage is Nic Cage.
The Scary Goes To…
LaKeith Stanfield – Haunted Mansion
Haunted Mansion is streaming on Disney+
Best Actress
Mia Goth’s iconic portrayal of Pearl made her win last year among the easiest of decisions. It’s a much more competitive category this year. Five performances stood out above the rest. The nominees for Best Actress are..
Kaitlyn Dever – No One Will Save You
M.C. Huff – KillHer
Morgan Saylor – Spoonful of Sugar
Alyssa Sutherland – Evil Dead Rise
Sophie Wilde – Talk to Me
Kaitlyn Dever owns No One Will Save You…and does so without uttering so much as a word. M.C. Huff delivers enough words for both…as she unleashes a completely wild performance that makes KillHer a memorable treat. Morgan Saylor’s maladjusted babysitter upsets the family dynamic in Spoonful of Sugar…but holds the picture together single-handedly. Alyssa Sutherland creates one of horror’s most memorable evils…as evidenced by her award for Best Killer yesterday. Sophie Wilde runs the gamut of emotions as the depressed, haunted and possessed lead of Talk to Me.
When you have five performances as unique as these…it is extra hard to pick just one. These range from gloriously over-the-top to literal silence. Each performance either hides something or becomes something new. Each carries their film to new heights. One performance managed to touch on, and capture, all of it.
The Scary Goes To…
Sophie Wilde in Talk to Me
Talk to Me is available on VOD
Best Picture
Eskil Vogt’s The Innocents took home the first ever Scare Value Award for Best Picture. It contains moments that still horrify over a year later. Let’s see which five movies made the biggest impressions this year. The nominees for Best Picture are…
Kaiju movie vs. found footage. Different types of possession stories pitted against each other. Representation from Japan, Australia, Argentina and the United States. Combined budgets of less than the 1/16th the cost of the last Indiana Jones movie.
The Outwaters pushes the boundaries of what we thought found footage could be. It focuses on the most basic tenants of filmmaking (sight and sound) to trap you in its cosmic nightmare. When Evil Lurks spreads its madness throughout the land. Shocking moments combine with excellent effects and performance to keep you on the edge of your seat. Where the Devil Roams fully fleshes out its depression-era carnival ride. Memorable moments and unforgettable imagery. Talk to Me possesses us with both its realistic and supernatural takes on trauma. It lets you in and never lets you go. Godzilla Minus One delivers high-end spectacle and emotional story in equal beats. The best of its kind since the original in 1954.
Talk to Me held the pole position on this award since its release this summer. In December something unexpected happened. An atomic bomb hit genre films and then stood by…enjoying its beautiful destruction. The King of the Monsters had returned. Long live the King.
The Scary Goes To…
Godzilla Minus One
Godzilla Minus One was in theaters at the time this article was written.
2023 Scare Value Hall of Fame Inductee
Each year two films will be selected to join the Scare Value Hall of Fame. These movies are the best of the bets in horror history. They can be important of influential…or just a hell of a lot of fun. This year’s first inductee was unveiled in Part 1 of the 2023 Sare Value Awards yesterday. Now it’s time to find out what movie will join Halloween, Night of the Living Dead and Bride of Frankenstein in the Scare Value Hall of Fame.
William Friedkin’s adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s novel The Exorcist turned 50 years old this week. The first horror movie ever nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, it remains as effective today as it was in 1973. Perhaps even more so. Perfect performances, timeless imagery…The Exorcist is one of the greatest films ever made. Horror or otherwise. Hopefully this enshrinement serves as a more fitting honor than David Gordon Green’s legacy sequel.
Read our full review
Thank you for checking out part 2 of our version of our 2023 Horror movie awards.
See you all in 2024.
