2023's Scariest Movie?

The clown is back and he's brought friends...

I was planning on watching Trap this past weekend, but decided not to at the last minute. While I’m a Shyamalan fan, the plot of Trap doesn’t seem that interesting to me–it looks more thriller than horror, and this ain’t H. is for Thrillers. On top of that it’s getting “meh” reviews. So I’m going to wait for it to come to streaming.

So instead, today I’m going to talk about a movie that IS undeniably horror, and was one of my faves from 2023: HellHouse LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor.

It’s currently streaming on Shudder, as well as the other previous three installments in the franchise.

A few weeks ago I watched one of the scariest movies I’ve seen in a while: the fourth installment in the low-budget indie found footage franchise, Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor. Which I will now be referring to as Carmichael Manor, because that is one hell of a long title¹. 

Like all the movies in the franchise, Carmichael Manor is found footage. It follows the last known images of a paranormal investigation team before they disappear while investigating the titular Carmichael Manor. The manor is rumored to be haunted after a grisly murder/disappearance took place there decades before. Oh, yeah: there are also creepy clown mannequins thrown into the mix.

Much like Hell House LLC, Carmichael Manor is framed as a documentary, including talking head interviews with friends and experts. The movie includes footage left by the Carmichael family, and is both a prequel and sequel to Hell House LLC.

I’m not sure why I didn’t watch Carmichael Manor sooner. It was some combination of being a new mom with no time and the fact that the second and third installments in the HHLLC franchise were not as good as the first. I saw Hell House LLC around the time of its release, and it was unexpectedly good for a low budget indie film—and very, very scary.

And the scare-factor is what ultimately brought me back to Carmichael Manor: I kept hearing about how scary it is. Many called it the scariest movie of 2023. So I knew I had to watch it. And it did not disappoint.

How scary was it? Well, I watched most of it while on a treadmill, and I was legitimately worried that something was going to scare me enough that I would trip. I watched it in the bright light of day and was still freaked out by the time I went to bed.

And when I went to bed the next night, too. Like, I’m not saying I couldn’t sleep, just that maybe I put off a trip to the bathroom because I was wary of leaving the safety of my bed.

I’ve watched a lot of horror movies, and it’s rare that anything really scares me anymore, at least in the check-the-shadows-of-your-room way that this one did. These days I seem to lean towards what most would describe as “elevated” horror, which tends to be psychologically disturbing rather than scary.

Carmichael Manor harkens back to my younger days as a horror fan when I was drawn to creepy paranormal movies, which were often objectively lacking in quality.² Still, they delivered what I craved: that spine-tingly, chair-arm-gripping feeling. Though I love and appreciate elevated horror, this type of movie is, oddly enough, my comfort watch³.

Though the plot may be lackluster—and bogged down by the fact that it has to link back to the original movie⁴—what this movie does well, it does spectacularly. There are a lot of jump scares, but they’re all earned for the most part.

A lot of the scares, and I would argue the most effective and unsettling ones, are delivered in daylight. Once things get going you get the feeling that there is no time or place that our main characters are safe. Which means you’re not safe to relax: you’re always tensing for the next scary bit.

This movie also does this thing that feels like a jump scare, but is just excellent framing: a character will go into what you’re expecting to be a perfectly normal roo–OH GOD WHAT IS THAT? WHY IS IT THERE? WHY ARE THEY NOT RUNNING FOR THE CAR?

I would not be okay sleeping with these guys chilling down the hall. NOPE.

And there’s one part where a person finds a certain clown mannequin in one place, and then another character goes in a few seconds later and the clown has MOVED. The original character doesn’t see it, so they don’t pick up on this fact, but we do. And it is creepy as heck.

So is Carmichael Manor the scariest movie of 2023? It’s at least the scariest movie I’ve watched⁵ from that year. What do you think? Have you watched any movies from 2023 that you found scarier? Comment and let us know.

Until next time, keep it spooky 👻

1. It also makes me think there are more Hell House LLC “origin” movies in the pipeline.

2. Does anyone else remember The Gallows? Yeesh. Talk about a bad movie.

3. Real talk: I once, at 14 years old, watched The Blair Witch Project with my mom while my dad and brother were out of town. I spent the night sleeping in her bed, staring up at the ceiling fan, which looked too much like the creepy stick dolls from the movie for me to fall asleep at all.

4. The writer/director actually had the entire story of the Abaddon and the Carmichaels planned out before Hell House LLC was filmed. Still, it feels shoehorned in.

5. Real talk: The only one that came close is Skinamarink, but I really couldn’t judge because I watched it in bits and pieces during the day while caring for a newborn, and Skinamarink really needs quiet, darkness, and undivided attention. Still, I think Carmichael Manor would win out based on how many nights I had the heebie jeebies from it.