Talk to Me (Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou, 2023). This horror film, the feature debut by twin brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, employs the sturdy concept of a cursed object that wreaks deadly havoc on a group of foolhardy souls who didn’t respect its power. Mia (Sophia Wilde) is a high school party who goes to a high school party where she’d goaded into a ritual with a creepy hand statue that seemingly leads to brief contact with the deceased. The cavalier engagement with spindly appendage is a stand-in for any number of risky teen behaviors, which give Talk to Me a satisfying smack of metaphor. The Philippous engage the material with miles of style and a booming fearlessness in going very dark, notably in the dire outcomes for a younger boy named Riley (Joe Bird) who insists he should get to play, too. As is often the case with modern horror films, Wilde is tasked with intensely grueling scenes, and she distinguishes herself with a game, deeply engaged performance. The film gets a little wobbly across its latter portions as the directors sacrifice coherence to trippily disturbing imagery, but they bring it all in for a satisfying landing with a smart, effective final beat.

Scream (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, 2022). When attempting to revive a film franchise that’s been dormant for more than a decade, it’s certainly helpful if the cinematic cash cow in question has a spirit of genial self-mockery built right in. In circling back to the stab-happy exploits of various killers who adopt the Ghostface persona for their murderous doings, the filmmakers behind the 2022 version of Scream are at least in homaging and updating the genre-aware meta-commentary that screenwriter Kevin Williamson ingeniously invented for the Wes Craven–directed flick of the same name, which became a surprise hit after being released as counter-programming during the 1996 holiday season. The original’s immensely satisfying guessing game as to the killer’s identity remains as impossible to recapture for new directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett as it has been for all outings that followed, including those presided over by Williamson and the first helmer, Wes Craven. The snark is fun, the slashes are tired, and lifting the mask to see who’s underneath is welcome mainly because it means the end credits are near.

Messiah of Evil (Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, 1974). Boasting precisely the vibe that the likes of Ti West and Eli Roth are after when they go retro, Messiah of Evil is highly enjoyable in its nineteen-seventies spookfest cheesiness. Arletty (Marianna Hill) travels to a beachfront California town in search of her missing father. There, she connects with a stranger (Michael Greer) with a social impresario bent (Michael Greer) who travels with comely companions and also starts noticing some strange happenings in town, revolving around notably taciturn citizens. The film is written and directed by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, a married couple who mostly made their names as trusted creative collaborators of George Lucas in his heyday. They get maximum impact out of vivid, pop art design work and clever staging meant to compensate for the modesty of the budget. Most of the performances are amateurish, but that’s part of the charm.