Spooky surprises
We hadn’t heard of When Evil Lurks until its debut in the Toronto Film Festival’s midnight-movie section; ditto Talk to Me and Sundance. But sometimes a movie is so good (and so legitimately scary, in the case of these two titles) that pre-release hype becomes unnecessary, and all you need is the kind of ecstatic buzz that swiftly spreads among genre fans urging you to go see this movie now. Both of these excellent films made io9’s top films of 2023 list—and we didn’t even see them coming.
