10 Worst PG-13 Horror Films Since 2020
Stay away from these tepid horrors if you have any sense about you.
The PG-13 rating for movies was introduced in 1984, thanks in part to a suggestion by Steven Spielberg, who didn't want films like the Indiana Jones series to be slapped with an R rating just because some bloke got his heart pulled out.
To be fair, that was a bit much for a PG.
Since then, PG-13 has become a safe haven for films that lie somewhere in between kid-friendly and full-on gorefest. A number of famous horror pictures have adhered to these rules and gone on to be massive successes, whilst others, well, they end up on lists like these.
In theory, a PG-13 rating should mean that more people are able to see a movie, leading to more profits for those involved. Unfortunately, this only works if the films are actually good, and these recent outings were absolute disasters.
To be clear, not all of these movies were bad because of their certificate, as they would have stunk no matter what the MPA said about them. Others, though, were severely hampered by trying to play it safe and, in an effort to appeal to everybody, ended up pushing everyone away.
10. Tarot
As the makers of Ouija found out, sometimes it's not enough to base a movie around a vaguely scary children’s toy. In 2024, the team behind Tarot discovered the same truth.
A group of students come across a tarot deck and begin to play, despite the old adage that you should never use someone else’s cards. Lo and behold, the kids begin to die in seemingly-unexplainable circumstances, until the survivors realise that the deck must be destroyed.
Tarot follows the same basic structure as most “haunted item” movies; the characters discover the item, they start dying, they try a bunch of stuff to fight it that all leads to one final showdown.
It might have been saved if the characters were in any way likeable or even properly fleshed out. They die, and within five seconds, you’ve forgotten about them, which is never a good sign. Whilst some of the kills were pretty exciting, none of them left enough of a mark to justify having money spent on them.
Sadly, an actual tarot reader wasn’t on hand to warn of how badly this movie would turn out.