You wouldn’t call 2025 a “bad” year for horror films – more like a strange one. Both A24 and Neon continued to support several horror film writers (the prolific Osgood Perkins, brothers Danny and Michael Philippou) with mixed results. Shudder continued to search every corner of the world for the strangest, scariest, and most outlandish films the genre had to offer. It was a good time for fans of Stephen King – sorry, “Richard Bachman”. Assuming you liked his dystopian works more than his traditional haunted night stories.
As for the HBO series “Welcome to Derry” on the subject of “It”, let’s leave it at that that opinions differ on it. Sequels and spin-offs, some decent, some abominable, came and went. We have to admit, going into 2025 we wouldn’t have expected Warner to dominate the field over the previous 12 months. And yet… well, see below.
However, when we look back on the horror year, the surprises and side projects that quickly established themselves as milestones far outweighed the low points. A number of the films in our top 10 were made by exceptional filmmakers who used the genre to make both deeply personal and grand, far-reaching statements. In the case of standout films like Sinners, Frankenstein and The Shrouds, they managed to deftly balance both elements. From Ryan Coogler’s ambitious, astonishing fanged history lesson to Guillermo del Toro’s take on a gothic classic, a shockingly good addition to a long-standing franchise and an unusual scary movie straight from Japan. These were the horror films (in alphabetical order) that shaped our year.
(Special mention also goes to “Bring Her Back,” “Dangerous Animals,” “Drop,” “It Feeds,” “Rabbit Trap,” “Keeper,” “Together,” “The Ugly Stepsister,” and “The Woman in the Yard”).
“Best Wishes To All”
Strange things begin to happen in a quaint country house where a nursing student from Tokyo (Kotone Furukawa) is visiting her grandparents. Sometimes they seem a little too cheerful, sometimes completely absent. The grandmother keeps asking if her favorite daughter is “happy.” After dark, strange noises echo through the house.
The young woman doesn’t feel safe here – and that’s even before she spots a fat, middle-aged man in grubby white underpants crawling past the kitchen door, his eyes and mouth sewn shut. Director Yûta Shimotsu’s debut film was screened at various festivals before finally making its way here – and it’s no exaggeration to say that this is undoubtedly the best Japanese horror film to hit these shores in decades. Everything from Furukawa’s performance to the oblique way in which the story reveals its secrets and the surreal, Lynch-esque interludes hit just the right tone.
Sometimes it takes a little nudge to remind people that privilege, luxury and personal fulfillment usually come at a price. This film confronts you directly with this realization.
“Companion”
A boy (Jack Quaid) meets a girl (Sophie Thatcher). She is Iris, a normal lonely soul. He is Josh, her dream man. They get to know each other in a cute way. A few months later, when their relationship has been going on for a while, Iris is worried about meeting his college friends on a weekend.
They all seem a bit… conflicted about their buddy’s new girlfriend. Even before the first act of the film is over, you know something is going to go wrong. What you don’t necessarily expect is where writer-director Drew Hancock’s film goes after taking a sharp left turn toward Black Mirror. If you know it, you know it.
If not, watch this nightmare-filtered rom-com as soon as possible and enjoy watching Thatcher play every twist and vengeful twist. To paraphrase a famous slogan, love is never having to apologize when you can occasionally hit the reset button.
“Final Destination: Bloodlines”
We have to admit we didn’t see this coming. And yet, this long-running 2000s series about people who cheat death – and the Grim Reaper who gets royally pissed off and devises elaborate methods to collect the souls he deserves – returned from the big screen after a 14-year hiatus and delivered its best installment since the original.
Opening with an extended scene that will put you off ever visiting a revolving restaurant again, the latest installment follows a college student (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) who is plagued by nightmares about a historical disaster. She discovers that her grandmother (Gabrielle Rose) was actually there during the disaster, but was not one of the victims.
The bad news? Her survival has put the rest of her family, including her granddaughter, in the crosshairs of death. One absurd splatterfest sequence follows another, all of which will satisfy your craving for an old-school metaphysical slasher film.
“Frankenstein”
Guillermo del Toro has publicly stated that he his unique adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel is not a horror film considered, at least not during filming; the filmmaker aimed for an emotional story that goes beyond moments of shock. But the glorious end result still fits the genre perfectly and is exactly what you’d hope for from Del Toro: noble yet pulpy, delicate yet perverse, faithful to the source material while paying homage to all sorts of other gothic and genre influences.
Above all, it’s a passionately personal story about being an outcast and trying to break the cycle of bad parenting (seriously) that doesn’t skimp on tone and fury. Oscar Isaac’s Victor Frankenstein is part 18th-century dandy, part swaggering Swinging Sixties rock star, as if Lord Byron had been genetically fused with Brian Jones. And for those who just like Jacob Elordi Euphoria know is his sympathetic interpretation of the creature as an innocent and angel of vengeance eye-opening.
“Good Boy”
There are millions of films about haunted houses – Ben Leonberg’s brilliant addition to the subgenre is the first to be told from the perspective of a dog. Indy, a golden retriever who truly lives up to the film’s title, moves from the city to a house in the country so that his ailing owner (Shane Jensen) can recover.
It turns out the two are not alone in this cursed family home, although only Indy can sense the malevolent, mud-covered spirit lurking in the shadows. And only this loyal dog can save his master from being sucked into the cursed realm from which this presence comes.
Luckily, Leonberg never overstates events from the dog’s perspective and knows how to build a supernatural thriller around his expressive and charismatic four-legged protagonist. That’s why they call them man’s best friend, people! They will try to save you from ghosts!