Biting Monsters and Haunted Objects: 2025’s Best Horror

It's that stunning time of the year where people are ignoring emails, "circling back in Q1," and getting in those last few viewings before locking in their "best of" lists and awards season predictions. For me, that means happily gathering all of the best horror movies of the ending year and looking up release dates of festival darlings to confirm what qualifies.
"A good year," I muttered positively as I jotted down horror titles that also made it to "Best Picture" and "Best Actress" lists. "A good year," I muttered, distressed, as I realized my list was well over fifteen installments and needed to be trimmed. This year, this good year, saw some excellent original horror that had people recovering from bites of all kinds: zombies, sharks, and lovers. It saw technology become a punchline, homage springing miles away from "derivative," and performances and craft work squeaking its way into important film conversations. It stayed fun, it stayed weird, it blurred genre lines, and some of it got really scary. So, submitted for the approval of the midnight society, the best horror movies of 2025.

28 Years Later

Making a zombie movie after the entire world saw us fail to come together to fight a common infection enemy seemed the sort of task that might leave us with a rise in zany self-aware satire. Unfettered and undeterred, Danny Boyle re-released his terrifying zombies on 2025 audiences in his story about a pocket of the world reeling from a pandemic and managing the dwindling aftermath. Instead of leaning deeper into the terror of sprinting hoards, he crafted a quiet tale of manhood in a part f the world forced backward in time and clinging to survival with basic measures. Sure, there are menacing villains and terrifying tableaus, but this long-awaited sequel is a stunning view of a sprawling part of Europe that's cut off from the rest of the world that has moved past them. 28 Years Later is a story of men, of war, of recovering from massive world issues, and one I think will be reflected on decades later as a capsule of what it meant to be the generation reeling from the events of this past decade.

Bring Her Back

Horror came in hot and early and nothing came in gnarlier than the Philippou's sophomore feature. Bring Her Back is the more self-assured second movie from the YouTube comedy duo who surprised us all with the terrifying Talk to Me. Here, they have unleashed Sally Hawkins as a true fright and the de facto parent to a pair of orphaned children. Something is amiss in the idyllic home of the social worker, and only the troubled older sibling of the pair seems savvy to it. The brothers are exceptional at using yellows and greens amongst their blood reds in ways that make their terror and gore all the more gruesome. Paired with the deranged performance of a veteran in Hawkins, Bring Her Back keeps you guessing as much as it keeps you wincing.

Sinners

Ryan Coogler's horror mashup could not be oversold. The hype came flooding out of early screenings and along with that, the fears of overhype and impending disappointment. Coogler had nothing to fear, however, as his titan cast, sparkling plot, and accoutrements that came by way of beautiful music and twentieth century crime history made for a stellar evening in front of a screen. Coogler played in the vampire sandbox with a premise familiar to fans of the delectable From Dusk till Dawn and dressed his version up with tales of Black history and racism, early American organized crime, and beautiful tributes to music and the magic of its creators. Sinners is one of the more stunning movies to come from this decade and will leave viewers bobbing their heads to original songs and maybe even sharpening their teeth.

Companion

If there was homage dripping out of Sinners, it was pouring (like hot red gore gag blood) from Companion. The brightly lit tale of love-bots initially evoked The Stepford Wives before diving headfirst into a collection of Terminator 2 nods that made me shriek "HIS NAME IS EVEN PATRICK" at the screen. Like the movies that inspired it, Companion is a threat to tech bro douchebags with entitlement problems that gives a glimmer of hope for how the AI companions might eat them before humanity has to. Of all of the AI terrors we were meant to consume the past few years, Companion is the most fun, laser focusing not just on the fear of unchecked technology, but of the kinds of a-holes who create it and use it. Anchored by some of the favorite scream kings and queens, this bloody tech terror is as charming and funny as it is, perhaps, affirming in the face of a robot uprising.

Together

Maybe another relic of pandemic horror will be that springing from what it meant to be instantly locked up alone with your lover. Finding terror in the commitment that comes with following a significant other to the ends of the earth, Together is a body horror gateway film about fears of commitment. Weaponizing the real-life relationship of leads Alison Brie and Dave Franco, Michael Shanks crafted a terror about a relationship floundering in the face of adversity and codependency. Themes are spelled out, and not all of the body horror is gross enough for veterans of the form, but it's a beautiful way to drag audiences into the sorts of horrors beyond the unequal relationship horror comedies like Companion. Love is on the menu, but there's The Fly in the soup.

Dead Talent Society

Solving the real release date for this zany horror comedy was an arduous task, mostly because it was so whisper quietly added to Netflix earlier this year. I won't purport to have done a full examination of the Netflix release strategy, but I will speak into the void about this movie being underseen. Dead Talents Society first snuck up on North American audiences at tiff in 2024, the same week as Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. This cutie from Taiwan follows what happens when the dead are recruited for positions as ghosts, haunting the living, and the social and societal structure built around their fame and success. Slappier and bloodier than the Tim Burton film with a similar premise, John Hsu tells a story of aging and keeping the spotlight, of coming into one's confidence, and of letting go. It's funny, it's charming, it's gross, and if its inclusion on my list gets one more person to press play, we've all won.

The Monkey

Osgood Perkins is prolific, perhaps too prolific, the guy having released a few horror flicks in the past couple of years. Known more for his atmospheric movies cloaked in dread, The Monkey becomes something of a marked departure from the work of this horror royalty. Sandwiched between gloomy terrors Longlegs and Keeper is this weirdo horror festival of exploding bodies and hilarious smash cuts. Perkins works from a Stephen King short story of a haunted object to tell a tale about the randomness and inevitability of death and does so by employing a heartthrob to play pathetic twins. It is still drenched in the dread of his other work which makes the zany shriek-out-loud moments even more surprising. It's easy to consume popcorn fare that finds a laugh at the end of the world.

Dangerous Animals

Jaws turned fifty this year which saw a renewed interest in the iconic flick about a killer shark terrorizing beach goers and boat captains. The film's legacy is far reaching and varied, but there will always be the few who reference how it changes the people's perspectives of sharks. On a year celebrating the rise in fears of the water comes this shark-bite-tale that takes the villainy from the water dweller and puts it back into the hands of a shitty man. Dangerous Animals is pluralized for a reason, it's not just the sharp teeth of those below, but the whims of a man with a boat (and the implication). So many stellar human villains came out of this year's horror roster, and Jai Courtney's Tucker is one of them. The dancing douchebag makes for a worthy addition to best-villain conversations, and he is a solid cohort of Fresh's Steve which is a delicious treat for us all.

The Ugly Stepsister

This year wasn't exactly lacking in prequel stories of reappraisal of famous villains, so it was possible there was no space for yet another twist on the classic fairytale that gives context to the actions of a baddie. But The Ugly Stepsister so smartly shifted that familiar premise to do something different from the stories of the forging of the worst villains. Emilie Blichfeldt's tale twists Cinderella to tell a tale of self esteem and beauty standards through the eyes of Elvira (Lea Myren), the supposed ugly daughter of a woman desperate to cling on to the wealth of her latest suitor. Finding her value in her beauty, Elvira's mother forces her through tribulations meant to make her the apple of a prince's eye so they may all continue to live in luxury. Where this film is a departure from other tales of reappraisal is that it keeps Elvira a heinous crude stepsister who is merely shaped by those around her, not made. It then smartly interrogates beauty standards and women being pit against each other, and never once pretends Elvira is a "girls' girl." Then there's the body horror (those welcomed by Together might come here for level 2), gross out gags, and amazing references to dated beauty procedures that makes the whole affair terrifying, gag inducing, and probably pretty feminist too.

Weapons

With a performance I'd dare to compare to that of Bring Her Back, Amy Madigan has been in "Best" conversations for her turn as the spooky Aunt Gladys in Weapons. Paired with a wacky wardrobe and makeup look that'll make anyone who's gotten lipstick marks from their quirky great-aunt on their cheeks, Madigan delivered a performance that shot a character from a big finale moment into the cultural conversation. Zach Cregger, coming off the high of Barbarian, treated us to the movie made quickly famous by the bidding war for its rights. The horrific tale of missing children told with a Rashomon play on perspectives is a fun and frightful adventure steeped in the fears children and parents have in 2025. It's sometimes confused in its messaging and maybe isn't so much about those fears at all, but the haunting tale of children evaporating and the adults looking to blame someone is stellar fodder for a horror delight.

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