![\""Bring](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/rump-4-1.jpg\")
\u201cBring Her Back\u201d (A24)<\/p>\n2025 has been an unbelievably great year for horror \u2013 maybe one of the best ever.<\/p>\n
Historically, horror has flourished during times of societal or political distress. The torture-filled boon of the 2000s like \u201cSaw\u201d and \u201cHostel\u201d were a response to 9\/11 and the \u201cenhanced interrogation\u201d techniques employed by the United States government. The slasher movie craze of the 1980s was directly related to the repressiveness of the Reagan Era. And so on. (This is why horror was not the best in the Clinton-led 1990s, a time largely defined by peace and prosperity.)<\/p>\n
But these days, well, the world is a mess. And horror is, as always, trying to process and make sense of it all. And they have done so in spectacular fashion \u2013 from new installments in beloved franchises to indie discoveries to startling studio originals, 2025 has had it all. And we have so much left to go. Spooky season isn\u2019t even upon us yet! So stay tuned and we will update this list accordingly. For now, these are the very best horror movies of the year (so far).<\/p>\n
\u201cBring Her Back\u201d (A24)<\/p>\n
10. \u201cBring Her Back\u201d<\/p>\n
The sophomore feature from YouTube creators-turned-feature-filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou is a more somber, disturbing affair, trading in \u201cTalk to Me\u2019s\u201d dark jubilation for a kind of rueful bleakness. Sally Hawkins, in a tour de force performance that might remind you of Toni Collette in \u201cHereditary,\u201d plays a woman who adopts two young children \u2013 one of whom is partially blind. She already has a foster kid too, who is acting \u2026 peculiar. What is going on in this house and what does it have to do with a scratchy tape Hawkins keeps watching? These are some of the mysteries nestled within \u201cBring Her Back.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n While some found the slow burn nature of the narrative a bit too deliberate, you\u2019ll be rewarded for sticking with \u201cBring Her Back,\u201d which leads to a blood-soaked downer of an ending as remarkable as anything in their inaugural outing. (Somehow, you\u2019ll never look at tables the same way again.) Give \u201cBring Her Back\u201d time and it might just become the cult favorite that \u201cTalk to Me\u201d was out of the gate.<\/p>\n 9. \u201cTogether\u201d<\/p>\n A horror movie about the terror of codependence, \u201cTogether\u201d<\/a> stars the real-life husband and wife duo of Dave Franco and Alison Brie, as a young couple who leave the city and head to the country, only to get involved in something far spookier. One of the rare breakouts from this year\u2019s Sundance Film Festival, Neon won the rights to the movie after interest from everyone from A24 to Searchlight Pictures. And it\u2019s easy to see why \u2013 the combination of uncomfortable relationship intimacy and supernatural body horror is genuinely irresistible. Franco and Brie give committed performances and while the lore behind their commingling gets a little fuzzy (it involves a magic well and some cults, just to be clear), it\u2019s their relationship, in all its ups and downs, that leads you through. It\u2019s got some of the most scream-out-loud moments this year, that\u2019s for sure. Deep breath.<\/p>\n 8. \u201cCompanion\u201d<\/p>\n One of the more underrated horror movies of the year, \u201cCompanion\u201d<\/a> snuck into theaters early in 2025 and is still one of the year\u2019s very best. Written and directed by newcomer Drew Hancock and produced by \u201cWeapons\u201d filmmaker Zach Cregger, \u201cCompanion\u201d is set in the near future and follows several couples as they spend a weekend away at a country house. This is a fairly typical set-up, especially for a low-budget genre movie, but \u201cCompanion\u201d goes in a startlingly different way \u2013 one that was, regrettably, spoiled by early marketing materials \u2013 namely that Iris (Sophie Thatcher) is Josh\u2019s (Jack Quaid) robot girlfriend. Where the movie goes from there is similarly unpredictable, with a very game cast (including Lukas Gage, Megan Suri, Harvey Guill\u00e9n and Rupert Friend) fully committing to the bit. <\/p>\n Hancock is a smart writer and an even better director, assembling the movie as a series of suspense set pieces, punctuated by timely relationship commentary and, of course, discussion around the dangers of technology and AI. In short, it\u2019s the perfect horror movie for now. It should have been huge.<\/p>\n 7. \u201cFinal Destination Bloodlines\u201d<\/p>\n What a wonderful surprise. Who would have guessed that there was still so much gas left in the \u201cFinal Destination\u201d tank \u2013 or that the sixth (!) film would be the second-best in the franchise<\/a>? From the very beginning, you can tell \u201cFinal Destination Bloodlines\u201d is going to be special. Instead of the typical modern disaster, the setup was something in the past \u2013 a late 1960s Space Needle-type restaurant that goes up in flames. We then flash forward to today, as the contours of the story start to take shape. Instead of a group of survivors, who are forced to avoid Rube Goldberg-style death traps, it\u2019s an entire family tree. It\u2019s a stroke of genius and makes for a much more fulfilling, emotionally resonant movie, as they bicker and fight before getting sucked into a tree shredder (or whatever). <\/p>\n Directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein know how to stage these scenes brilliantly but they also understand that you have to care about the characters for their horrible deaths to mean anything. It also has perhaps the best ending of any of the movies \u2013 both jubilant and downbeat. There\u2019s a reason the movie was a surprise smash, making nearly $300 million worldwide \u2013 it\u2019s just that good.<\/p>\n 6. \u201cThe Monkey\u201d<\/p>\n Osgood Perkins made last year\u2019s word-of-mouth horror hit \u201cLonglegs,\u201d a serial killer thriller with occult overtones. And he followed it up with something in the complete opposite direction \u2013 a Stephen King adaptation so wacky and blood-soaked that it feels like a movie that you would rent and watch at a slumber party, with all of your buds laughing and screaming at every exploding body and dismembered corpse. Theo James plays the adult version of twins who receive a monkey toy from their father; when they wind it up and the monkey hits its drums, somebody dies in some horrifying way. Years later, one of the twins goes on a quest with his young son to find and destroy the monkey before it causes anymore damage. <\/p>\n Perkins said that he was inspired by 1980s classics like \u201cGremlins\u201d and \u201cCreepshow\u201d (another King favorite) and it really does have the kind of freewheeling energy that exemplified those earlier films. It\u2019s funny, it\u2019s scary, it\u2019s out of control. And it speaks to the kind of artistic elasticity of Perkins, as he has quickly proven himself to be one of the most exciting and electric genre filmmakers working today. And his next movie comes out in November!<\/p>\n 5. \u201cPresence\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, a horror movie directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp would be built around an ingenious concept, on both a technical and narrative level. \u201cPresence\u201d<\/a> is a ghost story told from the perspective of the ghost. The entire movie is told from the entity\u2019s point-of-view, as it careens around a nondescript house that wouldn\u2019t be out of place in the same neighborhood that \u201cPoltergeist\u201d took place. We watch the drama in the house unfold, between various family members, and start to piece together who the ghost could be and what it is trying to accomplish with this haunting. <\/p>\n The performances, led by Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan as the parents and Callina Liang as the teenage daughter that the entity seems particularly obsessed with, are tender and nuanced and give so much life to a story that could have otherwise been overwhelmed with death. And the shtick of the floating camera never feels like a gimmick, it\u2019s key to the understanding of the story and to understand these characters in the way that we do. At 85 minutes, too, the movie never overstays its welcome. \u201cPresence\u201d is a gift.<\/p>\n 4. \u201cHeart Eyes\u201d<\/p>\n Undeniably the most underrated horror movie of the year, \u201cHeart Eyes\u201d works because its dicey gambit of being a romantic comedy as much as it is a slasher film, is treated seriously and totally works. The Heart Eyes Killer is an infamous masked serial killer who targets lovers on Valentine\u2019s Day. And this year the killer is hunting Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding, mistaking them as a committed couple when, in fact, they\u2019ve only just met. They\u2019re forced to survive a very long night as the killer stalks them, while also falling in love. It\u2019s a meet-cute that turns into a stay-alive. Both leads are adorable and know exactly the tone that director Josh Ruben and writers Christopher Landon and Michael Kennedy are going for, paying homage to \u201cFriday the 13th Part VI \u2013 Jason Lives\u201d as much as \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally.\u201d And the Heart Eyes Killer is a distinct, iconic figure, with the heart-eyes mask and array of gadgets. <\/p>\n Beautifully shot by Stephen Murphy and featuring an ace supporting cast that includes Devon Sawa, Jordana Brewster, Michaela Watkins and Gigi Zumbado, \u201cHeart Eyes\u201d should have been an oversized hit when it was released this Valentine\u2019s Day. There should have been an announcement about another sequel already. But here we are, waiting for streaming numbers or other metrics to tip the scales. \u201cHeart Eyes\u201d should stalk \u2013 and swoon \u2013 another day.<\/p>\n 3. \u201c28 Years Later\u201d<\/p>\n A legacy sequence to a movie that still feels cutting edge, director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland returned to the post-apocalyptic wasteland for \u201c28 Years Later,\u201d their first team-up since \u201cSunshine.\u201d In the world of \u201c28 Years Later,\u201d<\/a> Britain is a quarantine zone. (\u201c28 Weeks Later,\u201d made with little involvement from Boyle and Garland, has been deleted from the sacred timeline, so that movie\u2019s coda with zombies entering Paris, is no more.) Those indelible images of Cillian Murphy wandering around an abandoned London have been replaced by a small island village off the coast of Great Britain, where a young father (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is dealing with his precocious son (Alfie Williams) and ailing wife (Jodie Comer). When father and son embark on a mission to the mainland, the movie mutates, first into something resembling a folk horror tale and then into something sweeter and more unexpected, as the son brings his mother to the mainland in search of a doctor (Ralph Fiennes). <\/p>\n Taking inspiration from Ken Loach\u2019s 1969 coming-of-age film \u201cKes\u201d and embroidered by a one-of-a-kind score by Scottish hip hop act Young Fathers, \u201c28 Years Later\u201d has a sensation all its own \u2013 if you don\u2019t sob through the first act, you might be a heartless zombie. At least the sequel, written by Garland and directed by Nia DaCosta, is just around the corner, arriving in theaters in January 2026.<\/p>\n 2. \u201cWeapons\u201d<\/p>\n Zach Cregger\u2019s follow-up to \u201cBarbarian\u201d is an ambitious epic, mixing tones and styles with gleeful abandon. Part of the fun of \u201cWeapons\u201d<\/a> is in the way that it slowly reveals its sinister secrets, so we will be brief and opaque when it comes to our description of the movie. But we can say this \u2013 in the town of Maybrook, Pennsylvania, a group of kids get up at 2:17 a.m. and leave their homes. Julia Garner plays the teacher of the class of kids, Josh Brolin is one of the fathers and Alden Ehrenreich is the local cop investigating the disappearances, with a bulk of the story taking place a month after the kids went missing. And that\u2019s really all you need to know! The way that the narrative unfolds, following various characters as they go through this experience, and the way that Cregger mixes dread and comedy, is absolutely galvanizing. And the movie\u2019s thematic undercurrents, about how a community processes grief and explains away violence, makes everything that much more powerful. It\u2019s a must-see and one of the year\u2019s very best movies.<\/p>\n 1. \u201cSinners\u201d<\/p>\n Leave it to Ryan Coogler, who had amassed an unlimited reservoir of goodwill following his \u201cCreed\u201d and \u201cBlack Panther\u201d movies, and who decided to utilize that goodwill on a hugely expensive, beautifully photographed passion project \u2013 a musical vampire movie, stuffed with symbolism and historic context, that is also one of the most fitfully entertaining movies of the past few years. In \u201cSinners\u201d<\/a> Michael B. Jordan plays the Smokestack Twins, bootlegging brothers who rode with Al Capone for a time but who have returned, in the early 1930s, to their backwater Mississippi town. Their plan is to open a rowdy juke joint. This is an entrepreneurial act, for sure, but also looks to enrich their community by giving the folks working the plantations and the cotton fields somewhere to go after work and be free. Of course that freedom is threatened when a vampire (Jack O\u2019Connell) shows up and looks to turn the revelers into blood-sucking children of the night. <\/p>\n \u201cSinners\u201d is piled high with themes and ideas, with Coogler exploring everything from the importance of Black business ownership to the (literally) transcendent power of the blues, to vampirism as a cultural force as much as it is a supernatural one. And the fact that all of this stuff doesn\u2019t clash with one another, instead building beautifully to something melancholic and unforgettable, is one of the many magic tricks of \u201cSinners.\u201d Coogler made a stone-cold masterpiece that defies easy categorization and demands further excavation. Complete with one of the great scores of the year (by Coogler\u2019s frequent collaborator Ludwig G\u00f6ransson), this is one for the ages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2025 has been an unbelievably great year for horror \u2013 maybe one of the best ever. Historically, horror…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[29043,49,48,75,337,27690,23920,8725,3598],"class_list":["post-75641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-28-years-later","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-sinners","tag-the-monkey","tag-weapons","tag-what-to-watch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"together-alison-brie-dave-franco\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/together-alison-brie-dave-franco.jpeg\")
Neon<\/p>\n![\"Companion\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Companion-1.jpg\")
Warner Bros.<\/p>\n![\""Final](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Final-Destination-Bloodlines-2-1.jpg\")
New Line Cinema<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/The-Monkey-2.jpg\")
NEON<\/p>\n![\"Presence\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Presence-2.jpg\")
NEON<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Heart-Eyes-killer-stands-alone.jpg\")
Sony<\/p>\n![\""28](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/28-Years-Later-1.jpg\")
Sony<\/p>\n![\"Josh](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Weapons-Josh-Brolin-1.jpg\")
New Line Cinema<\/p>\n![\""Sinners"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/rev-1-GRC-FP-023_High_Res_JPEG.jpeg\")
Warner Bros<\/p>\n