The 35+ Best and Worst Horror Movies of 2025 So Far, Ranked
Join us as we watch and rank the best and worst of horror cinema throughout 2025.
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Table of Contents
Looking at the list of horror movies scheduled for release in 2025, it’s going to be another good year. Hits including Companion, Heart Eyes, and The Monkey have already been released, and further into the year we’ll see movies like 28 Years Later, M3GAN 2.0, Sinners, and so much more. Just like the past few years, we’ll be watching as much as we can and ranking everything we see in 2025. From the best to the worst.
This list is an ongoing ranking of horror and horror-adjacent thriller movies released during 2025. To be considered for the list, the film must have its first wide release in the United States—whether the release is in theaters, on streaming, or on physical media—at some time during 2025. Limited releases, film festival screenings, and international releases in 2025 don’t necessarily count unless those movies also receive a wide release in the United States during the year (because that’s where we’re based).
The Top 10 Horror Movies of 2025
1. Companion
From stars Sophie Thatcher and Jack Quaid, to its violent and twisty plot, to its themes that touch on technology, consent, and what it means to be human, Companion is great. Though the movie is more of a straightforward sci-fi horror/thriller than the initial, ambiguous teaser trailer might suggest, it is an extremely satisfying genre movie. If you haven’t seen the trailers, just skip them all and go watch the movie now. It’s easily one of the best films of the first part of 2025, and going into it blind is the best way to see it.
2. The Devil and the Daylong Brothers
Have you ever seen a Southern Gothic musical? Well, if not, then Devil and the Daylong Brothers should be your first. The story follows three brothers (same father, different mothers) who are on a quest for revenge. See, their father sold their souls to the Devil, and they’re in desperate need of a confrontation with their old man. With pulpy, graphic-novel visuals and eminently catchy music throughout, The Devil and the Daylong Brothers is a violent and emotional blast.
3. Presence
Though it might take some viewers a little while to get into it, the unique way Presence is presented to the audience is a very effective way of telling a haunted house story. From the perspective we’re given, Presence minimizes scares and emphasizes the drama of a dysfunctional family who moves into a new house. The daughter, Chloe, can feel something in the house, and we, as the viewer, know for a fact that it is there. But the mystery of what (or who) the presence is and what it is there to do serves as the force that drives the movie towards its impressive finale.
4. Grafted
Body horror is back in fashion, and Grafted is a terrifically worthy entry in that stomach-turning subgenre. The film is about Wei, a shy young woman from Hong Kong who travels to New Zealand for college. She works to continue her late father’s research into a revolutionary skin grafting technique, but many of the people around Wei aren’t very nice. Among other problems, Wei has trouble fitting in. So, when an opportunity presents itself, she decides to take drastic action to see what it feels like to finally be seen. Grafted is gory and funny in a dark way, and you might even feel it tug on your heartstrings between all the death and grotesqueries.
Read our full review of Grafted.
5. Drained
The vampire romance film isn’t the most obscure of horror subgenres, but don’t let that prevent you from watching this movie. Drained is about a lovable loser who falls for a seductive vampire, and the movie is excellently made. It looks fantastic, the characters are fully developed and intriguing, and the story mixes metaphors and drama in the exact right proportions. Even though Drained is often described as a romance, it’s really a tragedy. You can see that things are going to end very badly for our star-crossed lovers right from the start, but the way the story progresses makes the emotions of the final scenes anything but straightforward.
Read our full review of Drained.
6. The Damned
The Damned employs a strong sense of dread to tell a story about isolation, survival, and guilt. The story is set in the late 1800s in a frozen fjord in northern Iceland. A fishing crew struggles with poor catches this season, and when they spot a ship sinking not too far away, the decision is made to let the sailors fend for themselves rather than help them and use up their dwindling supplies. After the dead bodies of sailors begin washing ashore, the fishermen and their leader, a widowed woman who inherited the fishing station from her husband, begin having experiences they can’t help but attribute to a monster created by their callousness. The Damned is filled with psychological chills and a touch of monster-movie frights.
7. Birdeater
Birdeater is a thriller that feels like a slowly burning fuse. The opening scenes show us the relationship between the movie’s two main characters, Irene and Louie, and it is clear that there is toxicity present. However, it takes a while for everything to explode. Louie invites (or rather, guilts) his fiancée Irene to attend his bachelor party at an isolated house, and that is where secrets begin to spill out. Tensions rise steadily between everyone at the party, and there is a specific scene partway through the movie where the cracks turn into chasms. From there the night continues to deteriorate into a drug-fueled frenzy. The final scenes of Birdeater might not be as wild or as satisfying as some viewers might expect, but the overall tension permeating the film is terrific.
8. Bloody Axe Wound
In a town where “slasher villain” is a job description and their murders are caught on tape and viewed as entertainment, Abbie feels that she’s ready to enter into her father’s deadly profession. Her dad, Roger Bladecut, has his doubts about Abbie, but he agrees to let her slice and dice the local teens he’d planned to slaughter himself. But stalking teens opens a whole new world to Abbie, a world where friends her own age might be more important to her than her father’s legacy. Bloody Axe Wound is set in a world that is odd and inexplicable a lot of the time, but this gory mashup of a slasher and a coming-of-age teen dramedy works well thanks to its humor and heart.
9. Wolf Man
Wolf Man is good. After Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man (2020), many people were probably expecting Wolf Man to be great. But it’s good. The most interesting aspect of Wolf Man is how it treats becoming a werewolf like a disease rather than a curse like in The Wolf Man from 1941. Other movies since that Universal classic have treated werewolves like an infection, but few focus on the werewolf’s deteriorating mental and physical state as deeply as Wolf Man. The best moments in the movie are when the audience is shown what a husband and father sees and hears as the wolf takes over his body. As for everything else in the movie, it’s a fine genre effort.
10. Rounding
Rounding is a medical drama first, but its dark tone and the intense mental struggles of its main character slowly transform it into a psychological thriller. Dr. Hayman goes through a traumatic experience in the opening of the film. Afterward, he transfers to a smaller hospital in a rural area for a fresh start, but he can’t outrun the darkness in his mind. When he becomes obsessed with figuring out the true cause of a young woman’s chronic illness, his fears begin to overwhelm him.
Movies Ranked 11 and Beyond
11. Freelance
Katie is a freelance video editor who is struggling to find decent work. With bills stacking up, she decides to take an editing job from an anonymous source. When she starts going through the footage, she is disturbed. Has she been hired to edit a horror movie, or is she piecing together a snuff film? Freelance isn’t really as unsettling as its premise suggests. Instead, it is an interesting character study of someone who is in a horrible situation. The suspense is solid, and the psychological nature of the story is well done.
12. Heart Eyes
For a mainstream slasher movie, Heart Eyes is good. The plot and the humor might be lacking, but the kills are gory and the love story is charming. It’s a crowd-pleaser. The story is set on Valentine’s Day, and it follows Ally as she has the worst day. Ally’s latest marketing campaign is a bust at work, and romance expert Jay Simmonds is brought in to help her think of something new. While they’re out on a “work dinner,” they are mistaken for a couple by the Heart Eyes killer, a masked murderer who slaughters couples on Valentine’s Day. Shenanigans ensue, and Ally and Jay fight for their lives as people around them die in horrible ways.
13. Creep Box
Creep Box is kind of like a seance movie, but utilizing science fiction instead of the supernatural. A tech company creates a device that basically copies a deceased person’s brain onto a drive used in a box-shaped computer. It results in a recreation of the person’s mind which can be interacted with through conversation. The process isn’t perfect though. Different sides of the person’s personality come through all at once, and the creator of the box, Dr. Caul, uses keywords to keep the personality from “corrupting” during conversation. Creep Box is a slow burn, and the pace might be too lethargic for some viewers. The film is also largely about grief, and there isn’t much respite from the dark themes at any point throughout the film. It is, however, very well made, and the themes are interesting.
14. The Man in the White Van
The Man in the White Van is a decent serial-killer thriller. Set in the 1970s, it’s about a teenage girl, Annie (Madison Wolfe), who is stalked by a man in a van. The problem is, Annie is known for telling tall tales, so nobody believes her when she talks about seeing the same van everywhere she goes. The movie might be too reliant on the tropes of the genre, and the continued disbelief of Annie’s story can get tiresome, but the film does deliver some nice thrills as the stalker (who is shown to be a violent killer) closes in on his target.
15. Bone Face
What is your favorite part of a whodunit slasher? Is it trying to find out who the killer is? If so, then Bone Face might be for you. The first few minutes of Bone Face show us a typical slasher movie. A bunch of young people gather for a party, a masked killer sneaks up on them, and blood flies. The majority of the movie, however, takes place in a nearby diner where a sheriff and his deputy have determined that the Bone Face killer is hiding in plain sight. The officers question everyone, slowly working their way closer to the killer’s identity. Even though some of the late-story twists feel unnecessary, the murder mystery side of Bone Face is quite good.
16. The Dead Thing
Getting ghosted by someone is awful. For Alex, who is ghosted after spending the night with Kyle who helps her feel something good for once in her mundane life, it’s something she can’t let go of. Alex searches for Kyle, and when she finds him, he acts like he doesn’t remember her. What’s going on might be more obvious than you think. The premise of The Dead Thing is intriguing, and the dreamlike quality of Alex and Kyle’s relationship is great, but some odd filmmaking decisions towards the end might leave some viewers wanting more.
17. Dark Match
Pro-wrestling and horror go together surprisingly well. Or maybe it’s not so surprising. Both contain high drama, violence, and, occasionally, a lot of blood. Dark Match contains all of those enticing elements as well. The story grapples with coherence a lot of the time, but the basic idea is good. A group of small-time indie wrestlers are invited to put on a show in a community isolated far away from a bigger city. The performers have a bad feeling about the people they’ve agreed to entertain, and, sure enough, they find themselves having to wrestle to the death in a series of brutal matches. There’s a lot more to the convoluted story, but the best parts all involve action, violence, and blood.
18. Get Away
Get Away feels very familiar in a lot of ways. That’s likely the intention though, since the movie plays with the audience’s expectations as a way of misdirection. Without going too deep into spoilers, the setup of the movie involves a family of four who travel to an isolated Swedish island for a vacation. A special cultural event is about to be held on the island, and the local population is rather upset to have four interlopers in their midst. They’re so upset that they might take drastic action to get rid of their unwanted guests. Get Away is fun enough thanks to its lead actors, but it’s more amusing than funny, and the final act gets too hammy for its own good (though there are still some fun moments to be had).
19. Sumala
In Semarang (on the island of Java in Indonesia), children are told to stay inside after dark unless they want Sumala to come and take them away. This is good advice, because the opening scene of Sumala shows us the brutal and gory result of what happens if kids ignore their parents. The rest of the movie is told as a flashback, and it shows us the origin story of Sumala, from before her birth up until the time she became a boogeyman. The story is one of abuse, revenge, and witchcraft, and it is exceedingly bloody at times. It isn’t always as effectively dramatic as it wants to be, but it’s still entertaining for its more visceral side.
20. Are You There?
Are You There features a wonderfully atmospheric hook. The movie is about a young woman, Rosa, who uses a candle to speak to her dead grandmother. Rosa asks “yes” or “no” questions, and the spirit on the other side bends the candle’s flame towards the correct answer hanging from the candlestick. The resolution of Are You There feels very similar to many other movies that blend the psychological with the supernatural, but the overall story is good.
21. Tarot Curse
A group of friends participate in a tarot card reading. Afterwards, they each die in ways predicted by the cards they are dealt. Sound familiar? Yeah, Tarot Curse is similar to Tarot (2024) in some ways, but Tarot Curse is better. The characters, though mostly thinly developed, are fun to watch, and the dedication the filmmakers have to practical gore effects adds to the charm. Some of the deaths also happen in a way reminiscent of the Final Destination franchise, which is great. From a story perspective, Tarot Curse is lacking. A lot. But from a pure genre standpoint, Tarot Curse is cheesy fun.
22. Blades in the Darkness
Blades in the Darkness is like two movie genres stacked on top of each other. It begins with a backstory of a kid who will eventually become a killer. Then it becomes a crime thriller about a guy who steals money from his friends to pay off a gangster. Then, finally, it becomes a slasher movie with an awesome killer stalking and slaying nearly everyone we’ve met so far. This last part, the slashing part, is the best. By far. The rest of the movie is rather tedious, but the killer makes Blades in the Darkness worth watching.
23. Zombie Strain
With some stoner comedy, a lot of bickering, and a few zombies here and there, Zombie Strain is a pretty good zombie comedy. The movie is presented in a found footage style (which is really a pseudo-documentary), and it follows a group of coworkers trapped inside a low-budget sound stage when zombies begin attacking people outside. The humor is dumb, but it’s mostly fun, and a couple of standout characters—Zoe (Chandni Shah) and Charlie (William Mann)—make Zombie Strain as good as it is.
24. Lizzie Lazarus
Throughout Lizzie Lazarus, Lizzie’s sister Bethany and boyfriend Eli carry her dead body through a forest. They’re on their way to a spot in the woods where it is said that the dead can be brought back to life. The journey is long, so Bethany and Eli have a lot of time to talk. Which they do. Through their conversations we learn more about them and their motivations for bringing Lizzie back. So, naturally, Lizzie Lazarus is a very talky movie. The ideas are good, though the way the characters are written makes it sound like they are reciting flowery dialogue rather than speaking like normal people in a stressful situation. The emotions also never reach the level you might expect.
25. The Yorkie Werewolf
Dumb comedies can be hit or miss, but The Yorkie Werewolf is a dumb comedy that hits more than it misses. The setting is a small town where a feud between witches and mobsters has raged for years. Jenny (Isabella Jaimie) is the daughter of a witch, but she isn’t interested in the duties her heritage demands. Then one night during a ritual, Jenny is turned into a yorkie werewolf (well, a were-yorkie, really) when a mafia assassin kills her mother and botches the magic spell. Now Jenny, as a witch and a monster, teams up with a timid vampire to take out the city’s mob boss. It’s very stupid, but the dialogue is often clever, which makes the movie surprisingly funny for the right audience.
26. Kromoleo
Kromoleo, set in a village on the Indonesian island of Java, is about a curse that rises up when a young woman returns to the village after being away for a decade. The woman, Zia (Safira Ratu Sofya), knows nothing about the curse. She only knows that the villagers hate her and her grandfather isn’t telling her something. As night arrives, so do numerous ghosts who kill people in very violent ways. Now Zia hopes to survive long enough to find out what her connection to the curse is, and how to stop it. The story of Kromoleo isn’t terribly original, but some of the visuals are good, and the supernatural violence is fun. Really, the death scenes are the best parts of the movie.
27. Into the Deep
Cassidy’s father was killed by a shark when she was a child, and now, as an adult, she has a healthy fear of the ocean and the man-eating creatures it contains. Cassidy joins her husband on a treasure diving expedition as a way to confront her fears, but when their boat is taken by drug-running pirates, she must dive into shark-infested waters to collect their cargo and save her husband’s life. Into the Deep is fine. It’s not a great shark movie, but it’s far from the worst. The CGI shark attacks generally look awful, and the plot line of Cassidy overcoming her fears feels underdeveloped, but the overall movie is okay.
28. Bystanders
Bystanders is rough around the edges, but it has an interesting premise. It’s a revenge movie about Abby, a woman who is assaulted and sent out into the woods to be hunted and killed. While on the run, Abby is helped by a nice-looking couple who happen to be driving by. They don’t take her to the police though. Instead, the couple, who are experts in various forms of murder, help Abby deal with her attackers through severe bodily harm. The presentation of the violence isn’t always as cathartic as intended, and it lacks in tension, but Bystanders will be of interest to fans of unique revenge movies.
29. The Ceremony is About to Begin
The ending of The Ceremony is About to Begin is the best part of the movie. Sadly, the path to get there feels longer than it really is. The film is a pseudo-documentary about a filmmaker named Keith creating a doc about a cult whose beliefs involve Egyptian mythology. Keith attempts to interview Anubis, the leader of the cult, but his quirky nature can’t hide the fact that he is up to something. Something involving a ceremony. The pace of the movie drags after the first few minutes, but if you stick around to the end you might have a good time with it.
30. Movie Theater Massacre
Movie Theater Massacre is a comedic ode to movie theaters and the moviegoing experience. Unfortunately, the plot is strangely convoluted for how thin it is. It is set up as a slasher movie with a masked killer who stalks and slashes people, but then there’s also a haunting involved, a small crime caper, and a plot thread about making a movie. It’s an unfocused film, but there are good moments throughout. The story is set inside a theater during the final days before it closes forever, and the best parts of the movie are the scenes where the employees are simply talking about their time together and how much they love movies.
31. Werewolf Game
Werewolf Game is a live-action recreation of the social deduction game known as Werewolf (or Mafia). A bunch of people are kidnapped, placed on an island, and forced to play a game. Two people are secretly assigned to be “werewolves,” which means that each night they can kill someone (they’re not actual werewolves, though they do receive neat masks). During the day, everyone, including the secret werewolves, vote for who they think is a killer. Whoever gets the most votes is executed, and the day/night cycle continues until either the wolves kill everyone else, or the wolves are found out and executed. The game is fun enough if you’re familiar with how the real-life game works, but the characters in the movie are surprisingly one-dimensional for a movie like this. Also, the ending doesn’t make a ton of sense.
32. The Night Time World
The Night Time World is a horror anthology film consisting of four story segments, all of which involve a vampire of some sort (one of the stories takes the vampire theme in an unusual direction). As with many anthology films, the stories vary in quality. Two of the stories are good, and two… not so much. So, The Night Time World is 50/50 as far as entertainment goes.
33. Mouse of Horrors
Mouse of Horrors isn’t the first slasher movie to take advantage of Steamboat Willie being in the public domain, but as of its release, it’s the best. That bar was set pretty low in 2024, but, truthfully, Mouse of Horrors does have something to offer. The Mouse (who is credited as The Killer, but everyone just calls him The Mouse) has a fun design, and his kills are nicely brutal. But the inclusion of a certain yellow bear is distractingly goofy, and a “Bride of Frankenstein” subplot is mostly unnecessary. And don’t even get me started on the CGI. There’s a mix of practical and digital effects, but the CGI ruins every scene it’s used in. It’s really bad. The rest of the movie is fine in a “mindless slasher with questionable production values” kind of way.
34. The Monster Beneath Us
From a visual standpoint, The Monster Beneath Us is excellent. The movie is set in a gorgeous historical mansion in Yorkshire, England, and it’s filmed beautifully. However, the story that takes place inside that mansion trudges along so slowly that many viewers will lose interest before anything interesting happens. The film is about a mother and son who move into a house where there is a literal monster in the basement. The boy develops a strange connection with the creature, but all that amounts to is a lot of talking and a lot of walking around in dark hallways. There’s just not much here.
35. Piglet
Piglet might appear to be connected to the growing Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey universe, but it isn’t. You might think that Piglet is also one of the many recent public-domain-inspired horror movies, but, other than the name of the main character, it isn’t. So what is Piglet? It’s a cheaply made slasher movie with a story that seems to borrow heavily from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise and… Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023). Even though Piglet isn’t connected to either of those films, the plot is strikingly similar to both. Beyond that, Piglet is a by-the-numbers slasher with too much bad CGI blood, a haphazard story, and uneven production values all around.
36. When It Rains in LA
When It Rains in LA seems confused about the style of movie it wants to be. Is it a cursed-object movie? A slasher movie? A crime thriller? A whodunit mystery? A romance? It’s sort of all of those things, but none of them are done particularly well. There are some unintentionally funny moments, but even those aren’t enough to warrant a recommendation here.
37. Don’t Make a Sound
Don’t Make a Sound takes way too long to get going, and once it finally starts moving, it doesn’t go anywhere terribly interesting. The plot involves a girl being chased through the woods by a killer in a hazmat suit and gas mask, and that’s about all there is to it. The girl being chased has a small backstory, but nothing really matters. Murders happen at random whenever the killer sees someone, and the finale wraps everything up in the tropiest of ways.
