★★★★ out of ★★★★★
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Iron Lung is an impressive directorial debut from longtime Youtuber Markiplier, a love letter to psychological indie horror, and a huge win for the fake blood industry.
Who is the greatest Final Girl of them all? You decide! Pick from final girls from across the decades to figure out who will survive THIS challenge. They thought it was hard getting away from their stalkers, but they never considered how hard it would be to win your vote!
★★★ out of ★★★★★
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If Guy Maddin and Roger Corman collaborated on a British comedy sketch about ghostly folk tales, filmmaking, and the creative process, it might look something like The Peril at Pincer Point — but then again, it absolutely might not . . .
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
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Turning 15 years old is hard enough, but when a monstrous event affects your best friend and a quinceañera goes horribly wrong, things get gory and violent, indeed, as Quince (Fifteen) shows in great detail.
Sweet, sweet revenge. A subgenre best served cold, with a side of yanked intestines. It is a foundational tool for horror, both from the protagonist and antagonist perspectives. Anger, jealousy, and embarrassment create grudges that stick, and payback, she is a comin'. Listen in to our recommendations for your revenge fantasy satisfaction.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
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Ugly Cry joins the ranks of body horror movies written and directed by women that shine a light on the unfair beauty standards that women are held to. Emily Robinson wrote, directed, and stars in this dark comedy drama where facial expressions can doom you to getting a key acting job or not. "It's not body horror, but it is a film about the horror of having a body" (Robinson) This movie premiered at SXSW.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25 out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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If the new A24 film Undertone is considered to be “liminal horror” then count me as a true blue liminal horror fan. Operating in between the spaces, notes, and shadows, this is a film that evokes surreal and unsettling perspectives from — the nothingness.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
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Virtuosos get violent in Pretty Lethal as a troupe of American ballerinas find themselves in a dangerous situation facing Hungarian mobsters. This fun feature delivers genre thrills at an allegro pace.
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If staring at video game for an hour and fifteen minutes is your idea of a swell time, then this might be the found footage film you’ve been waiting for all these years. The chaos isn’t too terribly chaotic. It’s far more controlled than any film in the VHS series, but not as staid as the now bland nature of the Blair Witch Project.
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
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Bagworm is intensely uncomfortable. Carroll is a loser living in a burned-out bungalow in decaying squalor. His love life reflects his living situation: rotting and getting worse. When this hammer salesman, ironically, steps on a rusty nail in his front yard, it adds a third leg to this stool of personal destruction. Tetanus overcomes him due to personal neglect, leading to madness and hallucinations. It is a story well told, and though it sprinkles in some humor, it is wrought with cringeworthy moments. Bagworm had its North American debut at SXSW.
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
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A young woman abandoned in the forest falls in with a pair of bank robbers in Canadian thriller A SAFE DISTANCE.
We've got 2025 in the rear view window, and Hollywood has determined to not just relegate horror movies into the fall/Halloween schedule. Springtime apparently is a good time to have a big fear injection. So, we had to get the word out on movies you can anticipate coming to a theater near you!
The Scariest Things has four more SXSW 2026 feature film recommendations for you!
Here are five SXSW 2026 feature films we're greatly anticipating
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What do you get when you combine two BAFTA Award winners, two Oscar nominees, and a TV director — who's also won a BAFTA — making his sophomore feature film? A fungus-filled, splatterrific, goopy, gory horror-comedy, that's what. Cold Storage (2026) is B-movie creature feature bliss, and it knows exactly what it is.
Here's a trio of short horror shorts premiering at SXSW 2026.
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Ever wanted to watch a bunch of movies all at once? Whistle (2025) has you covered. Crack open your Final Destination franchise, It Follows (2014), and Smile 2 (2024) and pour them all into the blender. What comes out is a well-oiled, thoroughly entertaining horror smoothie that somehow forgets to add its most interesting ingredient.
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Ever wanted to watch a bunch of movies all at once? Whistle (2025) has you covered. Crack open your Final Destination franchise, It Follows (2014), and Smile 2 (2024) and pour them all into the blender. What comes out is a well-oiled, thoroughly entertaining horror smoothie that somehow forgets to add its most interesting ingredient.
Brazil's Fantaspoa film festival is ready to boggle your mind with its 2026 lineup!
★★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
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Send Help is pure wicked entertainment. It borrows tropes from many genres. The ugly duckling turning into a swan. The horrible boss. Disaster survival. Obsession. All of these familiar elements are blended into something more than the sum of their parts. It's funny, brutal, and puts both of its main characters through real ethical paces. Your rooting interests may shift over the course of the movie, but it ends with a cynical twist that turns into the perfect sunset. (Fist pump!)
In a show of filmmaker confidence, the production team behind last year's award-winning independent teen thriller It Needs Eyes is going on a theatrical release tour. Check out this post to see if it's showing near you!
One of our favorite films from the Another Hole in the Head Film Festival back in 2024 is now available streaming. AHITH is known for its quirky, proudly independent genre films, and this movie does not disappoint. It can be difficult for little independent films to get good distribution. Sometimes good things come to patient filmmakers who wait for the right deal. Now, Cognitive has received a proper launch. Cognitive had a limited theatrical release in Los Angeles last month and is now available to the general public on Tubi, Sling TV, and Fandango.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2 out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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Writer/director Kurtis David Harder comes back to his Influencer... dare I say it? Franchise?! And he’s kicking things up a notch. Count this among the rarities where the sequel is better than the original.
Here come the stinkers! It's time to discuss the Worst Horror movies of 2025. Of course, just like our favorites, our disappointments are highly subjective. You may be surprised to discover that some of the movies we didn't enjoy have received plaudits from other critics. We have some fun internal disagreements, for sure. We know you love hearing us throw shade on movies. Enjoy the hot takes!
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
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Presence observes a family nearing a breaking point. The Paynes have just moved into a substantial craftsman home, and it came with a poltergeist. The audience watches from the ghost's perspective as it meanders around the house, ducking into closets and the shadows when necessary. This is a family drama first, with the apparition being the witness. You travel from room to room listening in on conversations intended to be private, and watch as certain decisions pull at the threads that threaten to undo the family. Presence is a quiet and beautiful film, though it is wrenching to watch. There is horror, but not in the traditional sense, and it arrives with a flourish at the conclusion of the movie.
★★★ out of ★★★★★
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Night of the Zoopocalypse is a zany, goopy gateway horror film inspired by a Clive Barker graphic novel. A meteorite crashes into the Culpepper Zoo and infects the animals trapped inside, turning them into gelatinous mutant monsters. A wily wolf and a cantankerous mountain lion team up to try to save their zoo, with the help of a wacky assortment of untainted zoo-mates. This is a simple story, but it is a fine introduction to light horror for kids who want something a little gross and a little spooky.
If it's January, you know it's time for our Top 10 Horror Movies of 2025. You might think there is a group consensus, in a year that had so many good horror movies... but you'd be wrong! The best part of having a great sampler platter of movies to pick from is that there is something for everybody. This year, the box office and the awards programs agree, 2025 had a lot to offer.
A Night of Horror International Film Festival's 2026 first wave lineup blends the supernatural with the surreal.
FrightFest Glasgow unleashes its fantastic 2026 lineup!
Check out the trailer and poster for retro sci-fi/horror comedy VAMPIRE ZOMBIES . . . FROM SPACE!.
Who's a good boy? Why, you are, Indy! In a monumental achievement, Indy the dog's performance in Good Boy earned him the Astra Award for Best Performance in a Horror or Thriller, beating out his esteemed human competition. In a year that has started off with so much social friction, it is amazing news like this that gives us hope. This win is for the underdog. How did Indy do it? Listen to my interview with director Ben Leonberg about how they pulled off this miraculous feat.