American Dollhouse (2026): Overlook Film Festival Review

★★★★ out of ★★★★★

Intensity 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

American Dollhouse is what you get when a slow-burning liminal horror film decides to step on the gas and slams you into psycho murder madness. Sarah is a woman who hasn't been given many breaks in her life. When she inherits her dilapidated childhood home, she thinks she has struck the lottery. Unfortunately, the house retains awful memories, and worse yet, has a psychotic neighbor who has a strange obsession with her. Tensions rise as the neighbor's behavior escalates into violence, pushing Sarah deeper into a nightmare that threatens everything around her.

Read More
A woman with long blonde hair screams in terror during a tense scene in a dimly lit room.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (2026): Review

★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★

Intensity 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

Embattled bride Grace is back, in Ready or Not 2: Here I come, and she's going to have to do it all over again. This time, her estranged sister will be by her side as a cadre of rival megalomaniacal families vie to murder her and claim the ultimate Satanic prize. This sequel is a bloody joy ride, and it extends the premise well, but a chunk of the magic of the first movie is missing.

Read More
Eerie humanoid figure with elongated limbs in a dimly lit, modern interior space.

Trailer Alert! Backrooms (2026)

Backrooms is a relatively recent creepypasta and "found footage" incantation originating from 4chan. If you’re of a certain age you may be simultaneously wondering what the hell is creepy pasta? What’s a Backroom? And should I spend more time on 4chan?
 Good news! You don’t have to answer any of these questions because a brand new trailer for Backrooms just dropped.
Read More

Iron Lung (2026) Review

★★★★ out of ★★★★★

Intensity 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

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.

Read More
A woman with a white cap in a forest setting, looking worried.

The Final Girl – Final Four Battle Royale Bracket

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!
Read More

The Peril at Pincer Point (2026): SXSW Review

★★★ out of ★★★★★ Intensity 🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸 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 . . .  
Read More
A woman and a girl in shiny, elegant dresses holding hands at a festive event.

Quince (AKA Fifteen, 2026): SXSW Review

★★★★ out of ★★★★★ Intensity 🩸🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸 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. 
Read More

Revenge Horror! : Episode 210

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.
Read More
A woman with a distressed expression, partially covered by a blue sign reading "Ugly Cry" with dripp.

Ugly Cry (2026): SXSW Review

★★★★ out of ★★★★★

Intensity 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

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.

Read More

Undertone review (2026)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25 out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

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.

Read More

Pretty Lethal (2026): SXSW Review

★★★★ out of ★★★★★

Intensity 🩸🩸🩸1/2 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

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.

Read More
A terrifying night scene with a house and lightning in a stormy sky, emphasizing the intensity of a.

Bodycam review (2026)

⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Intensity 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

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.

Read More
A woman resting in a cluttered, dimly lit room with damaged walls and old furniture.

Bagworm (2026): SXSW Review

★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★

Intensity 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

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.

Read More
A Safe Distance (2026): SXSW Review - Two women walking through a dense forest, exploring themes of.

A Safe Distance (2026): SXSW Review

★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★

Intensity 🩸🩸1/2 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

A young woman abandoned in the forest falls in with a pair of bank robbers in Canadian thriller A SAFE DISTANCE.

Read More
Looking Forward To in 2026: Episode 209.

Looking Forward To in 2026: Episode 209

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!
Read More
A young woman and a young man peering around a locker in a tense, suspenseful scene from Cold Storag.

Cold Storage (2026) Review

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2 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.
Read More
A menacing black skull mask with glowing eyes held up by a person in a dark setting.

Whistle (2025) Review

⭐️⭐️ out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Intensity: 🩸🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
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.
Read More
A woman with long, wavy hair looks thoughtfully at a man holding a knife in a lush, green outdoor se.

Send Help (2026) Review

★★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★

Intensity 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

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!)

Read More

Cognitive (2025) receives a Wide Streaming Release

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.
Read More
Cassandra Naud in Influencers (2025).

Influencers (2025) Review

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2 out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Intensity: 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

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.

Read More
A cat playing with a litter scoop in a cat litter box.

The Worst Horror Movies of 2025: Episode 208

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!
Read More

Presence (2025): Review

★★★★ out of ★★★★★

Intensity 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

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.

Read More

Night of the Zoopocalypse (2025): Review

★★★ out of ★★★★★

Intensity 🩸1/2 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

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.

Read More

The Top 10 Horror Movies of 2025: Episode 207

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.
Read More

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Give us your email and get The Scariest Things in your inbox!

Scariest Socials