Here at Binge News we made every attempt to check out, to screen every horror movie of note last year and rank them by grade. There are some exceptions though:
If the film wasn’t available in English, had no subtitles or dubbing we had to pass.
If the film was so low, low, low budget that the “filmmakers” couldn’t even get the simple things like editing, continuity or lighting right, we had to pass.
Also, each grade installment is listed from best to worst. So, the last entry in F Grade is what we consider the worst Horror movie of the 2025 and in turn the first entry in A Grade is what we consider the best of 2025.
We begin with F Grade.
Synopsis: When the “it” girls competing for prom queen at Shadyside High start to disappear, a gutsy outsider discovers she’s in for one hell of a prom night.
Review: Prom Queen is so formulaic that it is rumoured it was produced on the same assembly line that churned out all those regurgitated sequels to The Strangers. A bunch of one-note characters get sliced and diced in some imaginative ways but that is where the creativity reaches a dead end. Besides the kills there is nothing memorable or exceptional about Prom Queen except for the fact that besides the music the producers couldn’t even replicate the eighties setting right. This movie is totally bogus and totally lame.
Synopsis: For the past several years, the “Heart Eyes Killer” has wreaked havoc on Valentine’s Day by stalking and murdering romantic couples. This Valentine’s Day, no couple is safe.
Review: A rom-com slasher movie that’s so light on horror it is perfect for soccer moms who cannot wait for the next season of that ever-so ‘edgy’ You to drop on Netflix. Heart Eyes is from the same bunglers who crapped out Scare Me (2020), Werewolves Within (2021) and other such groaners. Apparently, they have unfortunately found their Hollywood niche so expect even more horror comedies from them that are neither scary nor funny. Once again, their idea of a decent female lead is someone who is belligerent, petulant and just an absolute asshole. You cannot be a final girl when we cannot wait for you to meet your grisly demise as soon as humanly possible. By the way, the bad humour even infects and ruins the big slasher whodunit reveal. Like this entire film, it is a waste of time. This is a horror movie for soccer moms.
Synopsis: When twin brothers Bill and Hal find their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths start. The siblings decide to throw the toy away and move on with their lives, growing apart over the years.
Review: Besides the toy monkey chiming doom for its victims this has very little to do with the short story by Stephen King. The Monkey just drifts from one Final Destination-like kill, set-piece to the next with barely any story to tie things together. The tone is so over-the-top, so silly and absurd you cannot take this film seriously on any level and because of that it fails as a horror movie. It is more accurately just a gross-out film.
Synopsis: A group of friends are terrorised by a stalker who knows about a gruesome incident from their past.
Review: There are a few clever nods to the original but those just remind the audience of how much better the original was especially without all the political grandstanding and toxic messaging.
This isn’t a spoiler in any way but when you end the film with the cruel and irresponsible gut punch line: “This would have never happened if men went to therapy”, your mentality is as transparent as Dr. Jack Griffin was. That one line is delivered with chuckles and smiles which makes you wonder about the thought process that went into it. It shows a genuine and shocking lack of empathy. It is also inaccurate. Recent data indicates a significant increase in men accessing mental health services more than ever before.
In a day and age in which there have been great strides in removing the stigma surrounding mental illness and normalizing those discussions, it is absolutely mind-blowing that this line was left in the film. It does however accurately represent the film’s spiteful and regressive attitude. What’s the motivation and desire of someone to belittle and disparage people which in the end just fuels even more negativity? I wish the answer to that mystery was a simple-minded and straight-forward as the one in I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Full Review: https://binge-news.com/2025/07/22/from-horror-to-hostility-i-know-what-you-did-last-summer-a-reckless-remake/
Synopsis: A group of survivors of the rage virus live on a small island. When one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors.
Review: A chaotic, irritating, hyper edited mess of a movie to the point of almost being unwatchable. Everything is so off the rails and not in a good way. With the massive cultural impact The Walking Dead and Last Train to Busan made on the modern zombie genre, you are going to have to do way better than this to excite or interest fans. And, like the other movies, the human drama is a big, boring flop. One of the biggest disappointments of the year. Let’s hope the planned trilogy gets the big axe right to the head.
Synopsis: A young athlete descends into a world of terror when he’s invited to train with a legendary champion whose charisma curdles into something darker.
Review: From start to finish this movie is entirely predictable. You know exactly what rising star quarterback Cam (Tyriq Withers) is getting into and how he is going to get himself out of it. You’ve seen it all before just probably part of anthology rather than a full-blown movie. This is Jordan Peele’s problem and track record as a director or in this case, a producer. He takes flimsy stories and inflates them. Him is so paint-by-numbers you can keep you finger on that Fast Forward button and not miss a thing.
Synopsis: Drag queens and club kids battle zombies craving brains during a zombie outbreak at their drag show in Brooklyn, putting personal conflicts aside to utilize their distinct abilities against the undead threat.
Review: Despite the excellent special effects it is hard to take the monstrous threats seriously when everyone is being so, yup, that phrase again, silly-billies. Lots of bad theatre school acting but the story moves along at a good clip. Still, you have seen it all before and better despite director Tina Romero calling on her experience being an extra on George Romero’s Land of the Dead. The drag artistry on display is far more memorizing and captivating than the story itself. It has more heart than you would think too.
Synopsis: Abraham Van Helsing moves his two sons to the United States in an attempt to escape their past.
Review: Incredibly boring as the idea of building tension just doesn’t work and the big conclusion falls flat. It is more of a melodramatic family drama that just happens to involve Van Helsing’s family who have uprooted and living in an episode of Little House on the Prairie.
Synopsis: A romantic anniversary trip to a secluded cabin turns sinister when a dark presence reveals itself, forcing a couple to confront the property’s haunting past.
Review: Osgood Perkins is great at creating eerie atmospheres but in my opinion, not much else. His characters are always presented as if they aren’t quite human, their dialogue and behaviour often too stilted, campy and artificial. Keeper is no different. Although the amazing Tatiana Maslany tries her best to keep all the strings together, she cannot stop this pretentious ghost story from unravelling on the way to a conclusion he might think is original or unique, making some grand statement but it isn’t. Perkins’ work is the very worst Elevated, Arthouse Horror has to offer.
Synopsis: A motivational speaker is tormented by an unrelenting itch on the back of her head.
Review: If you are looking for another The Substance, you are going to be greatly disappointed. There is very little body horror in this supposed body horror movie. It is just a lot of whining, a lot of itching and a lot of suggested terror. If you are a proud compulsive scratcher this is the film for you.
Synopsis: Wendy Darling strikes out in an attempt to rescue her brother Michael from ‘the clutches of the evil Peter Pan.’ Along the way she meets Tinkerbell, who will be seen taking heroin, believing that it’s pixie dust.
Review: There is nothing pleasant, nothing entertaining, nothing about intriguing about this depressing and pointless take on Peter Pan. Martin Portlock steals not just a page but entire chapters from Heath Ledger’s Joker playbook, including the lisp and other mannerisms as he kidnaps children and brutally murders their parents. What fun.
Synopsis: Modern day pirates on the hunt for sunken drugs kidnap a boat of tourists and force them to dive into shark infested waters to retrieve the contraband.
Review: A rip-off of Peter Benchley’s Jaws follow-up The Island. How in the world did they get Jaws’ Richard Dreyfuss to star in this soggy shark story is beyond me. Although his plea for shark conservation that plays during the credits is from the heart it is cheesy especially after watching a movie that portrays sharks as ravenous killers. The special effects are PlayStation 2 quality and the plot has been recycled more times than the idea that every horror movie serial killer after 2024 has to wear a mask and a hoodie.
Synopsis: A young woman lost in a series of meaningless connections falls in love with a charismatic and sensitive man, who hides a dark secret that turns her affair into a dangerous obsession.
Review: Officially, it is from 2024 but that is only because it played the Fantasia festival but it got its wide-release through Shudder in February of 2025. This is nothing more than a relationship movie disguised, marketed as a horror movie. This is a fright film for corporate Hallmark gals who will gush about ‘surviving’ Midsommar while they sip their oat milk lattes or glasses of Prosecco. Nobody else need apply.
Synopsis: A small-time wrestling company accepts a well-paying gig in a backwoods town only to learn, too late, that the community is run by a mysterious cult leader with devious plans for their match.
Review: It is as if the filmmakers acquired all of their knowledge of pro-wrestling by watching 1989’s No Holds Barred with Hulk Hogan. Dark Match’s portrayal of the industry, those in it and the fans is so vapid and absurd that it turns the entire film into a clown show for anyone who is in the know. With Chris Jericho in a starring role you would expect that he would have set them right but Dark Match is such a mess only a can of gasoline and a match could have set things right. The only ones who come out of this unscathed are the leads Ayisha Issa, Steven Ogg and Sara Canning who somehow keep their heads high above this sludge. This is the dude who also made Wolf Cop? Maybe that film was a fluke after all.
Synopsis: When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.
Review: In the last 20 years, there have been a lot of bloated feature films that would have played out better as episodes of a horror anthology either as a TV show or a movie. Many of Jordan Peele’s films, entries in the Conjuring franchise, The Monkey by Osgood Perkins which was based on Stephen King’s short story, found footage movies, all come to mind. They are stories that would have been better off in a more concise, shorter format. You can chalk up Weapons as another one of those, a story better suited to a throwaway episode of Monsters or Tales from the Darkside than a blockbuster, summer release. The grandiose hype, the overblown marketing campaign has in the end been much ado about nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. There are a lot of cheap laughs to be had with Weapons.
Full Review: https://binge-news.com/2025/08/10/weapons-wastes-its-mystery-with-absurd-plot-endless-padding/
Synopsis: A mysterious woman repeatedly appears in a family’s front yard, often delivering chilling warnings and unsettling messages, leaving them to question her identity, motives and the potential danger she might pose.
Review: If out of nowhere an old lady was sitting in my front yard in a rocking chair I would bring her some tea and cookies while we wait for the cops to arrive. Yet another horror movie in which someone’s inner trauma materializes in the physical world. No, that isn’t a spoiler. Anyone with an IQ above that of a bruised banana can puzzle that out during the story’s set-up. Peyton Jackson’s energy is the only facet of the movie that will keep you from nodding off.
Synopsis: When a city is overrun with a demonically-possessed crowd, a cop must find the source of evil to save his family.
Review: Just another run-of-the-mill zombie/demon/alien apocalypse movies that doesn’t contribute anything new or different. What we have here is a PG-13 version of The Sadness with Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender. There are some cool effects, deaths though so it is not a complete waste.
Synopsis: On Kate’s 21st birthday camping trip, her friends encounter Piglet, a monstrous human-pig hybrid who brutally murders one of them. They uncover Piglet’s origins and Kate must confront her past to survive the relentless killer.
Review: This spin-off of the Winnie-the-Pooh movies is such a paint-by-numbers slasher film that there isn’t a thought or idea that hasn’t been hijacked from better films in the genre. The acting and the FX are bargain basement compared to the other films in the series.
Synopsis: A once lovable children’s cartoon character is transformed into a psychopath by filmmakers and producers…just because they can. Fucking idiots.
Review: Yes, I have watched them all and they are basically the same. Stupid, dull and badly made. Just because a character has entered the public domain in the United States doesn’t mean ANYONE wants to see YOUR twisted take on them, including your immediate family and friends who are secretly cringing with embarrassment. How about this idea? Spare one of the two brain cells you have and create something of your own, something original.
Synopsis: On the last ferry of the night in New York, passengers and crew are hunted by a merciless rat, and what should have been a peaceful crossing turns into a bloody massacre.
Review: There is one lesson to be learned from Screamboat. Stop turning Disney properties into horror movies. Stop it now. Stop it forever. A tiny mouse murdering full-grown human beings as a horror parody of Steamboat Willie is neither amusing nor entertaining. It is just as dumb as opening Hellraiser’s puzzle box.
Synopsis: Setting out to film their next paranormal investigation, Kris, Celina and Jay encounter a malevolent, ancient spirit that resides in an abandoned house deep in the woods.
Review: Real-life YouTubers prove that the long format is a different format and just because you are a YouTuber doesn’t mean your skills transfer well to the found footage genre or in fact motion picture filmmaking in general. Eden has all the most irritating found footage trademarks including cardboard acting, I-cannot-see-shit-shaky-camera, people filming “scenes” for no logical reason and about as much plot as a television commercial.
Synopsis: A family becomes convinced they are not alone after moving into their new home in the suburbs.
Review: Cookie cutter director supreme-o Steven Soderbergh bumbles and fumbles at his attempt to make a horror movie. An assortment of drones badly mimic the first-person perspective of ghostly presence of the title who watches over a fractured family facing various crises. It isn’t eerie. It isn’t creepy. It is contrived, gimmicky and as lifeless as the forever hovering poltergeist of the movie.
Synopsis: A colossal invasion of Earth is coming in this off-kilter take on the legendary novel of the same name, filled with present-day themes of technology, government surveillance, and privacy.
Review: One of the worst movies, never mind horror movies, ever made. It is really hard to find anything that is as boring and monotonous as Amazon’s snorefest. Production only lasted 15 days and it shows. Made during the COVID-19 pandemic, War barely touches upon H.G. Wells’ epic tale as Ice Cube sits in front of a bank of monitors watching Martians invade the Earth. Perhaps with a veteran actor with more range such as a Benedict Cumberbatch this could have amounted to so much more as Cube’s reactions to what he is witnessing ranges from ridiculous to laughable to awkward and just embarrassing. Instead of releasing this film, Amazon should have destroyed every digital copy and every hard drive it was on and then if there happened to be any hard copies, load them onto a rocket and fire that rocket into a black hole.
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