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.
Here are the A Grades, the best of 2025.
Synopsis: Plagued by a recurring violent nightmare, a college student returns home to find the one person who can break the cycle and save her family from the horrific fate that inevitably awaits them.
Review: If you are going to screw with something, do your homework first. Director and writer Guillermo del Toro is a horror fan. His house is a shrine to all things ghastly and grotesque. He knows his shit inside and out. It is why his sort of version of The Creature From The Black Lagoon (2017’s The Shape of Water) won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director. His iteration of Frankenstein makes some major changes to the original story but there is no justifiable outrage because his deviations hold true to the spirit of Mary Shelly’s classic story of a mad scientist who has the arrogance to give God the middle finger by creating life.
A couple of the refinements as opposed to revisions are The Creature (Jacob Elordi) has Wolverine-like regenerative powers and has romantic connection of sorts with Elizabeth (Mia Goth) who is set to marry Victor Frankenstein’s brother (Felix Kammerer) not him (Oscar Isaac) as in the original story. The roles The Creature and his creator play or hold in the story are different. Both are very flawed, damaged characters in the book. They do a lot of good and a lot of evil. Victor is brilliant, passionate but he is arrogant, irresponsible and a coward at times. The Creature is sensitive and has a child-like innocence but becomes bitter and angry resorting to brutal violence, threats and intimidation to get what he wants.
Guillermo del Toro’s take favours The Creature. Victor is portrayed as the real monster of the piece. Like Dwight Frye’s Fritz in the original Universal film, Victor is fiendishly cruel to the vulnerable Creature. In this version, The Creature’s emotional journey from child-like innocence to a cynical, resentful and spiteful adult shaped by his life experiences. It is a fall from grace for both The Creature and his creator.
Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi play off each other so well and it is their private moments both in conflict and in peace that along with Guillermo del Toro’s extraordinary vision makes this a modern classic.
Synopsis: A young Predator outcast from his clan finds an unlikely ally on his journey in search of the ultimate adversary.
Review: Director and writer Dan Trachtenberg is on one hell of a roll. While others stumble and tumble with their IPs (I am looking at you Disney Star Wars!) Trachtenberg has not only been faithful to the original concepts and work before him, he has expanded them, branching the story of the Yautja into new and exciting directions with his three spectacular Predator movies. This is how creators used to be before Millennials decided that they must reshape everything in their vision instead of adding another square to the overall IP quilt. This one has it all including a throwback, a nod to Aliens. The fact that there are two Predator moves in the top ten this year shows not only did the franchise recover from its missteps, it has grown into something some would say is better.
Synopsis: Plagued by a recurring violent nightmare, a college student returns home to find the one person who can break the cycle and save her family from the horrific fate that inevitably awaits them.
Review: Bloodlines is on the same level as the two most seminal entries in the series, the original movie and the sequel. It was pretty much all downhill from there with a few exceptions. Who would have thunk that the creative forces behind the Kim Possible live action movie ( Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein) and the director of Spider-Man Homecoming, Far from Home and No Way Home would reenergize and rejuvenate an underappreciated horror franchise such as Final Destination? Perhaps they need to hang up their capes and sharpen those machetes instead. It is safe to say though that just as the hacked up, shot up, burnt up corpses of Jason and Freddy will be resurrected one day, Final Destination is back with vengeance.
Bloodlines reenergizes the Final Destination franchise
Synopsis: When a 15th-century prince denounces God after the loss of his wife he inherits an eternal curse: he becomes Dracula. Condemned to wander the centuries, he defies fate and death, guided by a single hope – to be reunited with his lost love.
Review: This batshit crazy interpretation of Bram Stoker’s classic novel is even more bizarre, at times more hilarious and far more over the top than Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 film, although it certainly is inspired by it. At the core of Luc Busan’s version is that a grieving Vlad Dracula became a vampire after blaming God for his wife’s death and turning his back on Christianity. There are a great many touches here. Gargoyles instead of the Three Brides of Dracula, attend to Dracula’s every need. Christoph Waltz as the Van Helsing stand-in ‘Priest’, approaches vampirism from a sympathetic, scientific point of view as if he were assisting victims of a disease not battling supernatural monsters. The performances are all outstanding: Waltz as Priest, Caleb Landry Jones as a sympathetic and savage Dracula, Zoë Bleu as the tortured Elisabeta but the standout is Matilda De Angelis as the vivacious, absolutely electric Maria. In many ways, Busan’s vision totally surpasses and even eclipses Coppola’s. After such cruddy renditions such as Renfield and that TV series from the BBC, it is great to satisfy the thirst of any horror fan.
Synopsis: Two operatives are appointed to posts in guard towers on opposite sides of a classified gorge.
Review: With The New Mutants, The Northman, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and The Gorge, Taylor-Joy is really building the resume of an action film star while director Scott Derrickson with Sinister, Doctor Strange, The Black Phone and others under his belt is a welcome throwback to directors of the eighties and nineties like John Carpenter, Wes Craven, George Romero, Sam Raimi, Tobe Hooper, etc, who were proud horror auteurs waving that banner high their entire careers. We need more of that today in all the different genres. Perhaps then, we would have even more modern classics like The Gorge by artists who admire, respect and love whatever genre they have their sights set on.
Full Review: https://binge-news.com/2025/02/18/the-gorge-a-modern-horror-classic/
Synopsis: Three of the fiercest warriors in human history become prey to the ultimate killer of killers.
Review: Dan Trachtenberg, the director of Predator: Prey shot this sequel with the help of Joshua Wassung who created the visual effects for Ready Player One, War Horse and Prey, so the cinematic pedigree involved not only loves sci-fi and horror but also the Predator saga which shows in the final result even though the first story kind of drags a bit. Three separate stories from different timelines converge in a stunning final battle and a scene that will leave Predator fans with many, many questions. Anime and animation as a whole know this all too well but for the others, don’t let the fact that this is an animated feature dissuade you as the storytelling is as hard-hitting and as powerful as any live action feature.
Synopsis: A collection of Halloween-themed videotapes unleashes a series of twisted, blood-soaked tales, turning trick-or-treat into a struggle for survival.
Review: Except for the last entry which was one of the best films of 2024, I have never been a fan of the V/H/S series. Far too often they routinely and blatantly disregard the found footage rules making me wonder: Who is filming this? How are they filming this? And…Why would anyone be filming this? Halloween does ignore common sense at times but the stories and the wrap-around are so good I can forgive the film turning a blind eye to reason.
The bookending story is “Diet Phantasma“, a documented scientific experiment in which subjects are asked to drink a new brand of soda as a team behind bullet-proof glass monitors the grotesque and entertaining results.
Don’t be put off by the first story: Coochie Coochie Coo. It is the absolute worst of the bunch. It is just another modern “Mommy” monster story in a haunted house. It isn’t scary or macabre. It is just so, so stupid.
The rest involving a Halloween scare gone wrong, a zany parallel reality that riffs on famous Halloween candies, a mystery surrounding a town’s missing children and homemade haunted house that takes on a life of its own range from kick ass to quite good. The segment having fun with Halloween candy – Fun Size – has some really imaginative special effects.
All in all, this is another step in the right direction for a franchise that has struggled to find a mainstream audience.
Synopsis: When Zephyr, a savvy and free-spirited surfer, is abducted by a shark-obsessed serial killer and held captive on his boat, she must figure out how to escape before he carries out a ritualistic feeding to the sharks below.
Review: The idea may sound campy and goofy but Dangerous Animals is anything but. Jai Courtney gives a showstopping performance as the deranged serial killer Bruce Tucker who in feeding his urges also feeds the local wildlife. Hassie Harrison as Zephyr is a restless heart with a relentless spirit making her the perfect adversary. Director Sean Byrne and writer Nick Lepard didn’t a get enough credit for turning the improbable into the impressive.
Synopsis: A dysfunctional family running a renowned herbal medicine business. The owner of the company attempts to innovate by creating a new potion, which ends up triggering a zombie outbreak.
Review: This gives Last Train to Busan a run for its money. While they do spend way too much time setting up the family drama once everything goes to hell The Elixer never lets go. While the premise of nothing good can come from lowly humans playing God is nothing new as aren’t some of the old zombie movie standbys, like The Sadness, the breakneck chaos of it all and the malicious, unrestrained brutality going where North American films often won’t is exciting and refreshing.
Synopsis: A weekend getaway with friends at a remote cabin turns into chaos after it’s revealed that one of the guests is not what they seem.
Review: The trailer actually doesn’t do this movie justice and whomever greenlighted, produced it should be demoted to editing nothing more than wedding videos from now on. The trailer not only reveals far too much but it makes Companion look like just another goofy, recycled AI movie but it is far, far from that. It doesn’t unwind as something written by ChatGPT. The twists and the turns are clever and the humour is fun, offbeat. It is above such trash like Afraid, Subservience and a host of other films that Hollywood is cranking out to capitalize on the AI buzz, hype and…let’s face it…fear. With The Boogeyman, MaXXXine, Heretic and now Companion under her belt Sophie Thatcher (Yellowjackets) is becoming a modern scream queen.
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