Happy New Year, horror fans! And does 2025 have some exciting upcoming horror movies for us? (Yes, it does).
Before January is out, we’ll be getting lycanthropic with Leigh Wannell’s Wolf Man, experiencing first-person ghostliness with Steven Soderbergh’s Presence, and plugging ourselves into bloody murder with Drew Hancock and Sophie Thatcher’s Companion. February continues the bloodshed, but of course with a romantic twist: Valentine’s slasher Heart Eyes is inbound from director Josh Ruben and (the admittedly less amorous) The Monkey will see Osgood Perkins adapting Stephen King.
Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan are teaming up again in March, this time turning their hands to horror with the terrifying period piece Sinners, and in April, Al Pacino and Dan Stevens will take on demonic possession in The Ritual, plus the survival horror video game Until Dawn is getting a big screen adaptation.
May will bring us Clown in a Cornfield – from the popular novels by Adam Cesare – and then we get a rash of new franchise installments and sequels over the following months: from Final Destination: Bloodlines to 28 Years Later, to M3GAN 2.0 and The Conjuring: Last Rites, to The Black Phone 2, Predator: Badlands and Five Nights At Freddy’s 2, plus a new I Know What You Did Last Summer movie and a fresh take on a classic Frankenstein tale with Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!
With all these and many more, the most exciting upcoming horror movies are shaping this year to be another massive one for the genre. Here’s what you need to know about the big scary titles heading to theatres to keep you screaming throughout 2025.
Read more: Best horror movies | Best Netflix horror movies | Best Amazon Prime horror movies
Nosferatu
Wolf Man
Release date: January 17, 2025
In 2020, director Leigh Wannell delivered a bold new take on The Invisible Man, a blood-chilling adaptation of H.G. Wells' sci-fi classic following in the footsteps of the old Universal Monster movies. Now Wannell is back with Wolf Man, his take on the 1941 Universal werewolf picture, The Wolf Man starring Lon Chaney Jr. Christopher Abbot (Possessor, Piercing, It Comes at Night) embodies the titular role in Wannell’s new version, alongside Julia Garner (The Assistant, Apartment 7A).
With his work on Saw alongside fellow-Aussie James Wan, and his impressive director’s chops demonstrated on both The Invisible Man and 2018’s excellent sci-fi action movie Upgrade, Wannell has established himself as a safe pair of hands for genre filmmaking and Wolf Man is another perfect project for him to sink his teeth into. We can’t wait.
Presence
Release date: January 24, 2025
Director Steven Soderbergh has had an impressive and enduring career, turning his hand to erotic dramedies (Sex, Lies, and Videotape), pandemic disaster movies (Contagion), romantic comedy crime capers (Out of Sight), drug-fuelled cop dramas (Traffic), paranoid psychological horrors (Unsane), and most recently action-packed cyber thrillers (Kimi). Now he’s back with his unique take on the ghost story with Presence, which follows a family convinced they’re not alone after moving into their new home in the suburbs. So far, so standard. But Presence sees the action from the point of view of the ghost, turning it into a haunted house murder mystery with a twist. Written by David Koepp (Death Becomes Her, Stir of Echoes) and starring Lucy Liu (Kill Bill, Charlie’s Angels), Julia Fox (Uncut Gems) and Chris Sullivan (Broadcast Signal Intrusion, I Trapped the Devil), this should be a solid spooky outing to the cinema.
Companion
Release date: January 31, 2025
Sophie Thatcher has carved out a scream-filled space for herself in the horror genre over the last few years, starring as the young Natalie in cannibalistic nostalgia-fest Yellowjackets, and in Rob Savage’s Steven King adaptation The Boogeyman and last year’s religious horror hit Heretic alongside Hugh Grant. The new dark comedy/psychological thriller Companion sees Thatcher star as Iris, an unwitting robotic ‘companion’ to a billionaire played by Jack Quaid (Scream, The Boys) whose ideas of a romantic trip to his lakeside escape don’t go according to plan. Written and directed by Drew Hancock in his feature debut, co-starring Harvey Guillen (What We Do in the Shadows), Lukas Gage (Smile 2) and Megan Suri (It Lives Inside), and being described as ‘deliciously wicked’, ‘hilarious’ and ‘brilliant and twisted’, we cannot wait to plug ourselves into this one.
Heart Eyes
Release date: February 14, 2025
Directed by Josh Ruben, best known in genre circles for his smart horror comedies Scare Me and Werewolves Within, and starring Jordana Brewster (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Random Acts of Violence), Olivia Holt (Totally Killer) and horror legend Devon Sawa (Final Destination, Idle Hands, Chucky), Heart Eyes is coming to make Valentine's Day way less romantic than it should be.
In this new addition to the recent slasher renaissance, the movie follows the events of the masked 'Heart Eyes Killer' who, for the past several years, has wreaked havoc on Valentine's Day by stalking and murdering romantic couples. In February, romance is dead and buried.
The Monkey
Release date: February 21, 2025
Horror director Osgood Perkins is not resting on his laurels following his 2024 smash-hit Longlegs, and is back in February with The Monkey, a new supernatural horror comedy based on the short story of the same name by Stephen King. Theo James (the Divergent series, The Time Traveller’s Wife) stars as twin brothers Bill and Hal, who become surrounded by a series of gruesome deaths after they find their father's old monkey toy in the attic.
The brilliant Elijah Wood (The Faculty, Maniac, Come To Daddy) and Tatiana Maslany (Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed, Orphan Black) also star, and with Perkins in the director’s chair plus the best tagline we’ve seen in quite a while ("everybody dies, and that's fucked up"), The Monkey will be topping a lot of horror fans' watchlists for 2025.
Sinners
Release date: March 7, 2025
Director Ryan Coogler, who, after cutting his teeth with the critically acclaimed crime drama Fruitvale Station in 2013, and then turning his hand to blockbuster fare with the likes of Creed and the Black Panther movies for Marvel, is now tackling the horror genre. Coogler’s long-time collaborator Michael B. Jordan is back for Sinners, starring alongside Haylee Steinfeld (True Grit, The Edge of Seventeen, The Marvels), Jack O’Connell (Starred Up, Ferrari), Wunmi Mosaku (His House, Lovecraft Country) and Delroy Lindo (Da 5 Bloods).
Described as ‘a new vision of fear’, Sinners is an explosive period piece that follows twin brothers who, trying to leave their troubled lives behind, return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.
The Ritual
Release date: April 18, 2025
A new exorcism movie is on its way in time for Easter, boasting some impressive casting, including Al Pacino and modern-day scream king Dan Stevens (The Guest, Abigail, Cuckoo, The Rental, Apostle). The plot, which sees two priests -- one questioning his faith and one reckoning with a troubled past -- who put aside their differences to save a possessed young woman through a difficult and dangerous series of exorcisms, might sound familiar, but bear in mind that it’s apparently based on a true story.
Variety has reported that the movie is “an authentic portrayal of Emma Schmidt, an American woman whose demonic possession culminated in harrowing exorcisms. Her case remains the most thoroughly documented exorcism in American history.” Pacino isn’t averse to tackling Satanic horror, having starred as the Devil himself in 1997’s The Devil’s Advocate, and joining him and Stevens in The Ritual are Ashley Greene (the Twilight movies) and Abigail Cowan (The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina). David Midell directs.
Until Dawn
Release date: April 25, 2025
Based on the interactive survival horror video game of the same name, Until Dawn is being brought to the big screen by director David F. Sandberg, who has had previous success in horror cinema with 2016’s supernatural shocker Lights Out and the delightfully spooky Conjuring universe prequel Annabelle: Creation the following year. The 2015 video game was co-written by indie horror legend Larry Fessenden and developed by Supermassive Games, and follows eight friends who return to the isolated lodge where two of their group vanished a year prior only for their mountain retreat to descend into a nightmare, and the plot of the movie – which stars versatile character actor Peter Stormare (8MM, Dancer in the Dark, Armageddon, Minority Report, Constantine) and Odessa A’zion (Hellraiser) – will stick close to the familiar story.
Clown in a Cornfield
Release date: May 9, 2025
After the recent box office success of Terrifier 3 and the new HBO series IT: Welcome To Derry due to hit TV screens later this year, clown horror is once again having a moment. Enter Frendo, the titular terror from Clown in a Cornfield, the award-winning horror novel by Adam Cesare that has spawned two sequels to date, and is now getting a big screen adaptation. Cesare has co-written the screenplay, which will be directed by Eli Craig (best known for the beloved 2010 comedy horror film Tucker and Dale vs Evil), and the story takes place in a fading midwestern town in which Frendo, a symbol of the area’s bygone success, reemerges as a terrifying scourge. Katie Douglas, Kevin Durand, Will Sasso and Aaron Abrams star.
Final Destination: Bloodlines
Release date: May 16, 2025
We haven’t had a Final Destination movie since the series wrapped up in spectacular fashion with the fifth film in 2011, but nearly 15 years later the franchise is back with Final Destination: Bloodlines. The films, which first hit our screens in 2000 and revolve around people who escape death after someone has a premonition and saves them from a fatal disaster, only to then be picked off one by one in elaborate and hugely entertaining ways as mortality catches up with them, are hugely popular with fans and make up one of the most consistent and best loved franchises in the genre. The plot of the new movie is currently unknown but on writing duties is Guy Busick, who has had great success with recent horror fare like Ready Or Not, Abigail and the latest Scream movies, and in the directors chairs are Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein who got the gig after faking their own deaths over Zoom during the pitch call. Bloodlines stars Rya Kihlstedt and Brec Bassinger, and will see the return of series regular Tony Todd, the beloved horror icon who we sadly lost last year.
28 Years Later
Release date: June 20, 2025
Ok so it might not have been exactly 28 years since director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland revolutionized the zombie subgenre with their film 28 Days Later, but it has been 23. Already? How?! Anyway, now Boyle and Garland are back with their much-anticipated follow-up, the third film in the franchise, coming after 28 Weeks Later in 2007.
With an all-star cast including Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass, Nocturnal Animals, Godzilla), Jodie Comer (The Last Duel, The End We Start From), Ralph Fiennes (The Menu, Red Dragon) and Jack O’Connell (Eden Lake, Starred Up), 28 Years Later currently has its plot tightly under wraps, but we can expect to catch up with the world as it stands following the chilling zombie apocalypse that terrified us all back in 2002.
M3GAN 2.0
Release date: June 27, 2025
Following the success of Blumhouse’s smash hit M3GAN in 2022, which starred Alison Williams as a robotics engineer, Violet McGraw as Cady, and, of course, the titular robotic AI M3GAN, director Gerard Johnstone is returning in summer 2025 with its sequel.
Along with the director, Williams and McGraw also return, as do stars Brian Jordan Alvarez and Amie Donald, and writer Akela Cooper, with Jemaine Clement (What We Do In the Shadows) joining the fray. Johnstone has said that the new M3GAN movie is very ambitious and increases the scale and scope of the original.
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Release date: July 18, 2025
In the midst of the '90s slasher boom, a little film called I Know What You Did Last Summer hit our screens, lighting them up like 4th July fireworks and solidifying Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Ryan Phillippe as teen horror icons. The movie follows four young friends who, bound by a tragic accident, are reunited when they’re stalked by a hook-wielding maniac in their small seaside town.
The following year, its sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer brought Hewitt and Prinze Jr. back to continue their ordeal, pairing them up with Brandy Norwood and Mekhi Phifer in the Bahamas. And now, 27 years later, they’re returning with a fresh look at the franchise, directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge, Someone Great). It would seem whoever ‘knows’ hasn’t forgotten, as buried secrets once again resurface. Madelyn Cline (Glass Onion) and Billy Campbell (Bram Stoker’s Dracula) will also star.
The Conjuring: Last Rites
Release date: September 5, 2025
And now the end is near, and so we face the final Conjuring. For over a decade now, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga have been battling the forces of supernatural evil as paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, and now they’re ready to hang up their holy water, big collars and guitars in the fourth and final installment, The Conjuring: Last Rites. James Wan’s Conjuring Universe is a box office juggernaut that has grossed around $2.2 billion over eight mixed but largely enjoyable movies to date, making it the most successful horror franchise ever, and rehabilitating the controversial real-life Warrens as modern day genre faves. Michael Chaves is back on directing duty for Last Rites after helming other franchise entries The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, The Nun II and The Curse of La Llorona, and the new film will see Ed and Lorraine taking on one last terrifying case.
The Bride
Release date: September 26, 2025
More rebooted Universal Monster action is on its way, this time revolving around one of horror’s most iconic female characters, and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal – following her hugely successful feature debut The Lost Daughter in 2021 – who's adapting the stunning black and white classic from 1935, James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein. The new movie takes place in '30s Chicago, where Frankenstein asks Dr. Euphronius for help creating a companion, and when they bring a murdered woman back to life as the Bride (played by Men’s Jessie Buckley), they spark romance, police interest, and radical social change.
Along with its significant heritage, an impressive ensemble cast including Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko, Life, Velvet Buzzsaw), Christian Bale (American Psycho, The Pale Blue Eye), Penelope Cruz (Vanilla Sky, Murder on the Orient Express), Peter Sarsgaard (The Skeleton Key, Orphan) and Annette Bening (Mars Attacks!) makes this another hugely anticipated horror for 2025.
The Black Phone 2
Release date: October 17, 2024
We love a horror sequel that audiences are actually excited about and Scott Derrickson’s follow-up to his 2021 supernatural/child abduction hit The Black Phone is shaping up to be one such movie. There’s very little known about The Black Phone 2 currently, but it has been confirmed that original cast members Ethan Hawke, Jeremy Davies, Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw are all returning.
The first movie and its characters were based on a short story written by Joe son-of-Stephen-King Hill, and while he won’t back for the sequel screenplay, Derrickson has teamed up again with C. Robert Cargill who also worked on The Black Phone and the Sinister films. Here’s hoping for more fearful fun from this team that just seems to love the horror genre.
Predator: Badlands
Release date: November 7, 2025
The plot of Predator: Badlands, the upcoming new entry in the juggernaut franchise that has been pulling in audiences since 1987, is currently under wraps, but we do know a few details. Firstly, it’s directed by Dan Trachtenberg, who is back with the franchise after he stunned in 2022 with his Comanche Nation-set Predator movie Prey, and secondly, it stars Elle Fanning (The Neon Demon, The Beguiled).
However, it’s perhaps the protagonist of the new movie that has had people most excited, after Trachtenberg revealed that it’s the Predator itself that will be taking center stage. Filming has wrapped in New Zealand, whose dramatic landscapes will stand in for the alien planet where the story’s action takes place.
Five Nights At Freddy's 2
Release date: December 5, 2025
In 2023, Five Nights at Freddy’s became Blumhouse’s highest-grossing movie of all time, and the cast and crew behind the popular video game-based smash hit is coming back with its sequel at the end of 2025. The first film followed Josh Hutcherson’s Mike, a troubled security guard who gets a job at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza only to find himself battling killer animatronics.
Director Emma Tammi, her co-writers Scott Cawthon and Seth Cuddeback, and stars Hutcherson, Matthew Lillard, Elizabeth Lail, and Piper Rubio are all returning for Five Nights At Freddy’s 2, which, with the tagline ‘Anyone can survive five nights. This time, there will be no second chances', and will no doubt take the classic follow-up approach of upping the stakes, the action, and - hopefully - the horror. This is also one of our most anticipated upcoming video game movies of 2025!
For more, check out our guides to upcoming movies and new TV shows.
