Looking forward to 2025’s most intriguing horrors with Matt Glasby, author of The Book of Horror: The Anatomy of Fear in Film, available here.
Wolf Man
After the double-whammy of Upgrade and The Invisible Man—not to mention Insidious and Saw sequels too numerous to name—writer/director Leigh Whannell is back with a reboot of the 1941 Lon Chaney Jr-starring classic. Indie darlings Christopher Abbott (Possessor, Poor Things) and Julia Garner (The Assistant, Apartment 7A) play a married couple attacked by a strange beast in the Oregon wilderness (although this was shot in New Zealand). Hirsuteness ensues.
28 Years Later
Danny Boyle and Alex Garland return to their fleet-footed outbreak franchise [checks notes] 18 years after the last—pretty decent—sequel. Only a fool would bet against these two delivering something memorable, especially with original star Cillian Murphy returning, and a supporting cast that includes Jody Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jack O’Connell and Ralph Fiennes. A speedy sequel directed by Nia Costa (Candyman) is already on its way.
The Bride!
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s follow-up to her excellent directorial debut The Lost Daughter has awards bait written all over it. Inspired by James Whale’s seminal 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein and scored by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, it features a cast so stacked you could play Jenga with them. Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale are Frankenstein’s bride and monster, with support from, deep breath now, Penélope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard (AKA Mr Gyllenhaal), Annette Bening and Maggie’s brother Jake.
The Monkey
After the pant-damaging smash that was Longlegs, Osgood Perkins takes a mainstream turn with a Stephen King adaptation produced by James Wan. Based on a 1980 short story about a cursed toy, it may sound disappointingly trad, but Perkins hasn’t yet made a bad film. It stars Theo James (The White Lotus), Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) and, er, Elijah Wood (every indie horror since 2012), and is backed, once more, by the ebullient Neon.
Vicious
Bryan Bertino is one of modern horror’s most underrated writer-directors, responsible for still-chilling slasher The Strangers (2008) and the terrifying demon flick The Dark and the Wicked (2020), among others. Frankly, on that basis, we’d watch his holiday videos. Dakota Fanning stars as a woman who, Strangers-style, receives a late-night visitor leaving an intriguing present. We don’t know much more, but we’ll definitely be finding out.
Final Destination: Bloodlines
After an awesome send-off in Final Destination 5, the most consistent horror franchise of all time risks its perfect record with this generically titled reboot. Set in the world of first responders, and featuring series overlord Tony Todd, it’s directed by super-fans Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, whose biggest/most relevant credit is probably Leprechaun: Origins (2014). Still, fingers crossed this one has a pulse.
Hell House LLC: Lineage
The original Hell House LLC contains some of the creepiest found-footage, er, footage ever. And while parts two and three sucked the big one, 2023’s Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor saw the series back on track. We don’t know much about this fifth instalment, but the teaser trailer showing a clown in a cornfield suggests writer/director Stephen Cognetti is all set to deliver more of the same. But, you know, in a cornfield.
Die, My Love
Scottish auteur Lynne Ramsay has flirted with the genre before, in the horrifying We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) and the ultra-violent You Were Never Really Here (2017). For her fifth feature, adapted from the novel by Ariana Harwicz, she goes a few steps closer. Jennifer Lawrence plays a new mother suffering from post-partum depression, maybe more, in the lonely countryside. Robert Pattinson co-stars.
They Follow
Combining MR Jamesian dread with a creepily stripped-back, John Carpenter-in-the-suburbs vibe, David Robert Mitchell’s 2015 original is one of the best American horror films of the 21st century. Nobody—except, perhaps, Mitchell’s agent—was asking for a sequel, so let’s hope this one adds to the first film’s woozy ambiguity, rather than taking us to the source of the curse—say, a Native American burial ground. Maika Monroe returns, which is at least something to celebrate.
Drop
Having cornered the market in sassy high-concept slashers (Happy Death Day, Freaky), director Christopher Landon returns with this top-secret thriller starring woman-of-the-moment Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus, The Perfect Couple) and Brandon Sklenar (It Ends with Us). It’s shot in Ireland, and features six-year-old TikTok star Jacob Robinson. Take that, casting directors.
The Long Walk
Published in 1979 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, Stephen King’s dystopian death march novella has had its own lengthy journey to the screen. It was almost made by George A Romero—who knew a thing or two about the walking dead—then Frank Darabont, then André Øvredal, before ending up in the safe hands of Hunger Games sequels director Francis Lawrence. Cooper Hoffman (Licorice Pizza) and David Jonsson (Alien: Romulus) star alongside Mark Hamill as the evil Major. If this has got legs, expect a franchise to follow.
