fast forward 2025: eight horror movies I'm looking forward to in the new year

just assume I'm also looking forward to Nosferatu which releases NEW YEAR'S DAY in the UK okay OKAY

Welcome to the part of the year where we take The Horror The Horror’s crystal ball out of storage and cast our eyes towards the cinematic horror delights of the year ahead. Hopefully this time most of these will have a UK release in 2025! Maybe!

I am going to try and make this less cluttered and more to the point than last year’s one, note the use of the word “try”.

The Bride! (director: Maggie Gyllenhaal)/ Frankenstein (director: Guillermo del Toro)

Release dates: September/October 2025 (The Bride!)/date tbc (Frankenstein)

I am nothing if not the easiest mark - you tell me Guillermo del Toro is doing an adaptation of Frankenstein and he’s got Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein? Consider me seated. It’s been a project long in the making for del Toro, and I am keen to see what he does with the source material. I trust the vision, as much as I trust Maggie Gyllenhaal’s upcoming take on the Bride of Frankenstein story.

The Bride! is set to be a musical/sci-fi/horror mash-up with Jessie Buckley as the titular Bride (Christian Bale is playing Frankenstein’s monster). The visuals seen so far (including the picture of Buckley in character up there) are giving me hope for a very left-field avant-garde take on the material, so again, SEATED.

The Monkey (director: Osgood Perkins)

Release date: February 21st 2025

Oz Perkins follows up the success of Longlegs with this adaptation of a Stephen King (!) short story in which a toy monkey causes carnage in the lives of a pair of twin brothers (both played by Theo James). It’s got an impressive cast of genre folks (James is joined by Tatiana Maslany, Elijah Wood and Rohan Campbell), and James Wan is one of the producers, so I have high hopes for this one and I am also not prepared for how gutted I will be if it lets me down.

Wolf Man (director: Leigh Whannell)

Release date: January 17th 2025

Another movie that’s been in the hopper for quite some time (it was meant to be part of the extremely cursed Universal Monsters cinematic universe, remember that, remember that incredible moment of hubris?). Leigh Whannell takes on directing duties, with Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner (my beloved) starring. I am keen to see if this one works out because on paper it feels like it should, but the mid-January release date worries me a little bit. Still, I have hope.

Sinners (director: Ryan Coogler)

Release date: March 7th 2025

Very excited to have my boy Ryan Coogler come play in the horror ballpit, I am not going to lie. Sinners sees two brothers (both played by Michael B. Jordan) return to their hometown, seeking to leave their troubled lives behind and start again. But this is the Jim Crow-era South and they soon find that an even greater evil has taken root and is waiting to welcome them back. Blending the supernatural (apparently it’s a vampire movie which OH HELL YES) with historical horrors, Sinners is probably one of my most anticipated movies of 2025, so I am once again Seated And Prepared.

Presence (director: Steven Soderbergh)

Release date: January 24th 2025

I recently saw the trailer for this before my screening of Heretic and in the space of one singular ninety second trailer I was completely sold (*cough* more than I was on the entirety of Heretic *cough cough COUGH*). Steven Soderbergh takes his experimental style and applies it to a ghost story, as Presence is shot entirely from a ghost’s POV. I have absolutely no idea how this is going to pan out but I see the vision, I see it, I am sitting with it and I am Considering It.

M3GAN 2.0 (director: Gerard Johnstone)

Release date: June 27th 2025

Duh, I mean of course I am looking forward to being reunited with my piano playing, always slaying queen. Plot under wraps, I don’t care, I could watch M3GAN read the fucking phone book for two hours and still be entertained.

Heart Eyes (director: Josh Ruben)

Release date: tbh, presumably around Valentine’s Day

This one came from absolutely nowhere and the prospect of it is DELIGHTING me. Heart Eyes sees a pair of co-workers working late on Valentine’s Day being mistaken for a couple by a serial killer known as the Heart Eyes Killer. Not much more is known as of yet but Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day, Freaky) has co-written and co-produced this so I am wanting to take a bet on it being a fun time.

There are a number of other films of note coming out next year, so here’s some quick thoughts on those:

• An I Know What You Did Last Summer legacy sequel (following on from I Still Know…) is on its way, with Freddie Prinze Jr. definitely returning, and Jennifer Love-Hewitt maybe returning (she is credited on IMDb so I’ll go with a nice neutral *most likely*) . Keen to see what title they give this one, given that they’ve already done I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer.

• Insidious, Saw and The Conjuring all get new additions to the franchise next year which, if you’re a fan of any of those good on you you are being fed.

• 28 Years Later is finally coming out and primed to be a beautiful lead in to blockbuster season.

• Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is officially happening, and is presumably primed to make a shit tonne of money much like the first one.

• The Black Phone is getting a sequel - I quite liked the original and I am struggling to see how they would be able to continue after what felt like a fairly definitive ending but we shall see.

All in all a very interesting blueprint for a year in horror cinema, and I cannot wait to talk through it with you all. I am officially signing off until after the holidays as I need to Touch Some Grass and all that but thank you again for keeping me company in this corner of the internet in 2024. Hope you’ll stick around.