2025 has been a ghoulish year for horror, and you can catch all of it this weekend: Doggie dread, a vampiric Oscar contender, thrillers zombified, supernatural, and nuclear.
No tricks, just treats.
Weapons
Available to stream on HBO Max and rent on demand.
Weapons begins with something that seems impossible: One night, in the suburb of Maybrook, every student (save one) from Justine Gandy's third-grade classroom gets up at 2:17 a.m., goes downstairs, walks out of the house, and silently runs off into the night. They are gone, 17 of them. They are caught on doorbell cameras or security cameras, disappearing into the woods or just into the darkness. Suspicion falls on Justine (Julia Garner), for the simple reason that nobody can figure out how these kids could disappear unless something was happening in that classroom, on her watch. In large part, not unlike HBO's 2014 series The Leftovers and the novel that inspired it, Weapons is a story about a community recovering from an inexplicable trauma that arrives like a natural disaster, wreaks havoc, and then cannot be reversed, only survived. But there is another thing, another Whole Thing going on in this story, which I would not spoil for anything, because it is simply too wonderfully scary and strange. – Linda Holmes
Good Boy
In limited theaters; available to rent on demand.
No harm befalls the deeply sympathetic canine protagonist of Good Boy, a low-budget horror film based on those eerie moments when pets seem to have a heightened sense of a presence humans can't detect. The dog in question, named Indy, is the director's dog in real life, and we experience the events of the film through his soulful eyes. The film features indie horror auteur Larry Fessenden in a surprise supporting role, and in some ways, it belongs to his lineage of scary movies that explore humanity's rapacious relationship with nature. While some horror fans have expressed disappointment over Good Boy's deliberate pace and absence of jump scares, critics have celebrated the film's emotional, innovative storytelling from the point of view of a very good boy. — Neda Ulaby
Sinners
Available to stream on HBO Max and rent on demand.
This trailer includes an instance of vulgar language.
It's 1932 in Clarksdale, Miss., and enterprising twin brothers Smoke and Stack, both played by Coogler's longtime muse Michael B. Jordan, have returned to town after some years away in Chicago. What the siblings got into while up North in all likelihood wasn't on the up-and-up; think robbing, stealing, and doing business with Irish and Italian gangsters. But now back home, they're flush with cash and booze and eager to set up a new venture: a juke joint. It's possible you're aware that Sinners involves vampires, and it does. In a straightforward metaphor for all the ways Black culture has been co-opted by whiteness, the raucous pleasures and sonic beauty of the juke joint attract the interest of a trio of demons led by Remmick (Jack O'Connell); they wish to literally leech off of the talents and energy of Black folks. And — this is not a spoiler — some of those Black people make it pretty easy for Remmick and his ilk to taste blood. – Aisha Harris
28 Years Later
Available to stream on Netflix and rent on demand.
The apocalyptic horror film 28 Years Later takes place in the same world as the 2002 film 28 Days Later, where a deadly virus transformed the citizens of England into rabid, blood-spewing creatures with really impressive lung capacity. Seriously, those zombies were just as good at wind sprints as they were at cross-country. This year's film picks up almost three decades later on a small island connected to the mainland by a causeway, where a group of survivors eke out a modest existence. A desperate expedition to the mainland reveals new allies and new horrors — because the infected have evolved. — Glen Weldon
Listen to the Pop Culture Happy Hour panel discuss the movie.
Presence
Available to stream on Hulu and rent on demand.
The haunted-house thriller Presence has a formal conceit so clever, I'm surprised it hasn't ever been done or attempted before. Maybe another movie has done it that I'm not aware of. This is a ghost story told entirely from the ghost's point of view: We see what the ghost sees.
The ghost cannot leave the house, and so the movie never leaves the house, either. You could say that the ghost is played by the director, Steven Soderbergh, who serves as his own cinematographer, as usual, working under the pseudonym of Peter Andrews. That's Soderbergh holding the camera as it glides up and down the stairs, following the characters from room to room, and hovering over them as they try to figure out what's going on.
Soderbergh's camera movements are so delicate and expressive, he can convey empathy with a mere twitch or shudder, or rage with a sudden, violent lurch. Before long, we realize that the ghost isn't trying to scare this family; it's trying to warn them. — Justin Chang
Frankenstein
In theaters; on Netflix Nov. 7.
Guillermo del Toro has made several monster movies of a particular bent — soulful, swoony, feverish films about grotesque-looking creatures who prove themselves more deeply human than the humans who reject them. Which is why Frankenstein seems like the perfect match between story and muse; certainly del Toro's been talking about making his own version of the tale for decades, calling it his "lifelong dream." That dream is now realized, and while the resulting film captures the tone and spirit of the original novel in all its breathless zeal and hie-me-to-yon-fainting-couch deliriousness, the many narrative tweaks del Toro has made — some of which work, some of which don't — ensure that you'd never mistake his Frankenstein for anyone else's. – Glen Weldon
A House of Dynamite
Available in limited theaters and streaming on Netflix.
This trailer includes instances of vulgar language.
An entirely plausible nuclear horror story from the Oscar-winning director of The Hurt Locker, this nerve-jangling thriller begins with a ballistic missile headed toward the continental U.S. Origin unknown, but consequences cataclysmic, the missile plays into doomsday fears so primal, most of us bury them. Nuclear war is unthinkable, we tell ourselves, because mutually assured destruction means no government would ever start one. But suppose, as director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim have, that a seemingly rogue threat can't quickly be traced, that a missile will strike a major American city in just 19 minutes, and that fallible, increasingly frantic civilian and military leaders haven't a clue how to finesse the possible obliteration of humankind. This explosive scenario, played for farce in Dr. Strangelove, leads here into white knuckle territory. – Bob Mondello
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