I love horror films. Creepy horror, ghost stories, slashers, vampires, zombies, monsters, aliens, witches, haunted houses, found footage and best of all, folk horror. Hook it to my veins, as they say: I love it all and watch it all year 'round. I'm even a subscriber to horror-dedicated streaming service Shudder. There’s a lot of bad films on there, believe me - but I’ve watched a lot of those ones, too.
Time was, however, that it was only once the summer blockbusters had been flogged to death and the evenings began to darken that most horror films filtered into cinemas. Now, it seems like horror is less of a niche genre than it used to be and has slunk its way into the mainstream - arguably due to the mammoth success of franchises like Paranormal Activity, Saw, The Conjuring and their associated spin-offs over the last decade or two.
Maybe that also goes some way to explaining why the best films of 2025 so far have all been horrors?
It’s true. The biggest films of the year to date have been either kids’ movies or action titles: Lilo & Stitch, A Minecraft Movie, Jurassic World: Rebirth, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, Superman. Meh, meh and meh. The best ones, the most creative ones, the most progressive ones and the ones with the best storylines have all been horrors. In January, I saw one of my favourite films of the year so far in; Steven Soderbergh’s Presence, which has both a brilliant premise - a poltergeist story told from the POV of the ghost - and the requisite creepiness, but it also packed a huge emotional punch, for good measure.
Sinners, of course, was the ‘summer blockbuster’ equivalent of a horror; an ambitious, fast-moving, slick movie that looked amazing on the big screen, but wasn’t all style over substance, either. A horror story set in 1930s Mississippi, with Irish vampires and the most surreal version of Rocky Road to Dublin you’ve ever heard? I can’t wait to see it again.
The same goes for 28 Years Later, the long-awaited sequel and reunion of Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, the men behind the genre-defining 2002 classic 28 Days Later. The third film in the franchise had a lot to live up to, but managed to pull it off by nodding to the past without getting too bogged-down in it. 28 Years Later introduced us to a new setting, new story and new characters - not to mention setting us up for a sequel that looks as weird as it does intriguing.
Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why horror holds such an appeal for an increasingly growing audience: it allows filmmakers to tell stories that are usually grounded in reality, yet can take the most fantastical, horrifying, off-kilter flights of fancy. In horror movies, almost anything can happen. Most of the time, it’s real life seen through an unnerving, eerie filter.
Then there was the more low-key horror films, like Companion (Drew Hancock’s clever, compelling sci-fi film about rogue companion robots) and even Aislinn Clarke’s Irish-language horror Fréwaka, which was both beautifully-shot and underpinned with a creeping sense of unease that was catnip for horror buffs.
The best film I’ve seen this year, by the way, has been Weapons (which is still in cinemas, having over-performed on a huge scale). Zach Cregger’s brilliantly original, incredibly entertaining movie keeps you on the edge of your seat until the credits, and harnesses everything that I love about horror without treating the audiences like idiots or descending into ridicule or cliché.
The good news is that spooky season is just around the corner, with another glut of scary movies (including the Jordan Peele-produced Him, Oz Perkins' Keeper and Guillermo Del Toro's version of Frankenstein) on the near horizon. Bear in mind, though: a horror film is not just for Halloween - a message that mainstream audiences seem to be steadily embracing. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
