The Most Disappointing Horror Films of 2025.
Leigh Whannell hit it big his THE INVISIBLE MAN retelling, so of course everyone expected WOLF MAN to be more of the same. Unfortunately, thematically, this reinterpretation of lycanthropy in the modern man was all over the place and no where at the same time. It seems this film started out trying to make some statement about abuse and how toxic masculinity is passed down from one generation to the next. But it seems somewhere in the process, it was decided that toxic masculinity wasn’t as popular as it used to be. So they just sort of tried to tell a straight up monster movie and maybe relate it to body horror like THE FLY and make it a cancer reference. The end product was a mess and bland acting from Julia Garner and Christopher Abbott. Sure the skin chewing scene was gnarly, but the final appearance of the wolf man looked more like the guy was bitten by a mangy chihuahua. What a mess.
Someone known as the Flying Lotus is responsible for this attempted mish-mash of sci fi and horror about a crashed ship, amnesia, a murder mystery, and some kind of replicant space creature on board. The biggest problem with this one is that it borrows heavily from just about every iconic sci fi movie and adds a big ol’ gooseegg to the mix. So expect flashy visuals, strobes, weird cinematography, and Jesse Pinkman sans saying “betch.” The lead Eliza Gonzales was a super hottie though. Seeing her wander around a spaceship in a skin tight spacesuit almost makes this one worth watching. Almost.
Now, this is a movie that had me until the very end. It’s during the last few minutes where this film flies off the rails like no other film I’ve seen before. The film is moral-less and ends in a way that makes you hate everyone involved as the lead chooses a selfish and abhorrent path in in the end, one that just highlights how much of a horrible mother she has been for the entire film. I’ll give it to this one. The use of shadow is ominous and sometimes effective, but that’s just about the only thing good I can say about this film you should avoid like the plague.
Filmmaker Stephen Cognetti cut his teeth developing the effective, but often overly lore-laden found footage franchise HELL HOUSE LLC. This was his first cinematically filmed movie and well, for a film director, Cognetti is a decent found footage film maker. The problem with this one is that a) it’s dull – from the leads to the story from the windows to the walls, and b) much of the scares seem like they would have worked if it were a found footager, but theatrically made, they just don’t work. I just can’t get behind this one and don’t worry, Cognetti will return a little later in this video.
Netflix followed up their pretty excellent FEAR STREET trilogy with a new one, set in the same connected universe, with much less thrilling results. The film is your standard slasher flick set at a prom, but the abysmally on-the-nose 80’s nostalgia grab soundtrack couldn’t even save this one. The idiotic ending was the final nail in the coffin for this instantly forgettable outing.
One would think I would be all over this film as it pretty much is an hour and a half chase scene between organ harvesters and a young girl. But instead of trying to come up with some challenging hurdles for our gal in peril to get through, they go back to the detail that she has diabetes over and over and over again. She checks her blood sugar levels in the most inconvenient of times and places, and I’m not talking about at the table next to me at Wendy’s. Nothing against those with diabetes, but this film reminds you of our heroine’s malady so many times I lost count. This is Diabetes the Horror Movie. It would almost be funny if it didn’t ruin the momentum of the movie time and time again.
This sci fi horror movie had big ideas about a food crisis and children being round up and killed in a world full of adults. But after establishing that initial problem, the film reverts to a kids trapped in a house film and does the whole thing by the numbers. This one is from Destry Allyn Spielberg who seems to have received the opportunity to make a movie on name alone, but proves that just because you are using your pappy’s name, that doesn’t mean you have Stephen Spielberg’s talent at storytelling and world-building. DOWNTON ABBEY’s Michelle Dockery plays the evil matriarch in a house of horrors and Giancarlo Esposito star in this one, but don’t seem to be trying to do anything but cash in a paycheck.
I know this wasn’t an official FRIDAY THE 13TH release, but it was the Jason Universe’s chance to show the world that the property is in good hands. Instead, we got a few ok kills and an ill-communicated story about how the waters of Crystal Lake have some kind of resurrection properties that work on those killed in the lake other than Jason. This one seemed to serve as a commercial by its sponsor Angry Orchard Hard Cider and while it wasn’t bad, it certainly wasn’t anything to write home to Mama Voorhees about. The director Mike P. Nelson delivered a winner with the new version of SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT, but really didn’t show up to play with this short. Even the mask, which has square eyes instead of round ones, doesn’t seem right. This is a big ol’ miss and it makes me worried about what the holders of this property have in store for my favorite slasher.
HIM is a misleading from jump street. First and foremost, though the ad campaign tried its hardest to convince you otherwise, this isn’t a Jordan Peele film. On top of that, the posters are misleading as well, suggesting the struggle and sacrifice a star footballer has to go through in order to make it. The film’s main theme seems to revolve around the hardship the lead goes through and how that contrasts with his importance of family over everything else in his life. But in the final moments, the lead makes a decision that completely endangers his family. And this scene was put in simply as a crowd pleaser bloodbath where a bunch of old white guys die, going against the more real world themes of selling one’s soul for greatness and celebrity. On top of all of that, while I liked the flashy and over-stylized editing and effects, the director doesn’t know when to quit, slow down, and actually tell a cohesive story. The results is one of the messiest movies of the year.
I don’t get the praise this film received from critics. This film pissed me off so much as it is a decent concept about a man plagued by nightmares and sleep walking and a girlfriend making a documentary about his treatment for these ailments. There are potent jump scares and some hellish imagery worth shivering to. But for some reason, this big budget found footager had so little faith in its scares, it had to precursor every jump, start, and scare with music. There’s no excuse for this. Especially when Eli Roth attached his name on this one as a producer. When something has the potential of being great and is ruined by one stupid little thing, it disappoints me more than most. DREAM EATER is a wasted opportunity.
Stephen Cognetti gave of one-two punch of bad movies this year sealing the deal that he needs to stick to the found footage subgenre. LINEAGE drops the shaky cam that filmed every other installment of this series and goes the more traditional route and the results saps every moment of tension and immediacy from the story. This snoozer is ineptly made with scenes running too long and feeling pointless. On top of that, Cognetti has created an impenetrable amount of lore in this story, so much so that the final reveal lands with a plop and even I, who saw all of the films, didn’t know who the hell it was under the hood at the end. At this point, Cognetti should take a step back, scrub to lore to its basic elements, and forget all of these details that no one but Cognetti himself is able to follow.
Man, the first and second HORROR IN THE HIGH DESERT films really got me. They were scary, full of tension-laden moments, and horrifying imagery. There were long takes of people walking through the dark, but the payoffs were huge and terrifying. Seems since these first two films, though, franchise creator Dutch Marich forgot how to do what the first few films did and now it’s just wandering around in the dark with next to nothing happening from the opening to closing credits. Part 4 MAJESTY is more of the same, with long, boring takes leading nowhere and a finale that simply serves as a lead in to the next movie. This series leapt off the cliff and while I’m hopeful Marich will get his groove back with the next one, I sincerely doubt it’ll happen.
Over Christmas break, I had a chance to sit with my pre-teen niece and nephew and watch FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2. I felt it would be fun, despite the fact that I hadn’t seen the first one. But I thought it would be a chance for them to explain the lore to me. But even though this film was geared towards their age, they found the film to be as bad as I did. There doesn’t seem to be any set rules in this universe, just unscary animal robots chasing kids around. And in this one, they try to humanize them. Add in an ending so convoluted it hurts to think about it and it makes me doubt humanity that these films actually make money.
Finally, this was the year of Public Domain characters going the horror route. While Pooh got all bloody last year, this year it was Steamboat Willie and Popeye’s turn, to not so good results. Out of the four Mickey Mouse movies out there, THE MOUSE TRAP and MOUSE OF HORRORS were the absolute worst, with STEAMBOAT, MOUSEBOAT MASSACRE and I HEART WILLIE actually making trying to deliver something creative and spooky. They still weren’t very good, but better than the other two. In the Popeye Universe, SHIVER ME TIMBERS was just god awful and the worst of the bunch, leaving POPEYE THE SLAYER MAN and POPEYE’S REVENGE as just so-so. None of these Public Domain films, besides the actually entertaining BAMBI: THE RECKONING, have worked and I can’t wait until this trend is over, though I feel it’s only the beginning.
“What about THE RITUAL, MEGAN 2.0, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (2025), THE HOME, and WAR OF THE WORLDS?” You may be asking. Well, I heard so many bad things about those and decided to steer clear of them. Maybe on a rainy Sunday I’ll take a chance on them and maybe I might even like them. But since I didn’t see them, they’re not on this list.
