My Honest Review of 2025 Horror Movies

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Cal State Chico chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

In honor of my favorite chilly, leaf-crunching, and spooky season; I feel almost obligated to write up my own reviews on some of the horror movies (my favorite genre) released this year. Even though every year there’s many of the same mindless horror movies being released under different names, this year for horror also brought out amazing new films and concepts. Here are some of my personal reviews for some of these 2025 horror movies.

I also believe the context in which you watch a movie matters, such as everything seems more cinematic and dramatic in theaters and having people watch movies with you makes a difference, especially for horror movies.

Sinners 

Context: Watched at night in a dark living room with my roommates.

★★★★★

Despite the debates of whether or not this movie really fits the genre of “horror” due to the lack of real fear factor, no one can deny the absolute perfection of Sinners (Coogler 2025) and its plot. With the extreme positive reaction of the public and premise of the movie (I LOVE vampires), I had quite high expectations going into this and spoiler, I was not let down. I love the way even though this movie dealt with paranormal themes and creatures, it incorporated real history and societal themes for this time period. 

Now, going into the movie itself, every character was casted so perfectly which made such an impact on the enjoyment and immersive-ness of the movie. Honestly even one character having a bad casting can ruin a movie, but Sinners (Coogler 2025) displays perfection: Michael B Jordan playing Stack and Smoke, Jayme Lawson as Pearline, Hailee Steinfeld as Mary, Yao as Bo Chow, and so many others. As for the plot and themes of the movie, I was utterly blown away at both the historical significance and the unraveling of events that occurred in this movie.

To reiterate, I love vampires. 

Weapons

Context: Watched in theaters.

★★★★★

Along with Sinners (Coogler 2025), Weapons (Cregger 2025) was such a refreshing movie for the world of horror, in my humble opinion. In the world of horror, it’s common to see tropes and plots overused and repeated. Yet, everything about this movie was new, it was creative, it was definitely confusing at parts (intentional), and most of all it was exciting and heart-thumping to watch. 

Because of how the movie is directed, you’re brought through multiple perspectives of the story – which was (at least to me) a creative directive approach to a horror film. I was second guessing myself and my theories on what was happening through the entire film while watching, and everything came together so beautifully in the end. The ending is bittersweet, not completely happy but not excruciatingly depressing either, and I’m pleased about it. It shows the real implications of trauma and the characters don’t just “brush off” all that they went through. 

The Conjuring: Last Rites

Context: Watched in theaters.

★★★★ ½ 

Maybe it’s because of my love for the entire Conjuring series, but I did in fact love this movie as opposed to much of the public. I find Ed and Lorraine’s relationship (only in the movies!!) truly beautiful and find much of the demons and entities somewhat nostalgic because the movies had started coming out when I was just a kid. 

It does get half a star off because I wish the movie was done a bit differently. It’s the movie focusing on the Smurl family case, yet it felt close to another Annabelle movie with how many cameos she had in here. It did feel as if it was setting up another movie for Lucy and Annabelle, but I wished it wasn’t as big and there could have been more of a focus on the actual entity of the Smurl family. 

Until Dawn

Context: Watched alone in the living room during the day. 

★★★

This movie, in my opinion, was just okay. It was supposed to be based off the 2015 video game Until Dawn. In the video game, the premise is eight young adults stuck in a cabin during a snowstorm and are stuck in a horror, slasher experience. Yet, the Until Dawn (Sandberg 2025) movie doesn’t follow the plot, characters, or dynamics from the video game – mainly the introduction of the time loop. 

While veering off from the game doesn’t necessarily mean the movie will be bad, it did take some of the charm away from this movie, in my opinion. There was a huge difference in the amount of deaths, the dynamic of the cabin and its horrors, and the timing of the experiences. A positive I will say was the casting for the characters individually was done great and the acting was enjoyable to watch. 

While there have been so many horror movies released this year, I felt most passionate about my reviews for these ones in particular (and I also didn’t want this to be too long). Some honorable mentions of other horror movies I enjoyed this year include Heart Eyes (Ruben 2025) and Opus (Green 2025). And while this year has already been an amazing year for horror, it’s not over yet! Some highly anticipated movies that I believe everyone should go see in the upcoming months are Black Phone 2 and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. And if you haven’t seen the first movies for these, I’m ordering you to watch them. 

Happy Halloween season!