There's not long left now, horror fans, to decide upon your favorite scary releases of the year, so will any of the most exciting upcoming horror movies still to come make your lists?
We think it's possible, with Marielle Heller's darkly comedic horror Nightbitch starring Amy Adams, and Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson's dark and cerebral (quite literally) political satire Rumors, starring Cate Blanchett and Charles Dance, both being released in December. Plus, it looks like Robert Eggers take on Nosferatu will end the year with some serious bite.
Elsewhere on the horror calendar for 2025 are a couple of big monster movies based on the classic Universal stable: Leigh Wannell’s Wolf Man, starring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, and The Bride, directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and featuring Christian Bale, Jessie Buckley, plus a whole host of other massive names. We’re also getting Osgood Perkins’ follow-up to Longlegs with his adaptation of the Stephen King short story The Monkey, the return of Danny Boyle and Alex Garland to the zombie franchise they kicked off with 28 Days Later, and Scott Derrickson’s sequel to his 2021 horror hit The Black Phone.
Below is all you need to know about these petrifying pictures and more, with our picks of the most exciting upcoming horror movies still to come this year and next..
Read more: Best Horror movies | Best Netflix horror movies | Movie release dates
Nightbitch
Release date: December 6, 2024
Based on Rachel Yoder’s novel of the same name, and with a screenplay penned by Yoder and director Marielle Heller (A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, Can You Ever Forgive Me?), Nightbitch is the new darkly comedic horror movie starring Amy Adams (Arrival, Nocturnal Animals) as a woman who pauses her career to be a stay-at-home mother, only to find that her domesticity soon takes a surreal turn. The story was adapted with Adams in mind, (she also produces), and co-stars Scoot NcNairy (Gone Girl, Destroyer), Mary Holland (Self Reliance), and the iconic Jessica Harper (Suspiria, Phantom of the Paradise, Bones and All).
Rumours
Release date: December 6, 2024 (UK)
Written and co-directed by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson, Rumors premiered to critical acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival and has continued to receive praise since. The film takes place at the annual G7 summit, where the seven leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies contend with increasingly surreal obstacles in the misty woods as night falls and they realize they are suddenly alone. The impressive cast includes Cate Blanchett, Charles Dance, Alicia Vikander and Nikki Amuka-Bird, and the action shifts between sharp comedy and apocalyptic horror, working as a genre-blending satire of political ineptitude. This is a thinking-fan’s horror movie that will test your credulity and have you covering your eyes to hide from the nightmares of real and fantasy life alike.
Nosferatu
Release date: December 25, 2024 (US) / January 1, 2024 (UK)
We’d been teased with director Robert Eggers’ adaptation of Nosferatu for years and when production finally began, the film fast became one of horror fans' most anticipated new releases, with the modern master bringing his version of one of the most genuinely chilling vampire tales to the big screen. And now it’s finally almost here! Following the 1922 classic directed by F.W. Murnau and the 1979 remake from Werner Herzog, Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman) is set to deliver his take on the gothic story of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her. The chameleonic Bill Skarsgard (IT, Barbarian) will embody Count Orlok this time around, alongside an impressive ensemble cast including Lily-Rose Depp, Willem Dafoe, Nicholas Hoult, Ralph Ineson, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
Watch the first Nosferatu trailer now.
Wolf Man
Release date: January 17, 2025
In 2020, director Leigh Wannell delivered a bold new take on The Invisible Man, a blood-chilling adaptation of H.G. Wells' sci-fi classic following in the footsteps of the old Universal Monster movies. Now Wannell is back with Wolf Man, his take on the 1941 Universal werewolf picture, The Wolf Man starring Lon Chaney Jr. Christopher Abbot (Possessor, Piercing, It Comes at Night) embodies the titular role in Wannell’s new version, alongside Julia Garner (The Assistant, Apartment 7A). With his work on Saw alongside fellow-Aussie James Wan, and his impressive director’s chops demonstrated on both The Invisible Man and 2018’s excellent sci-fi action movie Upgrade, Wannell has established himself as a safe pair of hands for genre filmmaking and Wolf Man is another perfect project for him to sink his teeth into. We can’t wait.
Heart Eyes
Release date: February 14, 2025
Directed by Josh Ruben, best known in genre circles for his smart horror comedies Scare Me and Werewolves Within, and starring Jordana Brewster (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Random Acts of Violence), Olivia Holt (Totally Killer) and horror legend Devon Sawa (Final Destination, Idle Hands, Chucky), Heart Eyes is coming to make Valentine's Day way less romantic than it should be. In this new addition to the recent slasher renaissance, the movie follows the events of the masked 'Heart Eyes Killer' who, for the past several years, has wreaked havoc on Valentine's Day by stalking and murdering romantic couples. In February, romance is dead and buried.
The Monkey
Release date: February 21, 2025
Horror director Osgood Perkins is not resting on his laurels following his 2024 smash-hit Longlegs, and is back in February with The Monkey, a new supernatural horror comedy based on the short story of the same name by Stephen King. Theo James (the Divergent series, The Time Traveller’s Wife) stars as twin brothers Bill and Hal, who become surrounded by a series of gruesome deaths after they find their father's old monkey toy in the attic. The brilliant Elijah Wood (The Faculty, Maniac, Come To Daddy) and Tatiana Maslany (Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed, Orphan Black) also star, and with Perkins in the director’s chair plus the best tagline we’ve seen in quite a while ("everybody dies, and that's fucked up"), The Monkey will be topping a lot of horror fans' watchlists for 2025.
28 Years Later
Release date: June 20, 2025
Ok so it might not have been exactly 28 years since director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland revolutionized the zombie subgenre with their film 28 Days Later, but it has been 23. Already? How?! Anyway, now Boyle and Garland are back with their much-anticipated follow-up, the third film in the franchise, coming after 28 Weeks Later in 2007. With an all-star cast including Cillian Murphy who reprises his role of Jim from the first film, Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass, Nocturnal Animals, Godzilla), Jodie Comer (The Last Duel, The End We Start From), Ralph Fiennes (The Menu, Red Dragon) and Jack O’Connell (Eden Lake, Starred Up), 28 Years Later currently has its plot tightly under wraps, but we can expect to catch up with Jim and the world as it stands following the chilling zombie apocalypse that terrified us all back in 2002.
The Bride
Release date: September 26, 2025
More rebooted Universal Monster action is on its way, this time revolving around one of horror’s most iconic female characters, and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal – following her hugely successful feature debut The Lost Daughter in 2021 – who's adapting the stunning black and white classic from 1935, James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein. The new movie takes place in '30s Chicago, where Frankenstein asks Dr. Euphronius for help creating a companion, and when they bring a murdered woman back to life as the Bride (played by Men’s Jessie Buckley), they spark romance, police interest, and radical social change. Along with its significant heritage, an impressive ensemble cast including Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko, Life, Velvet Buzzsaw), Christian Bale (American Psycho, The Pale Blue Eye), Penelope Cruz (Vanilla Sky, Murder on the Orient Express), Peter Sarsgaard (The Skeleton Key, Orphan) and Annette Bening (Mars Attacks!) makes this another hugely anticipated horror for 2025.
The Black Phone 2
Release date: October 17, 2024
We love a horror sequel that audiences are actually excited about and Scott Derrickson’s follow-up to his 2021 supernatural/child abduction hit The Black Phone is shaping up to be one such movie. There’s very little known about The Black Phone 2 currently, but it has been confirmed that original cast members Ethan Hawke, Jeremy Davies, Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw are all returning. The first movie and its characters were based on a short story written by Joe son-of-Stephen-King Hill, and while he won’t back for the sequel screenplay, Derrickson has teamed up again with C. Robert Cargill who also worked on The Black Phone and the Sinister films. Here’s hoping for more fearful fun from this team that just seems to love the horror genre.
For more, check out our guides to upcoming movies and new TV shows.
