Your Horror Movie Weekend Watchlist
From ghosts, to zombies, to Tony Todd, here's every new horror movie released this week (January 19-25)
There are 8 new horror movies arriving today. Well, six if you already saw two of them in theaters. Here’s a rundown of everything new you can watch this weekend!
Presence (In Theaters)
This ghost story is our only theater release today, but it’s also the first horror film of 2025 that I’ve really been looking forward to.
Presence is a supernatural thriller directed by Steven Soderbergh. Chloe and her family have moved to a new home shortly down after the death of a friend. Suffering from depression, her parents think this could be the change she needs. However, Chloe soon discovers a supernatural presence lurking in the home.
This film uses a similar gimmick to In A Violent Nature from last year, but this time, you play the ghost rather than the slasher. Soderbergh places the audience front and center through the ghost's lens as it swirls around this struggling family.
Presence premiered at Sundance Film Festival last year to positive reviews, and since I’m not currently lucky enough to attend ( I’m manifesting press passes for myself one day!), I’m excited to finally see this one in theaters. Chloe is played by Callina Lang, alongside Lucy Liu, Julia Fox, and Chris Sullivan.
Grafted (Shudder/AMC+)
The new body horror film Grafted piqued my curiosity since I saw Bloody-Disgusting refer to it as a mashup of The Substance and Takashi Miike. I hope it’s as chaotic as that sounds.
Chinese student Wei arrives in New Zealand to attend a prestigious. medical school low on self-confidence, partly because of a visible birthmark. Her father died conducting experimental grafting research, and his brilliant daughter — determined to finish his work and (in the process) make herself beautiful — resolves to pick up where he left off. She gets her opportunity when she is selected by her professor Paul to help out in his lab, leading her to a crucial discovery.
Grafted feels like the same coin as The Substance, but from the other side. Rather than exploring the fears of aging out of society, this low-budget body horror tackles a coming-of-age process surrounded by the same pressures and expectations of modern beauty standards.
Bystanders (Digital/VOD)
This bloody revenge horror thriller comes with a twist, placing the audience in the perspective of the women driving the story.
Bystanders begins by introducing a teenage girl named Abby, who attends a party held by her crush Cody, an attractive and rich frat boy. The event quickly spins out of control when the boys decide to drug, rape, and hunt down several of the girls in attendance. Meanwhile, Clare and Gray are an innocent couple driving their way home. When Abby, Gray, and Clare’s paths unexpectedly intersect, they form an unlikely and violent alliance and the trio must fight for their lives.
The film comes to us from co-director Mary Beth McAndrews, who said she drew from her own experience with sexual assault and saw the film as a healing experience for her. Fans of the V/H/S found footage series will also find a familiar face in the cast, Hannah Fierman.
Bone Face (Digital/VOD)
Indie horror film Bone Face starts a standard slasher that morphs into a who-dun-it mystery.
When a masked killer slaughters several counselors at a small-town summer camp, Sheriff Vince Cronin and Deputy Jo McCully track the murderer to a local diner where they must confront a diverse and unruly group of patrons and staff to uncover the actual killer. As the night wears on and tensions rise, the truth becomes more elusive than they had imagined.
Unlike the previous entries to this list, Bone Face didn’t premiere at any film festivals and is arriving straight to VOD, so I’m curious to see if this will be a hidden gem or another in a long line of underwhelming releases that January horror has come to be known for.
Werewolf Game (Digital/VOD)
As the title doesn’t suggest, this horror film has nothing to do with actual werewolves, but it is one of the final times we get to see horror icon Tony Todd grace our screens.
Werewolf Game finds twelve strangers kidnapped and forced to play a death game, voting to murder one another nightly. "Werewolves" among them kill "villagers." Days repeat until one group remains.
Sunstrike Pictures described the film as influenced by John Carpenter and horror manga. The trailer reminds me of other low-budget offerings like Would You Rather (2012), but with a more stylized edge.
Zombie Strain (Digital/VOD)
This horror comedy feels strangely right up my alley. It combines marijuana, Christmas, and you know… zombies.
During the zombie apocalypse, survivors trapped in a sound stage make an astonishing discovery about a potent strain of marijuana. As they struggle to survive, tensions rise and mistakes occur. They begin to question who is more dangerous: the relentless undead outside or the growing mistrust among themselves. In their fight for survival, the true threat may lie within.
If the trailer is any true indication, Zombie Strain appears to be a low-budget B-horror comedy through and through, channeling Shaun of the Dead (2004) but with a more gritty, almost found footage type vibe.
The Damned (Digital/VOD)
Now for the theater-to-VOD horror movie releases, the first of which is The Damned.
This moody folk horror follows a 19th-century widow named Eva who has to make an impossible choice during a particularly harsh winter, when a foreign ship sinks off the coast of her Icelandic fishing village. With supplies already running low, Eva and her tight-knit community must choose between rescuing the shipwrecked crew or prioritizing their own survival. Facing the consequences of their decision and tormented by guilt, they wrestle with a mounting sense of dread and begin to believe they are all being punished for their choices.
This one already premiered in theaters early this month, but history has made me wary of January theater releases (Remember Night Swim from last year? No? Exactly, me neither.) So despite the good reviews I heard, I decided to skip the theater, and the film’s quick transition from the big screen to digital makes me all the more ok with that decision. However, I’d argue that this was partially due to it getting somewhat overshadowed by another period horror to come just before it with much more hype behind it: Nosferatu. Just know thyself; if you don’t like folk horror or historical period pieces, this likely won’t be for you. If you do, this one could still be worth checking out.
Nosferatu (Digital/VOD)
Speaking of Nosferatu, you can now watch this one from the comfort of home. You can feel free to take my horror fan membership card, because I admittedly haven’t seen this blockbuster yet. Sorry, I know, I’m behind. Work, kids, and ridiculous weather will do that to a girl. This week, I’ll get to redeem myself, but with that good old “theater at home” premium price tag.
A reimagination of F.W. Murnau‘s 1922 silent horror classic, Nosferatu is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake. Directed by Robert Eggers, everything I’ve seen thus far suggests a beautiful dark film with widely mixed reactions. Although it seems to have gotten overwhelmingly positive reviews, I’ve seen the spectrum from virtual standing ovations, all the way down to saying it was a cheap rip-off of the film Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). The irony was lost on the person claiming the latter.
Either way, it was definitely one of the most anticipated releases of 2024, and it seemed to deliver based on critic and audience reactions. So, if you’re comfortable with the $19.99 price tag, this is one you can check out for yourself at home along with me. As an aside, physical media collectors will have to wait a little longer. Universal has a 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD release coming February 18th, including a 136-minute extended cut of the film along with deleted scenes, audio commentary from Robert Eggers himself, and a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film.
Are you an indie filmmaker? Contact Caley St. John via email (blackboxhorror@gmail.com) to add your film to my release list! I’d love to share your hard work!