Horror Movies 2025

Mira is here!

Well, we said we wanted to talk about all the movies we watched. Probably the most film we've digested in a month for a long time, between two different groups of film watchers. Generally we don't much care for horror but we get interested in them anyway, so we like the opportunity to write things out and try to get to the bottom of our feelings.

Ernest Scared Stupid: A children's movie, obviously, and has several instances of casual 90s racism, so that's bad! When it's not being like that it's fun, though. Kids' horror is actually often very good specifically because it needs to wrap itself up cleanly and be nonviolent, so you get stuff like the evil goblin who turns kids into wooden statues, which is even more existentially terrifying than just dying could ever be. They all get better though. It was a good start to the month.

Cobwebs: The first movie for actual adults we watched, and its extremely A Movie You Can Watch. A lot of it is really super comically over-the-top abusive parents which is actually pretty good and works. Then it becomes a totally different movie that's just like "what if a girl was deformed wouldn't that be scary and evil" and we get bored.

Barbarian: Also a movie that relies on "what if a woman was deformed" but with the conclusion of "she still wouldn't be as fucked up as MEN." And I mean that in a positive sense. At the very least it feels like it has a point.

Poltergeist: Easily our favorite of the month. Largely a movie about how the suburbs are hell and television is the devil, and we love 80s movies that hate Reagan. Actually lets you sit with the characters and gain some affection for them, but then it also isn't the kind of film that kills everyone off. In fact it would be a wacky special affects rombps for the whole family if not for the gore. Of course they made several sequels that completely ruin it.

Night of the Creeps: Another light-hearted one. We barely remember anything about this but it was fine. The main guys are like super gay in it and there's a few good jokes. That's it that's all we remember.

SMILE: Horror movies are often shooting for to make long-running profitable franchises, and so they are allergic to having a point. Such was the case with SMILE. The horror is mostly jumpscares and instructing the actors to make an unnerving smile (tm) and there's something to be appreciated about that nice, low-budget kind of setup. Supposedly it's about trauma and the protagonist has a learning not to stay close-off moment where she defeats the monster (who has taken on the guise of a deformed woman what a shock) but then it just has to be a fakeout and haha actually nothing resolved but we'll make another one of these that just has the same plot again. You can watch this, certainly, but it's not very interesting.

Critters 2: The first one was watched but we had to go to bed and missed it. The second one, though, we saw, and dang it's like the platonic ideal of horror comedy because the monsters are the goofiest-ass little puppets that they weren't afraid to squish and kill in hilarious ways. They look funny rolling around, blowing up, getting stepped on, and skeletonizing some people. Delightful movie, easy to recommend.

The Wolf of Snow Hollow: A movie about the world's shittiest guy trying to solve a werewolf crime. Tone all over the place, but I mean that as a compliment. The mystery aspect of it is not especially good but it was an amusing watch in the moment. Can't remember it very well now, which is probably a sign it's nothing special! It's even the most recent watch.

So yeah overall Poltergeist and Critters were the biggest winners here but most of the movies were at least alright. Maybe next year we'll use October as an excuse to discover even more classics.