2025 was a strong year for horror overall—but not every film made us scream for the right reasons. While the genre delivered plenty of hits (check out our list of the 10 Best Horror Movies of the Year), there were also a handful of releases that made us regret even stepping into the theater. Below are the worst horror movies of 2025, ranked from disappointing to outright disastrous.
5. The Home
Honestly, I almost didn’t put this one on the list because, as stupid as it is, it falls pretty heavily into the so bad, it’s good category. Watch as Pete Davidson has to work at a nursing home as a form of probation because of… his graffiti work? Wait, is that really all he does? Christ. Davidson is such a boring lead, and everything looks so stale and lifeless. The final ten minutes are so batshit insane that it’s one of the most entertaining things you could imagine. Maybe it’s just because the prior 80 minutes are so stale that it makes that ending seem better than it is. But boy oh boy is it stupid fun.
4. I Know What You Did Last Summer
If you’re ever wondering how not to make a legacy sequel, be sure to check out I Know What You Did Last Summer, as it’s among the worst we’ve gotten. With lame kills, an infuriating cast, dumb red herrings, and some of the cringiest dialogue I’ve ever heard, this is one bad time. I don’t know who approved this dumb Sarah Michelle Gellar zombie dream sequence, but they should probably live the rest of their life in shame. And then there’s the absolutely boneheaded decision to make Freddie Prinze Jr.’s Ray one of the killers. Nothing like shitting on the prior films in one fell swoop. It doesn’t help that Jennifer Love Hewitt looks and sounds like she doesn’t even want to be there. Me neither, girl.
3. The Ritual
I’ve always said that the biggest crime a film can commit is being boring. I can stand terrible movies so long as they have some entertainment value, but it’s hard to be entertained by boring. And there are few films more boring than The Ritual. How many times are we going to get a film based on “the real events behind The Exorcist”? As it turns out, the quote-unquote “real” part of this amounts to very little, and we just watch Dan Stevens and Al Pacino in a standard possession film. It all feels very been there, done that. And there’s not even some over-the-top Pacino performance to get a kick out of.
2. Wolf Man
After The Invisible Man, it really seemed like Leigh Whannell had discovered the formula for updating the classic Universal Monsters. Then he decided to make a Wolf Man movie that doesn’t actually have a Wolf Man in it. It could have just been called The Diseased Man, and it would have been more accurate. Even Julia Garner couldn’t save this film from being so misguided that I question what on earth the filmmakers were even thinking. I’ve yet to meet a single person who likes this movie, so please, get in those comments if you happen to be one of them. I’m starting to believe they don’t exist.
1. The Strangers: Chapter 2
This certainly does not bode well for the third entry in the series, but they made just about every wrong decision they could have with this second one. Giving us the follow-up to Chapter 1, where after the home invasion of Maya and her boyfriend, we now see the aftermath as she hangs out in a hospital. And in the woods. And battles a boar. No, seriously. It really just felt like they were stretching this one out until the finale. Also, whose big idea was it to only reveal one of the Strangers when that was the entire marketing campaign behind it? Sure, we can assume that this guy is one, but there’s only one girl that’s fully revealed, and that’s told to the audience in the first minute of the film. Like… what are we even doing here?
So, as good as this year was for horror, there were definitely some stinkers as well. Make sure to get in those comments and let us know which were your favorites, which were the worst, and what you’re looking forward to in 2026. Let us know, and fingers crossed for a strong horror slate in 2026.
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