All through October, I’ll be posting reviews of the best of the best films in the horror genre released since October 1, 2024, through September 30, 2025. As an added bonus, I’ll be adding a secondary review that may be somewhat related to the main review or slightly missed the countdown by inches. Follow along the countdown every day in October. Feel free to agree, disagree, or better yet, give me your own picks for your favorite horror movies of the year. Happy Halloween!

17. MADS (2024)

Released on October 18, 2024, and streaming on Shudder!
Directed/Written by David Moreau.
Check out the trailer here!!

From David Moreau, the director of THEM and THE EYE comes MADS, a technically intriguing descent into absolute madness. After taking an experimental drug, Romain, (played by Milton Riche) runs into a frantic woman on the side of the road. When he tries to help her, she attacks Romain. Not wanting to miss a night of partying, Romain leaves the body in his garage, and leaves for the party with his girlfriend Anais (played by Laurie Pavy), and the girl he is cheating on his girlfriend Julia (played Lucille Guillaume). At the party, Romain infects both Anias and Julia with a virus that is a mutation from both the drug Romain used and the bite from the woman. When a containment team arrives, all three must run for their lives while feeling the effects of the contagious virus.

MADS is non-stop madness. The film was supposed to have been made in one take, meaning that the entire hour and a half was done without cutting the camera at any time. Anyone who has made or even watched the making of films know that this is a gargantuan task. It runs more akin to a stage play done in front of a live audience from beginning to end, but add special effects and multiple locales, and the chance of accomplishing this all-in-one take is near impossible. Now, though I couldn’t identify it, I’m sure somewhere along the way, there were some cheats where the film actually was edited, but still, the film attests that it was all done in one take. Either way, this technical detail makes MADS all the more of an impressive piece of filmmaking.

This continuous movement of the camera and constant action within the frame makes MADS a hectic and almost exhausting film to watch. This is not a movie where the actors stand around and talk for five minutes at a time and then move to another room and blab another five or ten minutes. The players are always moving from one room to the next when they are inside a place, such as the party they visit or within Romain’s house, or the camera is somehow tagging along with moving cars, bicycles, and people running. While the action in the movie enveloped and interested me, I found myself marveling at the way filmmaker David Moreau was able to keep the camerawork kinetic and mobile as he follows these three main players as they descend into madness.

Now, the story itself is a typical contagion tale as the camera follows three characters as they encounter this infection (which takes a while to turn the afflicted into lunatic zombies) and then pass it along to the next sad soul. The film keeps things vague about the origins of the infection. Sure, it is pretty obvious that the infected person Romain picks up at the beginning of the film is the source of this madness plague, but the introduction of the drugs is the outlying factor. Do the drugs delay the effects? Do they intensify the symptoms? Or do they make the carriers immune to the effects? The answer is never revealed, but I’m sure adding a new, experimental drug to the mix doesn’t help things.

The afflicted are downright scary. At times, we see the world through their eyes, sort of, as the camera feels more like it is on the shoulders of each of the afflicted rather than simply following them. The settings are not always normal, such as the party with flashing and neon lights everywhere or the building under construction where the action of the film ends. All of it makes for a dreamlike experience, making the terrain these kids must move through unreliable and unearthly.

The three main actors are great, the best of the bunch being Laurie Pavy, who plays Anais. There’s a scene where she is riding on the back of a motorcycle and she is struggling to keep her sanity, but unable to keep herself from bursting out in screams of terror or uncontrollable laughter. It’s chilling seeing this juxtaposition of emotions, knowing that the character is struggling to keep her wits to her. Milton Riche as Romain serves as the connective tissue and infector of the two other main players, and while he isn’t a standout, he serves that purpose well as a privileged rich kid. But Lucille Guillaume who plays Julia, is shown the most as struggling with this virus and offers up some great emotional range.

MADS is a film that you can’t just casually watch. It’s engrossing in the way it was made to the action going on from beginning to end. It reminds me of films like RUN LOLA RUN, which feels like an adrenaline shot in the heart all the way through. It’s going to make your heart beat fast and your feet start tapping. Filmmaker Moreau delivers another monstrously good film that never lets up and I highly recommend it for those who are fiending for fast-paced frights.

Worth Noting: A MOTHER’S EMBRACE (aka ABRACO DE MAE, 2024)

Released on September 15, 2025, and streaming on Screambox!
Directed by Cristian Ponce.
Written by Cristian Ponce, Gabriela Capello, André Pereira.
Check out the trailer here!!

A MOTHER’S EMBRACE begins with a mother taking her daughter to a carnival. The little girl insists to go into a funhouse, which turns out to be a maze based on the insides of the female body. The maze ends with a room made to look like a womb which frightens the young girl and the mother takes the frightened girl out and carries her home. This highly symbolic opener sets the stage to look at the complex relationship between mother and daughter. The film then scuttles forward to 25 years later with a record-breaking downpour flooding the small Brazilian town and a team of firefighters, including the grown up girl from the intro, Ana (Marjorie Estiano), arriving at a nursing home in need of inspection due to the rising flood waters. They are greeted by a strange wheelchair bound woman, who insists that the elderly tenants in the building are fine and must not move in the storm. But the firefighters insist and begin inspecting the dark home. Soon they find that the rising waters are the least of the dangers festering within the building’s walls and floors.

From Christian Ponce, who was last seen helming the surprise shocker HISTORY OF THE OCCULT, comes a film literally dripping with atmosphere. This is a film that owes much to the absolutely treacherous setting the action takes place in. Torrential rain and thunderstorms often set a dire mood, but in A MOTHER’S EMBRACE, it is a menacing character all its own, challenging Ana and the firefighters at every turn. Everything is wet or damp or dripping. This must have been one hell of a shoot, requiring much of the cast to be soaking wet for most of the movie as the water begins to seep into the home and tear it apart. But much like [REC], a film A MOTHER’S EMBRACE very much reminds me of, the dark, maze-like corridors add a whole ‘notha level of dire circumstance for our heroes, as the building literally seems to swallow these firefighters up and separates them from one another and the outside world. The fact that this takes place within a nursing home is already creepy, but knock out the lights, spring a leak from the walls, and have the elderly pittering around in the dark like cockroaches and this is a dangerous setting that makes the viewer feel trapped and helpless.

The weirdness doesn’t stop there. With the arrival of a trio of guests, it seems there is something very culty going on and while Ana is trying to go about her business evacuating the decrepit building, her fellow firefighters are disappearing, and more people keep showing up. The fact that, no matter how much Ana orders and eventually pleads with the occupants to gather their things and leave, no one seems to listen and nothing seems able to get in the way of whatever these weirdos have planned. The results are Lovecraftian as tentacles slither through the cracks and a giant beast seems to be materializing in the flooded basement. Yeah, this is definitely a unique one.

The title A MOTHER’S EMBRACE is an odd one. It doesn’t necessarily strike fear in the heart. Maybe it translates to something more sinister. But it does make sense as Ana herself finds a young girl in the building and like Ripley and Newt, must battle the monsters and escape this treacherous place before it all falls apart. The climax becomes a race against time as child becomes mother in order to save the day.

Do they make it? Not telling. But for the unpredictable antagonists, the murky tentacle monster, and the setting where danger creeps at you from every direction, A MOTHER’S EMBRACE is something truly unique from a visionary director worth following,

The Best in Horror Countdown 2024-2025
#31 – GET AWAY (DARK MATCH)
#30 – PABRIK GULA (#MISSINGCOUPLE)
#29 – YULE LOG 2: BRANCHIN’ OUT (THE LAST VIDEO STORE)
#28 – FREWAKA (THE SURRENDER)
#27 – FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES (V/H/S/BEYOND)
#26 – ALMA AND THE WOLF (CUSTOM)
#25 – LOOKY-LOO (THE CREEP TAPES)
#24 – DANGEROUS ANIMALS (THE MAN IN THE WHITE VAN)
#23 – THE MONKEY (THE DAMNED)
#22 – THE DEVIL AND THE DAYLONG BROTHERS (THE SEVERED SUN)
#21 – TERRIFIER 3 (CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD)
#20 – PRESENCE (HOUSE ON EDEN)
#19 – THE RULE OF JENNY PEN (GRAFTED)
#18 – PARVULOS: CHILDREN OF THE APOCALYPSE (AZRAEL)
#17 – MADS (A MOTHER’S EMBRACE)