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!

7. TRAUMATIKA (2025)

Released on September 12, 2025, and will be available On Demand soon from Saban Films!
Directed by Pierre Tsigaridis.
Written by Maxime Rancon, Pierre Tsigaridis.
Check out the trailer here!!

TRAUMATIKA opens very similarly to THE EXORCIST, as an exhausted man carrying a pagan artifact passes out in the desert, leaving the artifact to be buried under the sands. Some time later, this artifact falls into the hands of a single father John (Sean O’Bryan) who is warned not to open the artifact and of course, he does so anyway. This sets in motion a series of horrifying events that passes from one person to the next like the worst kind of plague leaving horror and destruction in its wake.

TRAUMATICA is going to be a hard watch for some. It involves all of the taboo subject matter; incest, rape, kidnapping, murder, ritual sacrifice. Nothing is off limits. This is a dag-nasty little movie that packs some extremely horrifying moments. Director Pierre Tsigaridis was responsible for the October surprise from a few years ago called TWO WITCHES. That film played with timelines, interweaving a number of different stories together into one potent narrative. It also relied heavily on jump scares but unlike the cat leaping from a window or familiar person sneaking up on the protagonist, these jump scares actually work and follow through with an image that is too terrifying to believe. TRAUMATIKA does the same thing and in many ways, could be yet another chapter in TWO WITCHES. Flipping and flopping from one series of horrors to another, TRAUMATICA begins in the Middle Ages where an artifact is lost, then moves to the 1990’s where the same artifact has been recovered by some petty thieves which leads to possession and a series of kidnappings of young children. The film then shunts to the present day where one of the surviving children must face their own demons. There is a throughway, and that’s the intense level of horror going on in each segment, all the way up to the tension-shredding end.

I’ve seen criticism of TRAUMATIKA stating that many of the scares in this film have been lifted from other films. While some of that may be true, director/writer Pierre Tsigaridis and his co-writer Maxime Rancon lace all of these scares with an raw originality that makes it their own. Sure the ghostly figure trick or treating might be reminiscent of Michael Myers from the first Halloween or the possessed people may seem reminiscent of the Deadites from EVIL DEAD, but filmed in this kinetic and brutal way, it all feels original. There are scares galore in TRAUMATIKA and any similarity with other films was definitely taken as more of an homage than anything else.

I loved the way this film reveals its tale by moving through time, telling a raw and unflinching story of how abuse and trauma is passed down from one generation to the next. While the scares and tension are in your face and gruesome, TRAUMATIKA always seems to be treating the trauma in a delicate way, still pushing the ugliness of this abuse to it’s painful max. There are scenes that left me quivering from head to toe in this film.

TRAUMATIKA’s pace is non-stop. You’re trapped in a basement running from a demon one minute then stalked by a trick or treater from hell the next. This is a film comprised of so many scenes of horror smooshed together that it barely takes time to catch a breath. The acting is pretty solid and shrewd eyes will recognize A.J. Bowen as a petrified cop and THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS’ Sean Whalen as one of the fencers of the cursed artifact. The true standout is Rebekah Kennedy, who also appeared in TWO WITCHES in one of the segments, and goes through a grotesque gauntlet of horrors again in this one. All in all, the acting is good, though, most of the time everyone is simply scared shitless the whole time.

With TWO WITCHES, Pierre Tsigaridis could have been seen as a fluke, getting the scares right as a one-timer. But with TRAUMATIKA, it’s made clear that this director is the real deal. Offering up a variety of terrifying scenes that range from peak-high tension to gutter-wallowing gore and everything in between, TRAUMATIKA is going to leave bruises. The tagline to TRAUMATIKA is that you don’t watch this movie, you survive it. I survived it and loved it and hope you take a chance on this indie treat arriving right on time for a Halloween watch.

Worth Noting: IT FEEDS (2025)

Released on April 18, 2025, and streaming on Hulu from Black Fawn Distribution!
Directed/Written by Chad Archibald.
Check out the trailer here!!

TWILIGHT’s Ashley Greene plays Cynthia, a psychiatrist who uses her psychic powers to help those with deep-seeded and paranormal problems. But when a young girl bursts into her office claiming to be haunted by a powerful entity, Cynthia is reluctant to help her in fear of what this evil entity will unleash upon her family. Cynthia’s daughter Jordan (Ellie O’Brien) has budding powers of her own and chooses to go against her mother’s warnings and help the girl, not knowing the entity’s true, diabolical intentions.

IT FEEDS really, really, really wants to be INSIDIOUS. So much so that I found myself distracted for most of the film as it basically feels like a story about a younger version of Lynn Shaye’s character Elsie Rainier from James Wan’s popular horror series. I guess if that’s the kind of movie you want to do, that’s fine, but I have to point out that it was hard to shake the similarity between IT FEEDS and INSIDIOUS pretty much all the way through. I mean, there’s even a jump scare where the demon is looking at the psychic from right behind the shoulder of the person sitting across from her. That’s how similar these two movies are.

All that said, I did find myself intrigued by the main characters as they attempt to combat this demon that has attached itself to this little girl. This film was made by Chad Archibald and that’s a name I respect after the slew of quality movies this guy has put out. He directed and wrote potent horrors like I’LL TAKE YOUR DEAD, THE HERETICS, BITE, and THE DROWNSMAN, and produced scores more. Archibald knows horror and while this film is very, very similar to a popular horror franchise, it still works, nevertheless. There are a whole lot of jump scares that work, especially one big one that made me check my trousers. While the blueprint is familiar, Archibald delivers some scenes that still feel fresh and terrifying.

I’m not going to attest that IT FEEDS is the most original film, but it does have potent scares and great performances from leads Greene and O’Brien. Sure, things are very familiar, but IT FEEDS delivers in scares and thrills. It is definitely a film worth checking out.

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)
#16 – STRANGE HARVEST (THE ASMA JOURNALS)
#15 – DEUS IRAE (SHADOW OF GOD)
#14 – TOGETHER (CANNIBAL MUCKBANG)
#13 – SMILE 2 (THE STRANGERS CHAPTER 2)
#12 – COMPANION (THE DEAD THING)
#11 – BEST WISHES TO ALL (DELICATE ARCH)
#10 – NOSFERATU (ABRAHAM’S BOYS)
#9 – FOUND FOOTAGE: THE MAKING OF THE PATTERSON PROJECT (ABOVE THE KNEE)
#8 – HERETIC (DEAD MAIL)
#7 – TRAUMATIKA (IT FEEDS)