All through October, I’ll be posting reviews of the best of the best films in the horror genre released since October 1, 2025, through September 30, 2026. As an added bonus, I’ll be doing 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!

The Best in Horror 2025-2026 So Far…

#31 – DOLLY (GATOR FACE)
#30 – THINESTRA (SACCHARINE)
#29 – ONSLAUGHT (BEAST OF WAR)
#28 – READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME (PENNY LANE IS DEAD)
#27 – IN OUR BLOOD (V/H/S/HALLOWEEN)
#26 – SEND HELP (HEEL)
#25 – THE CARPENTER’S SON (THE BOOK OF SIJJIN AND ILLIYN)
#24 – OTHER (YOU ARE NOT ME)

#24 – OTHER (2025)

Released on October 17, 2025!
Streaming on Shudder from Voltage Pictures!
Directed by David Moreau.
Written by Jon Goldman, David Moreau.
Check out the trailer here!

When her reclusive mother dies, Alice (Olga Kurylenko) reluctantly returns to her childhood home to sign some papers and finds herself trapped in the home for the weekend. Unbeknownst to Alice, there is some kind of creature lurking in the surrounding forest that has an appetite for faces.

David Moreau was behind last year’s MADS which was a one-take infection movie, the Jessica Alba flick THE EYE, and of course, the phenomenal ILS aka THEM. So, when a new movie is released by the guy, I pay attention. With OTHER, he delivers another highly stylistic and moody film that meanders a bit in the middle but ends up working marvelously in the end.

OTHER would fall on its face without the brilliant performance from its lead, Olga Kurlyenko. The actress has gotten a long way on her supermodel looks, but here she really embodies a damaged soul, surviving what seems to be horrifying abuse from her mother as seen through video tapes Alice finds in the home. Through these tapes, it seems as if Alice’s mom was a typical beauty pageant mom, forcing her young daughter through strict oversight, cruel verbal abuse, and rigorous physical torture to look the part of a model. Seeing Kurylenko’s face deflate while rewatching and reexperiencing this abuse is heartbreaking. For the entire film, the focus is on Kurylenko’s Alice, and while there is a bit of an overlong section of self-pity on Alice’s part, the film picks back up with the climactic battle with the monster. Still, she carries this film firmly on her shoulders every arduous step of the way.

And when I say the entire focus of the film is on Alice, I mean it. Right up until the very end, no other faces are seen in OTHER. Every other tertiary character; Alice’s boyfriend, the maintenance guy, the rescue workers, the police investigators. All of them have their faces obscured in one way or another in OTHER. Of course, there is a point of this. Alice’s true self was scrubbed away and tied up in a little bow as a child by her mother. The entire point of the film is about identity and how our parents can take that from us. So, by obscuring the focus of the rest of the cast, including the monster stalking her in the background, the focus is squarely on Alice, who herself is attempting to understand her own identity at what seems to be the lowest part of her life.

This lack of faces isn’t made completely clear until a bit into the movie when you realize everyone talking with Alice is through a broken or obscured screen or masked in some way or simply cut out of frame like the parents in the Peanuts cartoon. The fact that the adults are not seen in Peanuts or this film suggests some type of connection, possibly saying that this is a story about children (even though Alice is an adult, she does live a stunted life). These children are trying to find out who they are and where their place is in the world. Moreau didn’t go so far as to have the other actors sound like a muted trombone, but he comes damn near close a few times.

This could have been a simple style choice to appear smart by the director, but as the story goes on, the mystery deepens, as does Alice’s connection with the monster roaming the grounds and eating away its victims’ faces (yet another means to not show faces in this film). These scenes are terrifying and the late-in-the-game revelations home in on how extreme the abuse Alice survived really was. No spoilers here, but the revelations in the last fifteen minutes prove to be highly intense and not for the squeamish.

The acting of Kurylenko and the stylistic choices by Moreau elevates OTHER from a typical monster on the loose flick to something quite personally devastating. It reminded me somewhat of the overlooked indie gem from a few years ago CUCKOO that proved to be a bit too artsy and surreal for mainstream audiences. OTHER will hit in the same way as it deals with some very uncomfortable themes of abuse and motherhood. Still, I was blown away by the lead performance as well as the mystery once completely unfolded. This is a powerful one that proves Moreau is a filmmaker that deserves a bigger audience.

Worth Mentioning – YOU ARE NOT ME (aka TU NO ERES YO, 2023)

Released on December 6, 2025!
Streaming on Shudder from Doppelganger Pictures!
Directed/Written by Marisa Crespo, Moisés Romera.
Check out the trailer here!

Aitlana (Roser Tapias) and her wife Gabi (Yapoena Silva) and their newly adopted son return to the home of Aitlana’s parents for Christmas a day earlier than expected. They find their parents less than thrilled to see them and a woman named Nadia (Anna Kurikka) is living in her room and her parents are treating Nadia like their own daughter. Aitlana questions her parents, but they are distracted by a group of strangers arriving for a dinner party. As the night goes on, the intentions of this group become clearer and much more insidious, putting Aitlana in the middle of it all.

YOU ARE NOT ME is one of those films like DIE HARD that happens at Christmas but doesn’t necessarily have a lot to do with the holiday season. Sure, the couple with their baby in tow show up on Christmas Eve and every now and then they’ll play a Christmas carol, but for the most part, YOU ARE NOT ME is a folk horror/drama about never being able to really being able to return home. Some kind of drama occurred at home and Aitlana decided not to come back for her wedding and instead, marry Gabi away from home. Aitlana believes that because of this decision, that is the reason she has seemingly been replaced by Nadia. Still, none of it makes sense to her as her parents simply are not acting right. It’s a conflict that hits Aitlana hard, yet we aren’t given the whole story until the tragic climax of the film.

The journey to this climax is what is going to draw in or detract viewers. There is a whole lot of buildup to the explosive climax. Reminiscent of films like THE WICKER MAN and other folk horror films, YOU ARE NOT ME is a story about an outsider witnessing a dark and forbidden culture for the first time. Because I knew this was a horror film, I was patient and found the ending to be worth the wait, but your milage may vary.

Of course, when you see a bunch of old people gathering for some kind of ritual, the one thing you can count on is that there will be a point where those old people are going to strip down and bare all. What is it about folk horror and naked old people? It seems that any kind of elderly gathering in horror eventually turns into a septuagenarian orgy. Well, it happens here too.

While the ending of YOU ARE NOT ME turned out to be potent and emotionally devastating, it also isn’t anything we haven’t seen before in other folk horrors. There’s a melancholy feel to the very end that resonates all the way through the credits. And while there are a lot of familiar tropes going on with YOU ARE NOT ME, it ended up standing out due to some solid performances by the leads and its dedication to making the dramatic lead-in a powerful one.

Once again, feel free to agree, disagree, or how about you play along at home and give me your own picks for your favorite horror movies. It’s October, so let’s talk horror. Come back tomorrow for the next level in the Best in Horror Countdown. Be sure to hit all of the pertinent bells and whistles down below and you’ll never miss a post! Happy Halloween, folks!