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 ILLIYYIN)
#24 – OTHER (YOU ARE NOT ME)
#23 – WHO’S WATCHING (MATCH)

#23 – WHO’S WATCHING (2024)

Released on September 18, 2026!
Available On Demand from Dark Sky Films!
Directed by Tim Kasher.
Written by Tim Kasher, Travis Stevens.
Check out the trailer here!

Caleb (A DESERT’s Zachary Ray Sherman) is a socially backwards metal head attempting to make a documentary about his life but once he meets his new supervisor Krista (SUPERHOST’s Gracie Gillam) his attention homes in on her. As Caleb’s obsession with Krista grows, he begins following her home, breaking into her place, and setting secret cameras up around her house. Only Caleb’s friend Tawnia (IT FOLLOWS and CANDY LAND’s Olivia Luccardi) seems to notice that Caleb’s methods of courtship are way off and bordering on dangerous. It looks as if Caleb’s obsession is about to turn deadly for all involved.

WHO’S WATCHING is a multi-media film utilizing found footage, security cameras, music videos, and multiple other sources of recording to tell its story. It also incorporates regular cinematic, omniscient POV sort of storytelling, putting down the hand-held camera and simply filming the action as if it were not a found footage film at all. It also switches perspectives, telling the story in a whole different light at times, So, this is a type of hybrid-style movie that is less interested in making sure the story unfolding looks like authentic found footage and more like a movie that uses different media to tell a singular story from different angles in order to deliver all of the information playing out. It’s a unique style film. Not my favorite, as it takes away some of the immediacy of using the first person POV, yet it still uses the found footage techniques when it is beneficial to making the viewer squirm, scream, and feel closer to the action that one might be comfortable with.

Caleb’s growing obsession is played extremely real. The stuff he does and says will make you wriggle in your chair like a worm on a hook. The off-putting and strange interactions that are peppered through the CREEP movies and TV Series are nothing compared to the real-life awkward interactions between Caleb and Krista throughout WHO’S WATCHING. Stuff like this goes on all over the place. I’ve seen creepers like this attempt to connect with women in real life, in bars, at work, on the street, and it’s not a fun thing to experience. Feelings of embarrassment, frustration, pity, anger, and remorse came up while I watched WHO’S WATCHING as the film so accurately depicts someone with zero social skills attempting to connect in the wrongest ways possible. As the frustration in Caleb builds, you know nothing good is going to come of this and sure enough, nothing does.

Zachary Ray Sherman did such an amazing job as the menacing Renny in A DESERT. It took me a minute to recognize the actor as Caleb as he looks completely different here. He is wiry, unkempt, malnourished, as if his every waking moment is focused on Krista and self-care is simply an afterthought. Sherman is two for two with A DESERT and now WHO’S WATCHING at depicting distinct, creepy, yet fascinating characters. This guy only needs the right role and he’s going to be a big star, mark my words.

Gracie Gillam played the over-the-top, psycho neighbor Rebecca in SUPERHOST. Here she plays things straight and reserved as Krista, who is trying to be appropriate and sympathetic to Caleb at first, but soon becomes afraid of the guy when his advances become too invasive. Gillam shows a lot of range between WHO’S WATCHING and SUPERHOST, going from an extreme role to a much more realistic and sympathetic character with ease. Again, this movie feels so real because of how Caleb and Krista interact with one another. While it is squirmy and wrong, it’s difficult to turn away from these two lead performances as Caleb continues to repel Krista at every uncomfortable beat.

Rounding out the cast is the ever-amazing Olivia Luccardi as Tawnie. I’m fascinated by her unique look and her fantastic choices of movies she appears in. Luccardi is another actress who is just one standout role away from superstardom, yet she delivers strange and offbeat roles that make her memorable no matter how small the role. Here her role as Tawnie is small at first but grows ever crucial to the plot as the film goes on. She’s just awesome here.

WHO’S WATCHING had me on the edge of the edge from pretty much minute one. It’s got a trio of star-making performances and an unpredictability that runs all the way through it. You will not be able to predict where this one will go and some of you simply won’t want to know. Reminiscent of such uncomfortable masterpieces as BE MY CAT and the aforementioned CREEP series, this movie utilizes multi-media to tell the story of someone who is not well and simply makes anyone he interacts with feel like being anywhere else but in front of him. This film undeniably gets under your skin and will fester there for ages, not for the gore, but simply for how Caleb wrecking balls his own life and takes the lives of others with him with his socially ignorant, crude, and downright pitiful behavior. If you don’t mind movies that make you itch, wriggle, and maybe seek out a long shower after viewing, you’ve got to see WHO’S WATCHING. It is the new champion of creep.

Worth Noting – MATCH (2025)

Released on October 3, 2025!
Streaming exclusively on Tubi from Blue Fox Entertainment!
Directed by Danishka Esterhazy.
Written by Al Kaplan, Jon Kaplan.
Check out the trailer here!

After a bad run of matches on dating apps, Paola (Humberly González) finally thinks she has met Mr. Right. The problem is Henry (Luke Volker) has an immune disease, preventing him from going out to dinner. But Henry is willing to cook a meal for Paola at his house for their first date. Sounds sketchy, huh? That’s what Paola’s sister Maria (Shaeane Jimenez) thinks. Paola, though, has a good feeling about this guy and decides to go on the date. When she arrives, Paola meets Lucille (Dianne Simpson), Henry’s mother, who lives with Henry and tells Paola that Henry is out for a bit. This is the beginning of the date from the worst pits of hell—a date Paola may not survive.

From Danishka Esterhazy, who was the director of three pretty solid films; the SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE remake, LEVEL 16, and THE BANANA SPLITZ MOVIE. Well, ok, two good ones and THE BANANA SPLITZ MOVIE, which isn’t a bad track record. I’d add MATCH to that list of decent little efforts from the director. Sure, dating horror is a tired subgenre. I didn’t even bother with DROP, which looked awful. And while I thought the recently released THE DEAD THING was decent, I feel the whole dating app culture to be revolting. No, I’ve never used an app to get a date and no, I probably never will. But many people do, so writing a horror film around it is an okay area to twist, I guess.

Now, I get it that the main reason dating horror films are popular is because it is a huge risk for women (and men, for that matter) to just go on a date with an absolute stranger. I just wouldn’t do that, so it doesn’t really bother me that much. But because people do, it’s understandable that this would be ripe material for the plucking. I think the reason why I liked MATCH was because it speeds past the cliched bad date montage and just drops our heroine in the middle of a perilous and twisted situation—spending the rest of the movie focusing on Paola’s multiple attempts to escape this house of horrors. Henry is not who he seems. I know, SHOCKER! I don’t think this is a spoiler as the entire film hinges on this fact and you find that out within the first twenty minutes of the movie. Henry is a monster; a hunchbacked madman with a snake-like penis, looking to please his mother by impregnating his date and giving his mother some mutant grandkids to cuddle. So yeah, MATCH isn’t one of those safe films. It’s got some grunge on it and because of that, I kind of dug it.

Now, while I don’t like dating app horror, I do like twisted, inbred killer family horror, a subgenre introduced to me in TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and I’ve loved it ever since. There’s just something about the way these strange, mutant families work together and have their own roles that fascinates me and the family in MATCH has a fascinating way of interacting with one another. It’s twisted. It’s warped. And it’s wrong as all get out. But still, it is interesting to me how it seems this family works together against the world and if not for this one final girl, they would have been continuing to function that way far into the future. MATCH takes a lot of time, allowing us to get to know this awful and demented little family unit and it is what made the movie watchable for me.

Paola is not the sharpest knife in the arsenal. She isn’t written very smartly, and the script has her kind of tooling around the house for a little too long, avoiding Henry’s wrath. Humberly González is perfectly ok in the role and is easy on the eyeballs, but she just isn’t really written as a smart person or at least, given something smart to do. The simple fact that she thinks it’s a good idea to go to a complete stranger’s house on a first date is indication that Paola isn’t known for her wits. Still, compared to the rest of the freaks in this movie, Paola is the most likable of the bunch. Dianne Simpson, as Lucille, is fun to watch as she cackles with glee as Henry goes on a rampage and screams at him like the Chef in TCM when he fails. Simpson does a great job at being bad. And Jacques Adriaanse, who plays the real Henry, makes the monster pitiful and sensitive one minute/a rampaging monster the next. And the design of this monster is quite original and gross.

I don’t want to assume, but I do feel that if you are the type that takes a chance on a dating app, you’re not going to like this. I feel the dating app horror is a little bit lightweight and the horror involved in MATCH certainly is heavier than that. There’s incest. There’s masturbation. There’s rape. There’s mutilation. And there’s a hunchback with a giant penis. So yeah, this isn’t what I’d call PG horror you take your gal pal to on a date. But if you like twisted horror that makes you shake your head and say under your breath, “That’s just damn wrong,” then MATCH might be the right kind of wrong for you.

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!