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)
#22 – HOPE (TOUCH ME)
#21 – THEY WILL KILL YOU (MEAT KILLS)
#20 – IT ENDS (ANACORETA)
#19 – TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA (PLAY DEAD)
#18 – IRON LUNG (THE DEEP DARK)
#17 – LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY (SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT)
#16 – BUFFET INFINITY (KETCHUP ON WAFFLES)
#15 – DUST BUNNY (THE YETI)
#14 – BUDDY (MONKEY’S MAGIC MERRY GO ROUND)
#13 – INFLUENCERS (PRIMAL DARKNESS)
#12 – KEEPER (THE HOUSE WAS NOT HUNGRY THEN)
#11 – UNDERTONE (MAN FINDS TAPE)
#10 – EXIT 8 (GHOST TRAIN)
#9 – HONEY BUNCH (BONE LAKE)

#8 – RESIDENT EVIL (WE BURY THE DEAD)
#7 – HOKUM (MOTHER OF FLIES)

#7 – HOKUM (2026)

Released on May 1, 2026!
Streaming on Hulu from NEON!
Directed/Written by Damian McCarthy.
Check out the trailer here!

Adam Scott plays Ohm Bauman, a disillusioned writer who journeys to Ireland to scatter the ashes of his parents at the spot where they spent their honeymoon. Ohm finds himself in the middle of a mystery of a missing bartender he met the first night he spent in the hotel—a place that is rumored to be haunted by a witch locked away in the honeymoon suite.

Though he’s only done two feature films, Damian McCarthy has proven himself as a filmmaker to be on the lookout for. Like many of you, I too was blown back in my chair when I saw CAVEAT and its follow-up ODDITY, at his gift at creating the deadliest of jump-scares. Now, I don’t measure a movie by the amount of jumps and startles I experience while watching but having seen so many fake jump scares—like a cat jumping onto screen or a friend popping up around the corner, that I am appreciative of McCarthy’s jump scares are an art form all their own. His jump scares do the same piano bang after a long buildup, but the difference between McCarthy and some Blumhouse hack is that the buildup is painfully slow and most notably, the payoff is an image that is truly startling. HOKUM has quite a few jump scares, a few of which were ruined in the trailer, but they were unsettling and downright heart-stopping nevertheless.

HOKUM is McCarthy’s most mainstream film to date with a name actor and a big theatrical release. Not bad for his 3rd effort in feature filmmaking. And while this bigger budget means a bigger story, McCarthy still tells an intimate and effective ghost story filled with mystery, superstition, and of course, witches. Entrenched in Irish folklore, McCarthy is not only telling a compelling ghost story, but an interesting human story as well. The mystery, while it’s not necessarily the reason for the butts in the seats of the theater, was welcome and added depth where other horror films often phone it in. It’s wonderful how McCarthy switches between the mundane and the uncanny so seamlessly and make both so important to the plot.

McCarthy also does something with the intricacies of the world he is building, zooming in on the various chotchkies and brick-a-brack that decorate the settings of his films. He is a filmmaker who very much makes specific choices as to what sits on shelves, adorns walls, and is depicted in paintings and pictures in every scene. He zooms in close on these ornate trinkets that one might just browse by at a garage sale or thrift store, but the attention to detail adds to the story, giving the whole film feel like some age-old relic, unearthed, dangerous, and watching you from some inconspicuous space on a shelf. There’s a wonderful scene where the owner of the hotel is telling a dark fairy tale to some kids that cuts between the kids and the storyteller, but as the story goes on, it plays out by zooming in on tiny sculptures of terrified children that exemplifies McCarthy’s gift for bringing historical weight to his scenes through tiny details.

Adam Scott is sort of a divisive actor. He can some off as arrogant, stuffy, and prudish at times. The kind of person you meet at a dinner party who sucks up all the air from the room and makes you want to leave. But he also has played engaging and likable roles. So the guy’s got some range. Well, HOKUM isn’t going to win over anyone as his character Ohm is a complete asshole in this film. So much so that I was afraid it was going to be one of those movies where I’d be rooting for the lead to get kakked. But because he is the only person on screen for the bulk of the film and due to an extremely disturbing, and effective moment of weakness at the beginning, I found myself terrified for his well being despite his arrogance. I get what the actor was going for. He is a man haunted by past mistakes and is there to simply get a job done (disperse his parents’ ashes) and then get the hell back to his miserable life. Being a professional writer, it’s understandable how he becomes prickly when approached by others who have no clue the hardship writers go through to make it.

Hell, I only have a handful of projects made into movies and comics, and I can even admit the frustration I feel when I am approached by up-and-coming writers with their projects looking for advice. Being the softy that I am, I usually end up hearing the person out and giving the same advice other writers have given me, but still it makes for an uncomfortable interaction when someone thinks there’s one magic thing to do to get their work published. So, the early scene where Ohm gets pissy with Alby the bellboy (played remarkably sincere by Will O’Connell) resonated with me on many levels. Still, what Ohm does to Alby is a shit thing to do, and it makes rooting for the guy tough when the shit hits the fan.

I love the world McCarthy is creating as all his films seem to exist in the same universe, whether it is overtly connected or not. The themes of eldritch magic, folklore, and Irish superstition abound in all three of his films, and especially in HOKUM. There are also fantastic little details that thread from one movie to the next, like the bellboy ghost and summoning bell in ODDITY showing up in key scenes in HOKUM. And of course, there’s McCarthy’s rabbit motif that carries on through all three films. It is just that added little oomph that makes you watch the films a little closer than most that really endears me to his work. I don’t know if McCarthy is moving towards some grand INFINITY WAR-style crossover or if it is just little details added to his own amusement, but either way, I appreciate them.

How does HOKUM stack up to McCarthy’s previous films? That’s a tough one. While it is awesome to see McCarthy get noticed and go mainstream, those first two small films were so potently terrifying that I think I prefer them more. That doesn’t mean that HOKUM is a bad movie. It is filled with scenes that will surely terrify you. But it didn’t quite match that sense of inescapable, creeping dread that filled CAVEAT and didn’t have the perfectly timed, shart-inducing jumps scares of ODDITY. But compared to most everything else out there, HOKUM still is one of the best ghost stories to grace the big screen.

Worth Noting – MOTHER OF FLIES (2025)

Released on January 23, 2026!
Streaming on Shudder from Wonder Wheel Productions!
Directed/Written by John Adams, Zelda Adams, Toby Poser.
Check out the
trailer here!

A cancer survivor named Mickey (Zelda Adams) suffers a relapse and seeks out a witch named Solveig (Toby Poser) for a cure when all other options run out. Mickey’s father Jake (Jon Adams) brings her to the witch’s home in the middle of the woods and is skeptical about her methods but wants to be there to support his daughter. Solveig says that the cure will occur in three days and in that time, Mickey and Jake will experience beautiful and horrifying things.

MOTHER OF FLIES is a return to form for the Adams family. While HELL HOLE was a little underwhelming and felt uneven in terms of terror, humor, and drama. And some might have thought WHERE THE DEVIL was a little too artsy and surreal for their tastes, even though I loved that wonky little circus slasher film. MOTHER OF FLIES goes back to the Wiccan roots highlighted in HELLBENDER and THE DEEPER YOU DIG. The story of a cancer survivor choosing her own way to heal and grow is a resonant one as it seems no one is a stranger to this devastating disease. I lost my own father to cancer and the tender and sensitive way this topic is handled was extremely touching, even during the more gnarly witchy parts. There’s a sort of desperation that comes to the coming of death where you want to have hope and be supportive, even when the end is inevitable, that highlights the human spirit and the Adams family captures that strong will extremely well here. It’s a story about a witch and spells, but MOTHER OF FLIES proves to be a multidimensional film that is both a celebration of life as well as an acceptance of death.

While some might say this film is the Adams Family retreating to the familiar, as some of the details of MOTHER OF FLIES may be very familiar to fans of their work. There’s an amazingly tactile and down-to-earth approach to the wiccan culture with all sorts of muddy rituals, herbs and roots, and the need of a sacrifice. These are common in a lot of folk horror/witchy movies but there is an authenticity to the way the wiccan and earth goddess culture that is at the forefront of the way the Adams Family deals with this subject matter. You can really tell they have done their research, but more importantly, they respect the culture as well.

There are no clearly good or bad people in this film. Toby Poser is no cackling witch, though she does let loose and do some horrible things in MOTHER OF FLIES. Poser gives her all in this performance, alternating between wicked and motherly within the same scene. Poser has always been the strongest acting presence of the family. But Jon and Zelda do a fine job as well. Jon plays the cynic but isn’t an asshole about it. He respects his daughter’s wishes even if he doesn’t believe in them. It’s not until he believes that Zelda’s Mickey is endangering herself associating with this witch that he is forced to act. Zelda gives a soulful performance as Mickey. Having undergone many different varieties of treatment, she is realistic but hopeful this wild method might work. Being a family, the characters feel comfortable and lived-in.

I also loved the set design and landscape that was chosen for MOTHER OF FLIES. The witch’s house in the woods is awesome, looking like it was ripped from a fairy tale. I guess it is a CG effect, but it looks like the painted backgrounds of old, giving it a WIZARD OF OZ style as it seems to have sprouted in the middle of the forest with tree limbs and branches growing all through it. The interiors of the house are equally impressive with the branches bursting through the floors and walls. The rest of the effects, while subtle, are more practical, muddy, and earthen like the witch’s powers that birthed them.

MOTHER OF FLIES is a horror movie, so some diabolical things are at play here. The story is quite a tragic one and struck an emotional chord with me. It is refreshing to know there is a family in horror who can make such a DIY film and still have it look so professional and slick. The Adams family has given us another gift with MOTHER OF FLIES. It’s dank and dreary and muddy as hell, but it’s a hell of a soulful little fairy tale.

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!