Here are Cinephile Corner’s 10 recommendations for movies like Soulm8te:
Companion
I went into Companion completely blind, and that’s the best way to experience it. Drew Hancock’s directorial debut thrives on twists, constantly reinventing itself in ways that keep the audience on edge. The film shares DNA with Barbarian, which makes sense given that Barbarian director Zach Cregger serves as a producer here. Both films pull the rug out from under viewers, placing their protagonists in escalating danger with seemingly no way out. But as was the case with Barbarian, discussing Companion without spoilers is nearly impossible—so consider this your warning.
M3GAN 2.0
M3GAN 2.0 swings for a full-on tonal reboot, the way The Terminator gave way to the splashier Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Where the first M3GAN flirted with straight-faced tech horror, this sequel leans into gonzo slapstick and meme-ready absurdity. It’s not remotely on T2’s level, but the embrace of outlandish fun suits this IP better than pretending it’s solemn. The result: a breezier, dumber, intermittently very entertaining sequel.
Obsession
Curry Barker – YouTube creator turned filmmaker – has emphasized that Obsession is partly inspired by a Simpsons episode where Bart gets his hands on a monkey’s paw. Which tracks, because the film is about exactly that and essentially just that: what happens when you get one wish and that wish goes so, so horribly wrong. It’s contained at such a small, intimate scale, like a messed up Twilight Zone episode that escalates in tension and stays committed to its absurdity without overbaking any of its characters or themes.
Send Help
Sam Raimi is back to his old ways. Having spent nearly the entire 21st century being put through the franchise ringer, from a Spider-Man trilogy to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness to a very strange Oz reimagining, there have been only a couple of original film highlights spilled in between. Drag Me to Hell developed a cult following, and his latest film Send Help seems destined to do the same.
Buddy
I think the right crowd is going to have an absolute blast with Buddy, particularly if they find themselves in one of those raucous midnight screenings where the audience is just as willing to laugh at the gore as they are to recoil from it. The 90s kids-show angle didn’t work quite as well for me as the movie’s more straightforward horror, and I don’t think there’s enough underneath the concept to make this something I’ll be thinking about for very long. But Casper Kelly clearly knows the exact kind of deranged audience he’s making this for, and Buddy delivers enough blood, absurdity, and mascot mayhem to satisfy them.
Five Nights at Freddy’s
The Five Nights at Freddy’s movie adaptation succumbs to the pitfalls of a poorly executed narrative, sidelining its potentially terrifying animatronic characters in favor of a tepid and uninspiring trauma story. Josh Hutcherson gives a commendable performance, but there’s not enough support around him to make this movie work.
The Substance
A vaguely named, neon green liquid is at the center of The Substance, the sophomore effort from director Coralie Fargeat following her successful debut Revenge (2017). The titular substance is capable of delivering happiness to those desiring to look younger and more attractive. Accompanied by a strict list of rules involving when to take the substance and how to maintain the younger self the injection inevitably births, the chances of a user mishandling such a lethal experimental drug is absurdly high.
Passenger
There’s enough in Passenger to recommend to horror fans. The central premise is clever, the performances are strong, and André Øvredal demonstrates a real understanding of how to stage individual scares. But it arrives at a moment where other filmmakers are swinging bigger.
The Monkey
The Monkey is a middling but watchable entry in the 2025 horror slate. It doesn’t reach the high bar set by of Oz Perkin’s best films, nor does it fully honor the emotional undercurrents of King’s original story, but it’s never boring. If nothing else, it reaffirms Oz Perkins as a horror director worth watching—even when the material doesn’t quite land.
Ice Cream Man
There are few directors working today whose names immediately tell you exactly what kind of movie you’re about to watch quite like Eli Roth. Whether that’s a compliment or a warning depends entirely on your tolerance for gallons of fake blood, unapologetically mean-spirited humor, and horror movies that constantly wink at the audience while doing something completely unhinged on screen. At this point, “Directed by Eli Roth” is practically its own subgenre, and Ice Cream Man leans into that identity about as enthusiastically as possible. It’s loud, gleefully disgusting, and has absolutely no interest in pretending to be anything other than a midnight movie for horror sickos.
READ MORE: Movies Like Companion, Movies Like Send Help
