Here are Cinephile Corner’s 10 recommendations for horror movies like Witchboard:
Talk to Me
Talk to Me is the latest elevated horror movie from A24, a studio that’s completely redefined and reimagined the state of the genre, introducing new ideas and themes into it over the past decade. Talk to Me attempts to do the same, pitting trauma and coping mechanisms with demonic forces to a scary degree.
Night Swim
With a PG-13 rating, and a concept so thinly developed beyond “scary swimming pool,” Night Swim relies heavily on cheap scares and creepy underwater sight gags – where few of which actually earn their keep. Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon star in a sometimes silly, often underdeveloped horror movie.
Cobweb
Cobweb might be accused of adhering to some familiar horror tropes, but its commitment to its genre roots is what makes it stand out. The movie surpasses expectations with its tight narrative, commendable performances, and a commitment to delivering unadulterated horror.
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.
Smile
While Smile delivers on a couple creative and freaky scares, it ultimately falls apart with a prototypical first hour and a generally confusing second one. Sosie Bacon stars as a traumatized doctor looking for answers to her visions.
Bring Her Back
Bring Her Back may satisfy diehard fans of A24-style horror or those looking for a few jarring images, but for most viewers, it will likely feel like an echo of better films. This is the kind of horror that thinks it’s elevated but forgets to be compelling. For the Philippous, it’s a clear step back—stylistic confidence without a story worth telling.
Evil Dead Rise
There aren’t many horror franchises able to reinvent themselves as often as Evil Dead does while still maintaining relevancy and quality. Maybe it’s because Sam Raimi holds his creation so close to his heart that only a select few are able to take on the premise, or maybe it’s because the premise seems simple and malleable enough to make nearly anything work. It can shoot for the downright zany and ludicrous with Evil Dead II or Army of Darkness, or it can strive to be like Lee Cronin’s newest spin Evil Dead Rise – a movie so sick and twisted that you can’t help but give it its dues by the time the credits roll.
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.
Weapons
Weapons opens with one of the most chilling hooks you’ll hear in any movie this year: at exactly 2:17 a.m., every child from Mrs. Gandy’s class woke up, walked downstairs, opened the front door, stepped into the dark… and never came back. It’s the kind of premise that immediately grabs you, the kind of logline that sells itself in a trailer and sticks in your head for days. Writer-director Zach Cregger, who burst onto the horror scene with 2022’s Barbarian, proves once again that he knows how to start a story with an irresistible, terrifying question.
Longlegs
Longlegs makes good on the promise of being a freaky horror tale that injects dread in every frame and through every nook and cranny possible. Director Oz Perkins, if for nothing else, continues to prove himself as a singular horror director, with a style that no soul could replicate and a thirst for the absurd, demented, and disturbed. Maika Monroe and Blair Underwood offer enough to have you engaged, and Perkins is talented enough behind the camera to keep things rolling.
