Movies
The 10 New Horror Movies You Don’t Want to Miss in August 2025
August 2025 is set to be a massive month for the horror genre, with icons like Jason Voorhees and the Alien franchise’s Xenomorphs making their return to the screen. A master of 1980s horror is also back with a brand new horror movie later this month, while a fan favorite found footage horror franchise takes over the big screen for the first time in its fifth and final outing.
And of course, even Troma’s cult hero The Toxic Avenger is back this month! It’s a month that’s absolutely full of exciting returns, with many familiar faces coming back into our lives.
Here’s all the new horror you don’t want to miss in August 2025…
Weapons – August 8
First up, Barbarian director Zach Cregger is back on August 8 with the release of his second horror movie Weapons, which has been compared to Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia and described as a “horror epic.” The marketing for this one has been deeply mysterious, with the events of the film kicking off with children going missing from their homes at 2:17am.
In Weapons, “When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.” Dive deeper into the mystery on MaybrookMissing.com.
With 21 reviews, Weapons is currently 100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes!
Strange Harvest – August 8
Stuart Ortiz, the director of Grave Encounters, is back on August 8 with Strange Harvest, a faux-true crime documentary that has been getting strong reviews on the festival circuit.
In the upcoming horror film, “Detectives are thrust into a chilling hunt for ‘Mr. Shiny’—a sadistic serial killer from the past whose return marks the beginning of a new wave of grotesque, otherworldly crimes tied to a dark cosmic force.”
Meagan Navarro wrote in her festival review, “Strange Harvest brings the creep factor, an impressively gruesome display of crime scenes, and a skin-crawling villain with cosmic machinations in mind. Ortiz pushes the subgenre forward with a heady and unsettling immersion into the realm of true crime, with a distinctly horror twist.”
Alien: Earth – August 12
This one is obviously a television series rather than a movie, but easily the biggest new horror release for August 2025 is “Alien: Earth,” the franchise’s FIRST EVER trip to the small screen.
“Alien: Earth” will premiere with the new horror series’ first two episodes on August 12 at 8pm on FX and Hulu. New episodes will follow weekly on Tuesdays through September 23.
The series is set before the events of the original Alien in 2120. “When a mysterious space vessel crash-lands on Earth, a young woman and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet’s greatest threat.”
Sweet Revenge – August 13
Jason Voorhees officially returns to the screen for the first time since 2009 in Sweet Revenge, a 13-minute short-form “vignette” that the Jason Universe team is releasing on August 13.
Angry Orchard is sponsoring the upcoming vignette. Jason Universe teases, “fans will drop into a chilling weekend in the woods filled with blood-soaked surprises only Jason can deliver.”
Sweet Revenge is directed by Mike P. Nelson (Wrong Turn), who also recently wrapped production on Cineverse and Bloody Disgusting’s Silent Night, Deadly Night reboot.
Basically, it sounds like Sweet Revenge will be a short film wherein Jason stalks and slashes hard cider-drinking young folks in the woods, and it’ll set the stage for the upcoming Peacock series “Crystal Lake” from A24. It will also introduce the Jason Universe team’s newly designed Jason Voorhees, so August 13 is sure to be a hugely exciting day for Friday the 13th fans.
Witchboard – August 15
Director Chuck Russell (A Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Warriors, The Blob, The Mask) makes his long-awaited return to horror with Witchboard in theaters on August 15, a fresh take on the same-titled horror movie from director Kevin Tenney back in 1986.
Set in New Orleans, the new film centers on “a cursed artifact unleashes a vengeful witch, drawing a young couple into a deadly spiral of possession, temptation, and occult terror.”
Chuck Russell tells Bloody Disgusting, “I wanted to get back to the horror genre. I’ve been keeping an eye out for that over the course of my career, and I wanted to do something even scarier and more imaginative. I wanted to top my other two horror films because the fans of those original films I did as a young director, Elm Street 3 and The Blob, are still thanking me for it, to my astonishment. It’s a great, entertaining, cathartic genre.”
Jimmy and Stiggs – August 15
The first theatrical release from Eli Roth’s new label The Horror Section is Jimmy and Stiggs, the latest blast of insanity from director Joe Begos (Bliss, Christmas Bloody Christmas).
Jimmy and Stiggs will be released Unrated in theaters on August 15.
The indie horror film “follows a down-on-his-luck filmmaker (Begos) who claims he was abducted by aliens, vowing to bring them down alongside his friend (Matt Mercer).”
Hell House LLC: Lineage – August 20
The popular Hell House LLC franchise sheds the found footage angle for its (planned) final installment, with Hell House LLC: Lineage being released in theaters on August 20.
Yes, the fifth installment is getting a wide theatrical release!
Written and Directed by Stephen Cognetti, the new sequel leaves the found footage format behind and takes a deep dive into the murders that have been haunting Abaddon for decades.
In the film, “Haunted by visions and recurring nightmares years after a near-death experience, Vanessa Shepard finds herself living in the town of Abaddon, unable to break free from its unexplainable hold on her. When people around her suddenly and inexplicably begin to die, she soon uncovers her terrifying connection to the Abaddon Hotel, the Carmichael Manor, and the mysterious murders that have been occurring for decades.”
Primitive War – August 21
If you thought Jurassic World Rebirth was going to be this year’s only big screen dinosaur movie, think again. Director Luke Sparke’s Primitive War will be unleashed in theaters on August 21, and this time the prehistoric monsters are enlisting in the Vietnam War!
The official synopsis: “Vietnam. 1968. A recon unit known as Vulture Squad is sent to an isolated jungle valley to uncover the fate of a missing Green Beret platoon. They soon discover they are not alone and must face the most terrifying creatures to ever walk the earth.”
Primitive War adapts author Ethan Pettus’ 2017 sci-fi military novel.
Brute 1976 – August 26
Drawing inspiration from ’70s horror classics The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes, throwback indie horror film Brute 1976 will be released digitally on August 26.
Set in August 1976, director Marcel Walz’s (Blood Feast, Blind) Brute 1976 centers on Raquel and her girlfriend, who have car trouble and break down on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. At the same time, a group of people are in the desert for a photoshoot. Soon, they stumble upon an abandoned town where a family of masked psychopaths reside.
Why should this one be on your radar? Well, it looks like good old fashioned slasher fun, and a sequel titled Brute 1986 is already in post-production! Could we have a new franchise on our hands? Watch the trailer for Brute 1976 to get a taste of the bloody mayhem.
The Toxic Avenger – August 29
The month of August comes to a wildly entertaining close with the release of Macon Blair’s The Toxic Avenger in theaters on August 29 from Cineverse and Bloody Disgusting, a fresh and totally UNRATED new take on the cult classic franchise from Troma.
Primetime Emmy-winning actor Peter Dinklage stars as the Toxic Avenger, with the cast also including Elijah Wood, Kevin Bacon, Jacob Tremblay, and Taylour Paige.
“When a struggling everyman janitor is pushed into a vat of toxic waste, he is transformed into a mutant freak who must go from shunned outcast to underdog hero as he races to save his son and his community from the forces of corruption and greed.”
Which of these releases are YOU most excited to see? Comment below and let us know!
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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