Bring Her Back Rules, And I'm So Pumped It's Just The First Of Many Exciting Horror Movies Releasing This Summer

For some, the summer months bring about visions of quintessential theatrical blockbusters, be they MCU extravaganzas, alien invasion thrillers, or the latest cautionary tales about dinosaur DNA. But given just how many big and small upcoming horror movies are on the way in the near-ish future, I’m already prepared to declare 2025 the Year Of Summer Horror, with the Philippou brothers’ Bring Her Back as a truly harrowing pace-setter.

Don’t get me wrong, the rest of the 2025 movie schedule is filled with exciting and promising movies that have nothing to do with freaky monsters, jarring jump scares and nerve-rattling teeth sounds. In fact, there’s even a Stephen King adaptation on the non-horror side in Mike Flanagan’s heightened drama The Life of Chuck. But there’s another King tale getting the big screen treatment later that definitely does make this list, so let’s take a look at some of the fright fests I’m most excited to see this summer.

The Ritual - June 6 (Theaters)

• STARRING: Al Pacino, Dan Stevens, Ashley Greene, Abigail Cowen, Patrick Fabian, Patricia Heaton
• DIRECTED AND WRITTEN BY: David Midell; David Midell and Enrico Natale
• ONE-SENTENCE LOGLINE: Two priests cast aside conflicts to cast out the demons supposedly possessing a young woman.
• ONE-SENTENCE SELLING POINT: Al Pacino in manic exorcist mode is already worth watching in a best- or worst-case scenario, but the solid supporting cast implies it's actually gonna be a winner.

Dangerous Animals - June 6 (Theaters)

• STARRING: Hassie Harrison, Jai Courtney, Josh Heuston, Rob Carlton
• DIRECTED AND WRITTEN BY: Sean Byrne; Nick Lepard
• ONE-SENTENCE LOGLINE: A female surfer faces off against a shark-obsessed serial killer.
• ONE-SENTENCE SELLING POINT: Sean Byrne directed one of the best Australian horrors yet with The Loved Ones, so anything by him is worth watching, especially if it involves Jai Courtney turning the batshittery up to 11.

Predator: Killer Of Killers - June 6 (Hulu)

• STARRING: Lindsay LaVanchy, Louis Ozawa Changchien, Rick Gonzalez, Michael Biehn
• DIRECTED AND WRITTEN BY: Dan Trachtenberg; Dan Trachtenberg (Story by Trachtenberg and Micho Robert Rutare)
• ONE-SENTENCE LOGLINE: An animated action-horror centering on a vengeful Viking raider, ninja and Samurai siblings, and a WWII pilot, all of whom are set to face their darkest foe yet.
• ONE-SENTENCE SELLING POINT: Crafted as a secret franchise entry ahead of Predator: Badlands hitting theaters in November, Killer of Killers looks like a fun and action-packed “what if…” concept.

28 Years Later - June 20 (Theaters)

• STARRING: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell, Erin Kellyman, Emma Laird
• DIRECTED AND WRITTEN BY: Danny Boyle; Alex Garland
• ONE-SENTENCE LOGLINE: Nearly 30 years after the Rage virus ripped the world apart, a father and son leave their island safe haven on a mission to the mainland that will change their lives.
• ONE-SENTENCE SELLING POINT: Boyle and Garland together again for a sequel that horror fans have rabidly salivated over, though non-murderously, for years.

Found Footage: The Making of the Patterson Project - June 20 (Theaters)

• STARRING: Brennan Keel Cook, Chen Tang, Erika Vetter, Dean Cameron
• DIRECTED AND WRITTEN BY: Max Tzannes; Max Tzannes and David San Miguel
• ONE-SENTENCE LOGLINE: A crew of established documentarians follow an amateur filmmaker’s quest to create the greatest found-footage horror movie ever.
• ONE-SENTENCE SELLING POINT: A horror movie partially inspired by Spinal Tap sounds great, but what puts this indie on the map is Radio Silence’s Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Ready or Not, Scream, Scream VI) lending their support as executive producers.

Megan 2.0 - June 27 (Theaters)

• STARRING: Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald, Jenna Davis (voice), Brian Jordan Alvarez, Jemaine Clement, Timm Sharp, Ivanna Sakhno
• DIRECTED AND WRITTEN BY: Gerard Johnstone; Gerard Johnstone (Story by Johnstone and Akela Cooper)
• ONE-SENTENCE LOGLINE: Two years after M3GAN’s gnarly events, the A.I.’s tech is clandestinely used to create the militarized droid Amelia, and Gemma has no choice but to let an upgraded M3GAN loose to take the self-aware threat down.
• ONE-SENTENCE SELLING POINT: This is basically the Terminator 2 of evil robot doll movies.

The Home - July 25 (Theaters)

• STARRING: Pete Davidson, John Glover, Bruce Altman, Ethan Phillips
• DIRECTED AND WRITTEN BY: James DeMonaco; James DeMonaco and Adam Cantor
• ONE-SENTENCE LOGLINE: A man unlocks the door to his troubling past after getting a job at a retirement home whose inhabitants carry sinister secrets.
• ONE-SENTENCE SELLING POINT: The Home marks the first big horror for The Purge franchise creator DeMonaco that’s outside of that universe, and is Davidson’s more straightforward horror follow-up to 2023’s Bodies, Bodies, Bodies.

Together - July 30 (Theaters)

• STARRING: Alison Brie, Dave Franco, Damon Herriman, Mia Morrissey
• DIRECTED AND WRITTEN BY: Michael Shanks; Michael Shanks
• ONE-SENTENCE LOGLINE: A married couple seek peace in the countryside but find anything but once their bodies start changing due to mysterious causes.
• ONE-SENTENCE SELLING POINT: Brie and Franco are married in real life, which adds a unique layer to what already seems like a highly disturbing story, and NEON backing it as a distributor speaks volumes about the subject matter.

Weapons - August 8 (Theaters)

• STARRING: Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Benedict Wong, Austin Abrams, Amy Madigan
• DIRECTED AND WRITTEN BY: Zach Cregger; Zach Cregger
• ONE-SENTENCE LOGLINE: An entire class of schoolchildren goes missing except for one girl, sending the local community into chaos while trying to figure out the cause.
• ONE-SENTENCE SELLING POINT: Like Jordan Peele, Zach Cregger spun from sketch comedian (with The Whitest Kids U’ Know) to horror filmmaker with 2022’s Barbarian, and the cast and trailer have only helped build anticipation for what could be the summer’s most chaotic horror.

The Toxic Avenger Unrated - August 29 (Theaters)

• STARRING: Peter Dinklage, Jacob Tremblay, Kevin Bacon, Elijah Wood, Taylour Paige, Sarah Niles
• DIRECTED AND WRITTEN BY: Macon Blair; Macon Blair
• ONE-SENTENCE LOGLINE: A quasi-reboot of the ‘80s cult classic, The Toxic Avenger centers on a mild-mannered janitor and father who turns into a mutant vigilante hellbent on ridding his city of corruption and crime.
• ONE-SENTENCE SELLING POINT: Toxic Avenger failed to secure its expected 2024 debut due to distributors balking at the extreme violence, leading to an eventual Cineverse partnership that guaranteed its unrated and uncut release, which is exactly the way this movie should be shown.

THe Conjuring: Last Rites - September 5 (Theaters)

• STARRING: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Mia Tomlinson, Ben Hardy, Rebecca Calder
• DIRECTED AND WRITTEN BY: Michael Chaves; Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (Story by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and James Wan)
• ONE-SENTENCE LOGLINE: Demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren are back at it in trying to help a Pennsylvania family rid their home of a demonic presence in a case that appears to be inspired by the Smurl family’s troubles in West Pittston.
• ONE-SENTENCE SELLING POINT: Last Rites is supposedly the final Conjuring movie, so I’m hoping it goes out with a Final Destination: Bloodlines-esque bang.

The Long Walk - September 12 (Theaters)

• STARRING: Mark Hamill, Cooper Hoffman, David Johnson, Judy Greer, Garrett Wareing, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang
• DIRECTED AND WRITTEN BY: Francis Lawrence; JT Mollner
• ONE-SENTENCE LOGLINE: Based on Stephen King’s novella (under his Richard Bachman pseudonym), the story follows a group of young men taking part in a brutal contest in which the only rule is to walk or die.
• ONE-SENTENCE SELLING POINT: This dark and long-thought-unfilmable tale boasts one of the most talented directors of any King adaptation in Francis Lawrence, and I’m confident Strange Darling’s JT Mollner must have written a killer script to sway the filmmaker and producers.

With so many horror movies on the way in the summer, you might not think there are any great upcoming horror TV shows, but you'd be wrong. And if you think seeing Bring Her Back in theaters twice in one week is ill-advised....well, the jury's still out on that one.