leebutler Horror, Review

I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) – Know Nothing

Released: 18th July
Seen: 29th September

In 1997, I Know What You Did Last Summer was released to a public who had just had their appetite for slasher films reawakened by the monster hit Scream. I Know What You Did Last Summer was basically the confirmation that Scream wasn’t a fluke, it was the beginning of a revival of the slasher genre that had been floundering since roughly the end of the 80s. It basically cemented that a late 90s slasher would include glossy visuals, quippy dialogue and a cast made up of a lot of well known TV actors trying to make the transition from TV to film. It was a pretty big hit, making just over $125 million at the box office which was enough to get it a direct sequel with the surviving cast, a direct to video sequel that sucks and no one likes, a TV series that no one talks about and now a legacy sequel… because apparently the legacy of I Know What You Did Last Summer was so great it warranted another sequel, such a pity the latest sequel it got was this one.

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leebutler Horror, Review, Sci-Fi, Thriller

War Of The Worlds (2025) – War Is Hell!

Released: 30th July
Seen: 30th September

In recent years, a new genre called “Screenlife” has grown in popularity, resulting in films like Missing, Searching and Host where all the action takes place on a computer screen. When done right, it can be a truly fascinating way to tell a story, allowing the viewer to jump from video calls to emails, and even see messages being typed and deleted, giving a glimpse into a character’s mind. It’s simple, effective and genuinely a versatile way of making a film… however, when done badly, you get something like War of the Worlds, a contender for every “Worst of 2025” list that you’ll see in a few months.

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leebutler Horror, Review

Night Of The Reaper (2025) – Don’t Fear The Reaper

Released: 19th September
Seen: 28th September

It’s pretty undeniable that the peak of the Slasher genre was back in the 80s; that’s certainly when all the major classics of the genre came into existence. There are many theories about why this is, but I’d suggest it’s a combination of “Horror was an infamously cheap genre to make movies in during the 80s” and people like Tom Savini showing what extremes that practical effects could achieve. That combo created a gold rush that defined the genre for the longest time (until Scream came along and made it meta) and that period of history being so closely associated with the slasher might also explain why a lot of throwback horror films set themselves up in the 80s to play with the nostalgia of the genre. Night of the Reaper is a prime example of a film doing whatever it can to remind us of films from the 80s but also has something special of its own that makes it worth watching.

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leebutler Horror, Review, Sci-Fi, Thriller

28 Years Later (2025) – Took Long Enough!

Released: 19th June
Seen: 26th September

In 2002, 28 Days Later was released into the world and significantly changed the landscape of what a Zombie movie could look like. Its biggest contribution was really making the idea of the fast-moving zombie into something mainstream, signalling the change from the genre’s default of slow-moving moving stumbling beasts. Sure, other films had done fast-moving zombies before, but 28 Days Later really set the standard that all others would follow. It was an undeniable hit and would eventually get a sequel in 28 Weeks Later, which was just as impressive and epic in its tale of just how far the infection had spread and the true nightmare of what a second wave could be. That was in 2007 and ever since then people have been talking about a sequel but because of issues regarding rights and ownership, that’s just not been possible… until now when finally someone pulled the right strings and got everyone in the right places so that they would be able to make 28 Years Later, a post-pandemic zombie movie that we probably wished we didn’t need but we got and it is something else.

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leebutler Horror, Mystery, Review

Bring Her Back (2025) – Unnerving

Released: 29th May
Seen: 18th September

2022 was an absolutely incredible year for Horror films, one of the best that we’ve ever had. It was so good that when the time came to make my best of the year list I had no choice but to fill 5 of the top 10 slots with 6 movies (For those wondering how that works out, 2 films tied for one spot… it was a good year, what can I say!), and still had to put two more in Honourable Mentions. One of the horror films I didn’t put on the list that year was a little film called Talk To Me but let me be clear, that film was also one of the best films that was released that year. Talk To Me was an absolutely stunning original horror film that instantly put the Philippou brothers on the map as a pair of young directors to keep an eye on. While they’d had some positive response to their work on YouTube, their debut feature film really opened the floodgates to get them noticed. Of course, doing one great horror film is fine and all, but the real trick comes with the follow-up: Can you pull off the same magic again? Yes, yes they fucking can, in fact, they can go even more insane than they did before.

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leebutler Comedy, Horror, Review, Thriller

Anything That Moves (2025) – Is It Sexual? Yeah!

Released: 14th September
Seen: 14th September

The final film I saw this year at the Sydney Underground Film Festival was chosen pretty much at random. I ran into that situation that I’m sure a lot of people have run into when it comes to film festivals. I bought a set of 5 tickets and used 4 of them for films I was interested in, so the last one was going to be chosen pretty much at random. I want to note that I entered this movie without any prior knowledge or preconceptions about what it would be like. It’s one of those films where the basic description in the booklet made the final choice for me… probably should’ve picked something else, I’m not going to lie.

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leebutler Comedy, Horror, LGBT, Review

Queens Of The Dead (2025) – Dance Or Die

Released: 11th September
Seen: 11th September

In 1968, the world of cinema changed forever with the release of a little underground horror film with the simple but provocative title of Night Of The Living Dead. To say it changed the world of cinema forever might be an understatement. It revolutionised the Horror genre, presenting a form of violence that hadn’t been put on the screen before. It contains one of the greatest examples of a black main character in horror, was at the start of the independent film boom of the 70s and, of course, essentially created the modern Zombie that everyone has referenced since then.

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leebutler Horror, Review, Thriller

The Long Walk (2025) – Run!

Released: 11th September
Seen: 14th September

In 1979, Stephen King released the book The Long Walk under the pseudonym Richard Bachman (a name he picked partially to avoid saturating the market with King books and partially to test if his success was based on skill). The book was well received like a lot of early King works were and has been named one of the best books for teenage readers by the American Library Association. Like a lot of King books, there have been talks about an adaptation of The Long Walk for years, way back in 1988 it was going to be made by George Romero, but that ultimately fell through. Next up was Frank Darabont, who took a shot in 2007 and then in 2019, one André Øvredal (the man behind Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) had a go, but none of these versions made it. Finally, someone looked at the content of the books and presumably went, “Hey, this feels kind of like a more fucked up Hunger Games… why don’t we just get the Hunger Games guy?” and so Francis Lawrence was gifted the chance to make The Long Walk… and made one of the best films of 2025.

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leebutler Action, Comedy, Horror, Review, Sci-Fi

The Toxic Avenger (2025) – I Love You Toxie

Released: 29th August
Seen: 30th August

In 1984, a little independent film company known as Troma released a film that would change the course of the company forever. What started as a little low-budget horror film tentatively titled Health Club Horror would be released with the more memorable name The Toxic Avenger. To say that this film became a cult hit would be a massive understatement. The Toxic Avenger was the kind of cult hit that defined Troma. Toxie would turn into their official mascot and appear in several other movies. The Toxic Avenger would also turn up in other media, video games, comic books, a hit off-Broadway musical and even a Saturday morning children’s cartoon named The Toxic Crusaders. 40 years later and a certain subsection of the world still loves this big green freak in his torn up tutu, so much so that it almost feels inevitable that Hollywood was going to remake this little underground film because that’s just what happens to these cult films, someone will always try to recreate the lightning in a bottle that the original somehow had… so imagine my shock when they actually pulled off the magic trick of making this film work!

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leebutler Horror, Mystery, Review, Thriller

Clown In A Cornfield (2025) – Friendo Loves You

Released: 8th May
Seen: 24th August

In 2020, Adam Cesare released the young adult novel Clown in a Cornfield. The novel was a big success, ending up winning the Bram Stoker Award for Best Young Adult Novel and pretty much instantly getting optioned for a film. There would end up being 2 more novels written in the Clown in a Cornfield series over the years but the film took a little while to get made (probably because 2020 was not exactly a great time to try and film a movie, what with all the COVID hanging around) but eventually a little film called Clown in a Cornfield came out and made a brief splash before getting eclipsed by Final Destination: Bloodlines… which is a shame because it’s the kind of movie that deserves a lot more love.

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