Last Updated on September 30, 2025 by Angel Melanson
Horror has never been limited to Toronto’s genre programme, Midnight Madness, though that space is often honey for genre bees. The revered film genre has often spread beyond late-night hours, and it’s even more obvious this year with Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein not just gracing the Special Presentations program but being one of the year’s biggest draws. Local fans, press, and out-of-towners alike flocked to box offices, Reddit pages, and the dreaded ticketing hubs to gain access to the monster feature, and while some might insist it’s a drama, real ones know the universal monster belongs to us.
Outside the large spectacle was a cluster of other horrors, ranging from gateway horror comedy in Bryan Fuller’s Dust Bunny, or Sundance and SXSW darling, Dead Lover. Then there’s Nia DaCosta’s Hedda, which dances perhaps too far from the genre taxonomy but is a worthy work from the genre director for fans to look for. After a festival spent in front of the best frights the programmers had to offer, here are the best horror movies coming out of 2025’s Toronto International Film Festival.
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Frankenstein
Oscar Issac in FRANKENSTEIN (Credit: Ken Woroner/Netflix) Let's start at the beginning. Honorary Torontonian, Guillermo del Toro, returned to the festival after the grand success of 2017's The Shape of Water. Toronto genre fans had been waiting patiently for his return after the master was unable to appear in person for his curated David Cronenberg program at the TIFF Lightbox.
Earlier this year, he told the Toronto audience through a screen that he was working on the post-production of his latest, Frankenstein.Now the culmination of a life spent “at home with Monsters,” comes by way of Guillermo del Toro's grandest adaptation of the well-known horror tale. Gathering a stellar cast that includes Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Oscar Isaac, and Christoph Waltz, del Toro crafted a visual spectacular in his signature gothic carnival style.
Remaining tightly in the arms of Mary Shelley's original novel, del Toro explores the humanity of the monster through the voice of a towering Elordi, and how humans can be monstrous through the eyes of Isaac's Victor. Restraint is never on del Toro's operating table, but that's easy to accept when considering that a man who made a career off finding humanity in monsters the way this original story did would want to explore every part of it.
Sure, Frankenstein the feature is a gothic drama and tragic love story, but there is no shortage of horror iconography, and most anyone would wince at Victor poking a filleted body through its spine.
Karmadonna
KARMADONNA (Credit: StudioCanal) I, too, winced at the idea of consuming anything from a creator associated with A Serbian Film, but co-writer Aleksandar Radivojević seemed primed to convince audiences with his directorial debut. Serving as writer and director, Radivojević crafted a bloody tale drenched in religion, philosophy, and ethics. And also that aforementioned blood.
His camera follows Jelena (Jelena Djokic), a single, pregnant woman who receives a mysterious call from someone purporting to be a god, omniscient, demanding she commit a series of murders. It's naturally a confusing order, one that requires Jelena to believe in the voice's supernatural and benevolent status, and further, that committing these murders is really for the greater good.
With her phone as her only real lifeline, and a demanding and ruthless voice on the other end, the otherwise meek mother-to-be sets off on a bloody crusade to rid her slice of the world of certain evil.
Karmadonna feels like a fever dream one might have after a semester of philosophy and world religions courses, one that would fail to parse the lessons learned into something more digestible. In ways, it's reminiscent of last year's Heretic in stripping some religious depth in favor of pontification, but both successfully weaponize their lessons for horror fodder. Fans of Prevenge will soak up an armed pregnant woman on an absurd mission, and fans of surreal gore fests will soak up the bodily fluids.
The Man in My Basement
THE MAN IN MY BASEMENT (Credit: Brigade Publicity) A more subtle turn from the bombastic visual horrors, there's Nadia Latif's feature directorial debut, The Man in My Basement. The haunting tale boasts a simple setup shrouded in mystery and speckled with horror moments that make the experience all the more disorienting.
Charles (Corey Hawkins) is a down on his luck resident of Sag Harbor, trying desperately to hold onto his family's home in the face of financial ruin. Options bounce off of him in quick succession, and his only recourse comes by way of a strange offer from an out-of-town businessman (Willem Dafoe). The man offers him an impossible sum of money for a simple request: he wants to live in Charles' basement.
In no position to refuse, Charles accepts the offer but is soon faced with the man's increasingly bizarre requests. The story veers quickly into one of the dynamics of race and power that is explored while Charles learns more about a haunting past.
The film cleverly explores these dynamics by broaching them so quaintly. It feels like a feature length exploration of the “shaving a powerful person” trope, where a man behind immovable bars is somehow controlling one who is apparently living free. Throughout, Charles explores and learns more about his heritage and the true power of his ancestors, which has been suppressed by the modern ruling classes. These insights come to him through visions, voices, and encounters with untamed wolves.
The Man in My Basement has a simple setup, but the feature is anything but, and fans looking for rich explorations will feel at home here.
Honey Bunch
HONEY BUNCH (Credit: XYZ Films) Coming off of their feature debut, Violation, Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli have returned with a sophomore effort in Honey Bunch. The Canadian duo returned to the maple-flavored festival with their exploration of love and loss that is as horrific as it is romantic.
Grace Glowicki leads this outing as Diana, a woman recovering from an accident who joins her husband at a mysterious clinic meant to help her recover physically and neurologically. But something doesn't feel right to Diana, who is haunted by strange visions, horrifying dreams, and a husband who becomes increasingly duplicitous.
Honey Bunch feels as inspired by Shutter Island as it does The One I Love, as it holds cards close to its chest while asking the audience to decide how in touch the lead is with reality and the people they're meant to trust. Diana is our only tether to the happenings, but she is potentially unreliable, as unreliable as her doting husband.
The whole film is strange and horrific, it intentionally plays with the timeline and physical limits to leave the audience guessing. It's stressful, upsetting, and one of the more demented love stories in a year that also includes Together.
Exit 8
EXIT 8 (Credit: Goodfellas) “Liminal video game horror” is the sort of phrase that could get one expelled from or embraced by cinephile circles. It sounds potentially pompous, but there is nothing snooty or uptight about this Japanese horror destined to be buzzed about by horror fans across continents. Co-writers and director, Genki Kawamura and Kentaro Hirase, made movie magic out of a simple video game that finds its players stuck in a potentially endless loop.
Like the game, the plot here is simple. The player must pass through numbered subway exits before finally leaving at the eighth. See an anomaly, turn around. See none, keep going. Make a mistake, start back at zero. It seems impossible to spin that into a narrative, but the creators broke through and crafted a rich story about a man finding something to run to and thus, something to escape for.
Just when the audience thinks the premise has run out of steam, the team throws in a story toggle that not only justifies a feature length adaptation, but also boasts a wicked long-cut film fans will surely geek out about.
Exit 8 so magically crafts a coherent story that is never boring, while never losing sight of its source material or its genre. Horror elements come from haunting smiles, strange voices, and jarring visual frights that feel like a horror game's best jump scare. By successfully adapting and then weaponizing the need for a player (and thus, the film audience) to remain eagle eyed, Exit 8 forces viewers to be locked in, setting them up to be even further affected by its large terrors.
