7 International Horror Movies We Can’t Wait to Watch This January

Do you feel that chill in the air? It might be coming from The Damned, an icy international co-production shot in Iceland and unleashed in theaters on January 3. 

From director Thordur Palsson, The Damned stars Odessa Young as a widow running a remote fishing outpost in the 19th century. During an especially bitter winter, with supplies running low, she makes the difficult decision not to help the survivors of a sinking ship — a decision that will come back to haunt her and the other inhabitants of the outpost… 

If Nosferatu left you hungry for more Gothic horror, perhaps The Monster Beneath Us will help to scratch that itch. Writer-director Sophie Osbourne's film arrived in theaters and on VOD platforms on January 3.

Set in the English county of Yorkshire in 1898, The Monster Beneath Us centers around a woman who moves back into her ex-husband's home after his death. At first, she's too lost in grief to pay much attention to her son playing in the basement. But when he starts spending more and more time with a new “friend” down there in the dark, the mother's grief quickly turns to terror. 

New fear unlocked: Australian men. After seeing Jack Clark and Jim Weir's Birdeater, you'll understand why. With shades of Aussie New Wave classic Wake in Fright, the film brings toxic masculinity to theaters and digital platforms on January 10. 

In Birdeater, quiet bride-to-be Irene (Shabana Azeez) tags along on her fiance's buck's night  (bachelor party) at his request. But the relationship isn't quite as cozy as it looks from the outside, and as the men start popping pills and cracking bottles, uncomfortable details about the couple's dynamic start to surface. 

Dutch director Steffen Haars previously teamed up with Shaun of the Dead's Nick Frost for the ultra-violent, sitcom-inspired Krazy House. The pair are back this month with Get Away, another horror-comedy, this time with a fun folk horror twist.

BAFTA-winning Irish actor, writer, and comedian Aisling Bea stars opposite Frost in Get Away, playing the “mummy“ to his “daddy.“ Along with teenagers Sam (Sebastian Croft) and Jessie (Maisie Ayres), they're off on their “holibobs“ to a remote island in Sweden that's host to an annual festival commemorating a tragedy. What could possibly go wrong? 

Following its theatrical release last month, Get Away cruises onto Shudder on January 10. Don't forget the sunscreen. And the axe. 

Hopefully, you don't have a shellfish allergy like I do, because killer crabs appear to be on the menu in director Frédéric Jardin's Survive — and there's a lot of them to go around. 

Scuttling into theaters and digital platforms on January 10, Survive follows a family celebrating a birthday on a boat. Unfortunately for them, the planet undergoes some sort of wacky polarity reversal (just go with it) that causes all the water to drain from the oceans. Naturally, that makes the crabs hungry for human flesh, forcing the family to battle for survival, all while racing against the clock to reach safety before the water returns. 

The “Poohniverse“ is expanding. From the twisted minds that brought you Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare brings a little magic (wait, I misspelled mayhem) to theaters for a limited time starting January 13. 

Directed by Scott Chambers, Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare reimagines J.M. Barrie's beloved children's character as an evil child abductor (played by Martin Portlock) aided and abetted by drug addict Tinkerbell (Kit Green). RuPaul's Drag Race UK alum Charity Kase also stars. 

Want to visit Neverland a little early? Look for the second star to the right, then head straight on to our exclusive clip.

If you're not comfortable in your own skin, why not try on someone else's? Director Sasha Rainbow's Grafted will show you how… 

Cutting into Shudder on January 24, the beauty-based body horror film sees shy scholarship student Wei (Joyena Sun) traveling to New Zealand to study medical research. After becoming jealous of her beautiful and outgoing cousin, Wei immerses herself in her late father's revolutionary skin grafting research — and will soon stop at nothing to hide her gruesome work. 

What's on your watchlist for 2025? Check out some of the films and comics we can't wait to get our hands on this year, and be sure to come back next month for more international delights!