It's that time again! Regular readers will know this isn't actually a top ten list, rather it's more a recommended viewing list of films that either played festivals and have yet to get a UK release, or films that did get a release but which you might have missed, possibly due to unfairly bad reviews. Which means you won't see titles like SINNERS, WEAPONS, THE LONG WALK, COMPANION, THE LIFE OF CHUCK, KEEPER or BRING HER BACK on here because you can already find those on a load of lists so what's the point of repeating? Especially as you likely know those are worth watching anyway. No, here are the lesser known films that are worth your viewing time. As usual the rules stay the same: each film has to have been shown in the UK for the first time during 2025, either at a festival, or as a cinema, disc or streaming release. As explained above, popular successes aren't included but flops might well be if those flops were undeserved. Also as usual, while I didn't get to see everything, hopefully there will be enough amongst these recommendations that even the most seasoned enthusiast will find something they didn't get the chance to catch up with. I'm also not doing a 'worst of' list because we all know it's Luc Besson's DRACULA, don't we? Or possibly WAR OF THE WORLDS with Ice Cube, even if it was the interminable JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH that had me bored enough to end up considering what my favourite flavour of jam sandwich might be. Anyway enough of the bad, here's the good!
10 Silent Night Deadly Night
A grindhouse slasher movie remake par excellence. Mike P. Nelson's new version of the 1984 original keeps the best elements (child traumatised by seeing his parents killed by 'Santa' grows up to become lunatic slasher wearing the same festive outfit) but adds a lot more to the mix, including why the killer is creating his own advent calendar of death, a subplot about children being abducted, and a romance with a girl into true crime documentaries. Where SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT really scores big, though, is that here there's none of the irony, smugness or post-modernism of so many of those tiresome pseudo 1980s slasher tributes, the ones so keen to keep nudging you that ' this is just like the 80s, right?'. Instead here everything is played straight, which also helps make an outrageous sequence in the middle (that appears so gob-smackingly out of left field) a thing of near genius. There are some in-jokes but they are subtle and more to be nodded at by those in the know. If you're a slasher fan this is likely to leave you with a spring in your step and plans to make this an annual Xmas watch. The kind of movie Eli Roth wished he could make but never will.
9 Him
Opening to indifferent reviews from people who really didn't get it, for those of us who live for sitting down in front of alleged claptrap only to discover it harbours many delights, the rewards in HIM are rich indeed. The film starts off with some medical daftness ("He has a terrible head injury" a doctor says while we see X-Rays and MRI scans of a perfectly normal skull). In many films I would already be grinding my teeth but not here, because we then see our patient has had clips applied to his scalp wound so his head resembles an American football. After that we quickly follow our young wannabe GOAT footballer to the isolated Jess Franco-style architectural retreat of current GOAT (they say GOAT a lot, and we all know what tends to happen to them in films like this) Marlon Wayans to be trained up to possibly take on the mantle. From there we plunge headlong into a crazy mix of allegory and symbolism that suggests nothing we have seen so far should be taken literally. The film does hit you over the head with the 'Sport As Religion' stick a few too many times but it can be forgiven for the sheer bravado and enthusiasm with which some of the sequences are executed, particularly the ending. Reminiscent of the cinema of Alain Jessua (satire and blood transfusions), Lindsay Anderson and Boots Riley, and even a couple of the choicier episodes of South Park (especially one reveal close to the all-out bonkers ending where you half expect Kyle to turn up and say "Dude, this is really f*cked up right here). Many will disagree, but HIM is actually the film with Jordan Peele's name attached that gives you the most to think about. Director Justin Tipping is definitely one to keep an eye on.
8 A Mother's Embrace
A seriously decent cosmic horror picture from Brazil. Ana is on her first day back at work as a fire rescue officer after recovering from severe psychological trauma. Rio is in the grip of terrible storms causing flood damage and she and her team are called to a house they have been told is in imminent danger of collapse. The place turns out to be a care home for the elderly, and none of the inhabitants have any intention of leaving. Exactly why they won't leave is due to something quite deliciously horrible it would be shame to spoil, suffice to say A MOTHER'S EMBRACE cultivates an admirable atmosphere of creeping strangeness for over half its runtime, during which one could argue that very little happens, but tiny incremental events and the fantastic setting of the huge old care home with cracks in its walls and water coming in everywhere combine to quickly become unnerving. Marjorie Estiano delivers an excellent central performance as Ana and, like her character, you'll be wondering, and dreading, where it's all leading.
7 Man Finds Tape
A man in a small Texas town discovers a video recording that shows a stranger coming into his bedroom when he was a boy. Then CCTV footage turns up of people suddenly falling asleep in the town high street and a van running someone over. MAN FINDS TAPE is found footage shot (on the whole) by characters who are themselves film professionals, collated with CCTV footage and other nicely static sources that eliminate the wobble cam that plagues the worst of the genre. It's one of those films that's hard to review without spoilers and would be a shame to say any more, and indeed to suggest the horror authors whose work this film is most reminiscent of. Awaiting a UK release, try and watch it cold if you can.
6 Content
Like MAN FINDS TAPE (viewed at Mayhem), CONTENT was another festival picture, in this case from Grimmfest. It's a film that tells its tale of a mad amateur film director creating footage for his proposed movie via deceit, kidnapping, blackmail and general threats by using screenshots, zoom meetings, text messages, and mobile phone footage. Writer-director Adam Meilich's film is a delightful surprise - assured, clever and blackly funny and one that almost demands an immediate rewatch. When a film is able to quote a host of classic found footage movies and you don't find yourself wishing you were watching any of them instead you know you're onto a winner. CONTENT is also awaiting a UK release.
5 It Needs Eyes
A teenager goes to live with her aunt after a family trauma and becomes immersed in the world of extreme online videos. She becomes obsessed with a missing woman known only as Fish Tooth and a nearby island where a boy drowned. Directors Zack Ogle and Aaron Pagniano really know what they're doing here, priming the audience with some online horrors and then performing a perfect balancing act of hinting at what might be going on but never fully explaining it. Influences include VIDEODROME and the fiction of M R James and by the time the film is over you'll be creeped out and asking plenty of questions in the best way.
4 Together
If you'd asked me the style of cinema I never thought we'd see in a mainstream multiplex (and this one disappeared from multiplexes very quickly) one name would have leapt to mind: Frank Henenlotter. And yet here we are with TOGETHER, a film that is by turns gloopy, bloody, painful, sexy, very funny and ultimately and above all romantic. Real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie star in a story where the couple they play end up getting fused together by some gloopy stuff they find in the woods. Hopefully needless to say the mechanics of this are far less important than the subtext. TOGETHER is an allegory for a long term relationship filtered through a BAD BIOLOGY lens with added Screaming Mad George-style lunacy to boot. The film is quite marvellous, by the way. They should have a study where they show it to couples and then ask them individually what they thought of it afterwards.
3 Bugonia
Good old Yorgos Lanthimos (and Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons). What a wonderful piece of work you've given us yet again, and a remake (of the Korean film SAVE THE GREEN PLANET) no less. Two conspiracy theorists kidnap CEO Emma Stone because they believe her to be an alien who wants to destroy earth. They are convinced her mother ship is close and want to go there with her to talk to her people. Are they insane or is there something to what they believe? Even once Lanthimos starts placing his cards on the table this one's clever enough that you'll still find yourself wondering. The story line works on multiple levels and that, combined with the oh so sly wit we've come to expect from this director (right the way back to DOGTOOTH) makes this one a winner. And Arrow are releasing SAVE THE GREEN PLANET early next year on disc so you can compare the two. Expect a review on here.
2 The Arbiter
Swansea-born director Marc Price's latest movie asks the question: What if Walter Hill's THE WARRIORS was low budget, British, and funny? Rival gangs of pyromaniacs, roller skaters, graphic designers, ice cream salesmen and others rule the city at night, turning parts of it into no-go zones that the police have agreed to stay away from as long as no guns are used and no property is damaged. But one gang is threatening to wipe all the others out and it's the job of Verril (Craig Russell) to act as arbiter between the gang leaders and the police to reach some sort of solution. THE ARBITER starts off hard and fast, flinging as much comedy as action at the audience in its opening act such that by the time things slow down a bit it has you firmly on its side, all the way to the highly satisfying conclusion. A genuine low budget treat and destined to become a cult favourite when it gets a UK release.
1 Hallow Road
A couple (Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys) receive a 2am phone call from their daughter who has crashed the family car in a forest and believes she has run someone down. Almost all of the rest of the film is the couple's drive to find out exactly what has happened. I'm not going to say any more because that would spoil it, but I lost count of the times I applauded director Babak Anvari's (often subtle) directorial touches that kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. What I will say is that HALLOW ROAD is like one of those great 1960s black and white British B movie programmers that were nothing but 80 minutes of tension. Superb use of sound and voices to make things even more excruciating is reminiscent of Nigel Kneale's During Barty's Party. Held over in the few cinemas it saw distribution to because of excellent reviews, out of all the films on this list this is the one that deserved a bigger release.
And that's it! As usual my thanks to the organisers of the festivals we attended this year (Mayhem, Grimmfest and Abertoir), all the companies who send me films to review, everyone involved with running the three cinemas we are lucky enough to have in this area, and most of all everyone who reads, and is hopefully entertained by, these reviews. Did it point you to some films you enjoyed? I hope so. I'll be back next year with more but until then be nice to each other & I'll see you in 2026
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