The Best New Horror Movie Of 2025 Arrives With Near-Perfect Critic Scores

There is a new queen of horror, and her name is Sophie Thatcher. The actress has starred in the cannibalistic Yellowjackets, appeared in MaXXXine, and had a lead role in 2024’s excellent Heretic, opposite Hugh Grant. Now, she’s appearing in the first truly excellent horror movie of 2025, Companion.

Companion has arrived with a few dozen reviews in and a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, rated above even Heretic’s 91% from last year. That score would put it in the top five of widely released horror films in 2024, so it may be planted on the list for the entire year, despite being released this early. Though more reviews are yet to come in.

Thatcher stars alongside The Boys’ beloved Jack Quaid and the story is…well, it’s something. Here’s the synopsis:

“A weekend getaway turns bloody and violent when a subservient android that’s built for human companionship goes haywire.”

That may sound like a somewhat played-out storyline, an android turns violent. It was literally the plot of Subservience with Megan Fox recently, and before that, M3GAN. But this seems like it’s simply going to be a better execution, no pun intended. I would already credit Thatcher for that, knowing her past work. You can get that vibe from the trailer, which got 11 million views in two weeks:

The film also stars Harvey Guillén of What We Do in the Shadows fame, and Lukas Gage who most recently appeared in the fantastic Smile 2, making this back to back horror wins for the actor, similar to Thatcher. He’s also appeared in Euphoria, Fargo and You, violence-filled, all. He’s certainly trained for this.

The bad news is that there is still a bit of a wait for Companion, as it’s out on January 31, just over a week from now. In the meantime, to gear up for this, I would watch Thatcher in Heretic where she plays the victim, not the killer. And she will be back very soon for Yellowjackets season 3 on February 14 for a Valentine’s Day debut. She is without question a key up-and-coming actress to watch and I expect her to expand to more non-horror projects at some point here (not to say horror is a lesser genre whatsoever). Companion is out in a week, and I’ll be reporting back as soon as I see it on day one.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.