IT’S THE HALFWAY POINT! I wonder if I can do some bonus watches this year like last time? But here we go with films 41-50, with their countries A-Z, and then at the end of this post I’ll do a round-up of my personal Top 10 of the first 50, and a complete list of countries so far.
Here is the full list: 100-horror-movies-in-92-days-2025
41) 仮面学園 / Persona (2000) dir. Takashi Komatsu. I was really enjoying this, and the thoughts around masks and shifting identities, but then they got weird about gender and we got stuck with a shitty horror trope at the end. (Spoiler for the reveal below).
Click to reveal spoiler
The killer turned out to be a trans woman, killing anyone who knew her deadname/previous identity. The ‘missing’ student was thought to be male, but it turned out she had transitioned then come back to school? This made the whole thing of (male) students in masks claiming that deadname in “I am Spartacus” style as teachers tried to figure out where this missing student was and who it was behind “his” mask stop working in the way it had throughout the film, but I guess it was supposed to retrospectively create a dead space of an empty identity that anyone could then take up and embody, now that she wasn’t using it or claiming it? I don’t know. I think it was a good film up to that point and then it was reduced to the ‘killer trans woman’ trope.
42) 弟切草 / St. John’s Wort (2001) dir. Ten Shimoyama. Another J-Horror – this one tried to do it like an over-saturated early 00s horror game, but it just didn’t quite work for me in style. Then the reveal happened and it was another weird gender reveal on the bounce, as I watched this and Persona back-to-back. I have regrets.
Click to reveal spoiler
So in this one, it’s her missing twin, who she thought was a twin sister, but was actually her twin brother, who seems to have been force-femmed to pose for their father’s paintings, and there are dead kids in the house, one of whom might be her childhood friend, but the others are all little boys who… got murdered by… the twin? I got really confused by this bit, the subtitles weren’t amazing and I honestly lost concentration as it played out like a video game where you pick up clues in different rooms. As the antagonist character self-identified to Nami, our main character, as her twin brother, but dressed and presented as a woman, I wasn’t sure with the subtitles I had on this version what was going on here. This character is really like a giallo character if you know what I mean by that, it really did feel like it had taken off in a giallo direction at the end.
43) สุสานคนเป็น / Tomb Watcher (2025) dir. Vathanyu Ingkawiwat. I liked this one. I really enjoy the soap opera drama of people cheating on each other and betrayals and vengeance and mess, so the actual human melodrama of the love triangle worked for me as its own thing. There’s ghost possessions and all sorts of supernatural stuff as well, which was fine. It had a grim ending, and I liked that too.
44) Eerie (2018) dir. Mikhail Red. Same director as Lilim, so I’m here for this brand of Filipino Catholic Institution Horror, it would seem. This film has some super darkly-shot scenes, so I found it hard to see what was happening. I cried at the end, though. TW: suicide, abusive “disciplinary” practices.
45) 血を吸う粘土 / Vampire Clay (2017) dir. Sôichi Umezawa. I really liked this. Demonic clay, breaking down the barriers between people and dirt, art and artist, malleable clay-flesh, revenge, and a few students getting fucked up by their moulding material. I enjoyed the stopmotion and the practical effects, and I really liked how fun this was. It’s the movie David Cronenberg wished he could have made, I reckon.
46) Boys From County Hell (2020) dir. Chris Baugh. This is the kind of film I really love. Vampires – but folklore. Irish. Deadpan dark humour. Has me laughing for ages then rips out my heart. I don’t care what anyone else thinks, this is one of the best and funniest vampire horror-comedies going. I saved this one for the challenge, and it was a good call. Really cheered me up.
47) The Damned (2024) dir. Thordur Palsson. 19thC Arctic Circle folk horror – I mean, that’s the horror all by itself, really. Throw in the superstition of draugrs and some drowned Basque sailors, and some simmering tension between the widow who owns the fishing station and the helmsman, and you’ve got a pretty good film. Lots of good folklore.
48) My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To (2020) dir. Jonathan Cuartas. Harrowing family vampiric drama, with the shut-in claustrophobia of lockdown for added effect… I honestly nearly cried at the dinner scene where Thomas is begging to be allowed to have some friends. It really got me. And the victims who just wanted to escape – so much going on in this film, with a lot of emotional intensity.
49) Oculus (2013) dir. Mike Flanagan. I really liked Flanagan’s series, particularly his take on Hill House and the House of Usher, with Bly Manor and Midnight Mass coming in after those two (for me). This film was a tightly packed warm-up for his longer-form stories, I felt, and it worked for me pretty well. It definitely played into his brand of bleak psychological horror and intimate family drama. I think this is certainly one of the most successful takes on a haunted item I’ve seen in a while, so I’m very glad I watched it. It gave me Philip Fracassi’s Gothic vibes. I also really liked the reflection of the flashbacks in the current narrative, and the mirroring that happened through the film.
50) 乱歩地獄 / Rampo Noir (2005) dirs. Atsushi Kaneko, Akio Jissoji, Hisayasu Satô, Suguru Takeuchi. Anthology horror based on the horror stories of Edogawa Ranpo (江戸川 乱歩). This has definitely made me interested in Ranpo’s work, and I really liked the microwave mirror story especially. Another mirror tale! This is really arty as well, I liked the directors’ different styles and shots. The mirror motifs in this one pulled through a few segments. (If needed, TW for disability body horror in the Caterpillar segment.) I really liked the way the segments connected via one actor who played different parts in each of them.
Countries A-Z Films 41-50
Ireland
Japan
Philippines
Thailand
USA
Top 10 of 50/100
My top 10 films so far… this is a tough one. In no particular order because that’s way too hard for me, my top 10 this year so far is probably as follows:
- In My Mother’s Skin
- The Moogai
- Vampire Clay
- You Won’t Be Alone
- Boys From County Hell
- Maa
- It Lives Inside
- Ugly Stepsister
- La Llorona
- Home for Rent
Honorable Mentions:
- My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To
- Rita
- Paper Bride
- Ms. Kanyin
- Lilim
- The Wrath of Becky
- The Surrender
- Bulbbul
- Blacula
- Sennentuntschi
- Strange Darling
- Audition
- Bridge Curse: Ritual
If I made this list in a different mood, some of these may swap places. I’ve really enjoyed most of the films I’ve seen this year.
Country Round-Up Films 1-50:
I have marked the countries with the highest number of films each with a bar chart emoji:
Japan and USA are level at 8 films each.
Canada and the Philippines are next, with 3 films each.
New-to-me countries have a “” symbol next to them.
Argentina – x1 – The 100 Candles Game
Australia – x2 – The Moogai, You Won’t Be Alone
Belgium – x2 – Malpertuis, The Hunted
Cambodia – x1 – The Ritual: Black Nun
Canada – x3 – The Monkey, Don’t Say Its Name, Discopath
China – x1 – Paper Bride
Guatemala – x2 – Rita, La Llorona
India – x2 – Maa, Bulbbul
Indonesia – x2 – The Haunted Hotel, Jurnal Risa by Risa Saraswati
Ireland – x2 – Boys From County Hell, The Damned
Italy – x2 – An Angel for Satan, Two Evil Eyes
Japan – x8 – Shikoku, Audition, The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch, Persona, St John’s Wort, Best Wishes To All, Vampire Clay, Rampo Noir
Nigeria – x1 – Ms. Kanyin
Norway – x1 – The Ugly Stepsister
Philippines – x3 – Lilim, In My Mother’s Skin, Eerie
Switzerland – x2 – Tyfelstei, Sennentuntschi
Taiwan – x2 – The Bridge Curse, The Bridge Curse: Ritual
Thailand – x2 – Home for Rent, Tomb Watcher
Turkey – x1 – Siccin 4
United Kingdom – x2 – The Stone Tape, The Beast Must Die
United States of America – x8 – It Lives Inside, The Wrath of Becky, Strange Darling, Incubus, Blacula, The Surrender, My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To, Oculus
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