Talking Terror Monthly Roundup: July 2025

The best thing about becoming addicted to Letterboxd? It’s made me even more of a film addict. There’s something about being able to track and log the films you watch – and on a platform with such a marvellous look and feel – that’s made me want to watch even more of my beloved genre movies, and wander even more voraciously down scary rabbit holes (and the odd wormhole, too.) And no, I’m not getting paid by Letterboxd – this is just a segue into introducing a new format I’m bringing in on Talking Terror: monthly roundups.

In these, I’ll proffer up a list of what I’ve been watching over the last 28 to 31 days: highlights, lowlights, and everything between, plus a spotlight of what I have – or haven’t – been getting up to on a personal front. I won’t see each month will offer a clever curation of horror films you MUST SEE – only whatever cinematic debris and detritus I’ve been hoovering up over the month just gone. Some of it might be good; some will most certainly be bad. But it’s all authentic, and you never know – you might uncover some deep-cut horror gems you’d otherwise not have stumbled across.

So what terrifying flotsam and jetsam has the fine month of July brought to the sand of Talking Terror’s humble horror shores? Let's dig in.

A to Z: Alligators to Zombie Grandmothers

In July 2025, I was nurturing my lifelong – but, recently, particularly fervent – obsession with 80s B-Movie horror. That meant devouring Lewis Teague’s Alligator (1980), and feasting not only on the overlooked delights of Graduation Day (1981), but revisiting the thrills of Bruce Campbell vehicles Army of Darkness (1992) and Maniac Cop (1988) – the latter of which, from genre legend William Lustig, I had a LOT of fun with.

The titular reptile from Alligator (1980).

Unfortunately, though, where there are hits there are the inevitable misses, too– and despite having high hopes for the wacky, weird delights promised by Rabid Grannies (1988), I was disappointed. (Although I think a lot of it had to do with the film being butchered by an editor, then heavily cut down and misshapen to fit modern screens – which destroyed most of any aesthetic appeal the untouched cut might have had to offer.)

I also watched Blacula (1972) and Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1981) for the first time – hungover, the morning after a wedding. Both were lots of fun, and the latter (despite some icky scenes and language that will feel hugely, sorely outdated to modern audiences) deserves far more credit than it gets. A few other gems from that era I finally got around to watching include Slumber Party Massacre (1982) and the far less-seen or -talked-about The Children (1980). It’s about a factory leak that ends up infecting an entire bus of schoolchildren and turning them into monstrous little killing machines. Their mode of murder? Hugging their victims to death. It’s gnarly, and silly, and a great little popcorn film for enthusiasts of that genre and time.

Big Screens and Small Screens

On the big screen, I saw 28 Years Later (2025) – a film which I’ve literally just finished writing about a few moments ago; a piece I definitely recommend checking out if you were confused/shocked by/keen to know more about its ending – and I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025). Danny Boyle’s film is absolutely one to write home about; Jennifer Kaytin Robertson’s, although enjoyable and suitably diverting, is arguably less so. The first I saw in London, catching up with family between weddings in Puglia and Sitges, respectively – the second I saw back in Melbourne after the long flight home.

Talking Terror has been global recently!

Speaking of flying, the trip – which comprised a seven-hour flight, followed by a four and a half hour layover in Dubai, followed by a 13-hour flight the rest of the way – gave me plenty of time to catch up on even more genre movies.

Y2K (2024) was fun; Sound of Silence (2023) – an Italian production – was one of the worst movies I’ve ever had the misfortune of sitting through. (And the only film I’ve slapped with a mere half-star on Letterboxd.) Kill (2024) – one I hadn’t heard about before it popped up on the plane’s display in front of me – was a fantastic, taut thriller-cum-horror about a trio of brothers living in rural Scotland who plan to kill their abusive father while on a hunting trip. The plan doesn’t go as hoped…and as it turns out, nothing is what it seems.

The characters of Y2K (2024) attempt to navigate the perils of 21st-century technology.

In addition to Robinson’s aforementioned reboot of the I Know What You… franchise, I couldn’t go see it without refreshing my knowledge of its antecedents. That meant sitting through the 1997 I Know What You Did Last Summer (good), 1998’s I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (bad, but not as bad as most people will have you believe), and 2006’s unfortunately titled I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (ugly; just plain ugly).

Finally, I wrapped up the month of July 2025 by re-familiarising myself with perhaps my favourite subgenre of horror: the anthology film. To that end, I chucked on a pair of Dan Curtis films – 1977’s Dead of Night and Trilogy of Terror II (1996) – and, despite one segment of both the three-story films being the exact same story (Richard Matheson’s “Bobby”, if you’re interested), both of this pair of made-for-TV efforts engaged and entertained me.

Oh, and while the vast majority of what I watch is horror, it’d be remiss of me to say it’s the only genre I watch. This month, I also enjoyed RaMell Ross’s Nickel Boys (2024) – an adaptation of the book by Colson Whitehead, which is one of my all-time favourites – and films such as James Hawes’s The Amateur (2025).

But really – and I'm being vulnerable here – the pick of the non-horror films I watched in July 2025 has to be Happy Gilmore 2 (2025). A nostalgic ride with a surprisingly potent emotional heartbeat, Mel hated it. But I felt transported by time; like I was watching the original as a quixotic teenager again – and I love how movies have that power.

That’s all from me! I’ll be back at the end of August to recap that month’s films – and will have some very, very special news to share!

Want to keep an even closer eye on the horror movies I've been feasting on – in basically real time? Follow Talking Terror on Letterboxd.