Some Big Horror Sequels Are Coming in 2025

Making legacy sequels, reboots, and continuations of movie franchises is a decades-old practice that the film industry is in no hurry to stop participating in. Despite audiences’ pleas for more original stories that aren’t somehow linked to a previously existing movie, sequels continue to make enough money that convince studios to keep churning them out.

This is especially true for the horror genre, as horror films are notoriously inexpensive to make compared to films in other genres. Plenty of these sequels are either unnecessary or poorly executed, but when done right, they can be truly great. Evil Dead Rise, Pearl, Scream 2, A Quiet Place Part II, are all sequels that expanded the story and were done well.

Going into the new year, there are quite a few horror sequels slated to be released that are sure to have horror fans seated in the theater. From widely beloved franchises such as Saw to highly anticipated sequels to movies like 28 Days Later, 2025 is set to be an entertaining year for horror fiends. Here are 9 horror sequels that will undoubtedly bring back some mayhem in 2025.

‘Five Nights at Freddy’s 2’

Based on the wildly popular video game, Five Nights at Freddy’s follows an overnight security guard named Mike (Josh Hutcherson), who works at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, a rundown pizza parlor akin to something like Chuck E. Cheese. The job seems boring and simple at first, but Mike quickly realizes something is wrong with the animatronics. At night, they come to life to wreak havoc on anyone in the building.

A Faithful Video Game Adaptation

The sequel to the fan-favorite video game adaptation is set for release during the 2025 holiday season. So far, at least four cast members will be returning, including Hutcherson, Matthew Lillard, Elizabeth Lail, and Piper Rubio. Most of the plot details have been kept secret, although Blumhouse did release the first official poster in October. The Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 poster features a giant “2” next to an animatronic’s face partially hidden by a curtain. Super fans of the game have recognized the character to be Toy Freddy, a major character also introduced in the second game of the FNAF series.

‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’

One of the many slashers to follow in Scream‘s footsteps in the late ’90s was none other than I Know What You Did Last Summer. Starring a whose-who of ’90s heartthrobs and it-girls, the movie takes place in a coastal North Carolina town where a group of four high school seniors accidentally hit a pedestrian and cover up the crime. One year later, when the friends are home for the summer, a maniac with a hook for a hand terrorizes them as he seeks revenge for the accident.

A Hyped-Up Legacy Sequel

While the movie spawned two pretty terrible sequels and a TV series in 2021, there is genuine excitement for the legacy sequel of the same name hitting theaters in 2025. It has been confirmed that both Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. will reprise their roles along with a cast of young newcomers. A basic synopsis has been released, showing that the movie will follow the same premise as the original, with a killer terrorizing a group of young friends who committed a gruesome incident in the past.

‘M3GAN 2.0’

M3GAN was a surprise hit for Blumhouse in 2023. Starring Alison Brie, the movie follows a robotics engineer named Gemma (Brie) who becomes the guardian of her orphaned niece Cady (Violet McGraw). Not quite ready for parenthood, Gemma introduces Cady to her AI robot, M3GAN (Amie Donald) to be her friend and companion. However, when M3GAN starts to exhibit disturbing behavior, Gemma must face the consequences of her invention.

Technological Mayhem

M3GAN 2.0, the darkly comedic sci-fi horror sequel, is expected to be released next summer on June 27th, although details of the plot are being kept under wraps. Alison Brie, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald, and M3GAN’s voice Jenna Davis are expected to return for the sequel. At the end of the first movie, M3GAN’s animatronic body was destroyed, but her AI programming connected to a smart device similar to Alexa in the final moments of the movie. So she will surely bring more technological mayhem to Gemma and Cady’s lives in the sequel.

‘The Black Phone 2’

Starring underrated scream king Ethan Hawke, Scott Derrickson’s The Black Phone takes place in the ’70s in a small Mid-Western town where a child kidnapper known as The Grabber (Hawke) has been taking kids from the streets. When 13-year-old Finney (Mason Thames) wakes up in a basement with only a bed and a disconnected phone, he must figure out a way to escape The Grabber’s clutches. Suddenly, he begins to receive calls on the supposedly disconnected phone, that could lead to a way out of the kidnapper’s fortress of a basement.

A Thrilling Psychological Horror

Although the film is scheduled to be released on October 17th next year, there is little known about the plot for The Black Phone 2. Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, and Jeremy Davies are set to reprise their roles, and both Scott Derrickson and Jason Blum are set to direct and produce, respectively. Since Hawke is confirmed to reprise his role, it’s safe to assume that The Grabber will wreak havoc in the suburbs once again, and perhaps Finney and Gwen (McGraw) will have to stop him once again.

‘Insidious: Chapter 6’

The Insidious franchise had its most recent installment with 2023’s Insidious: The Red Door. While the first two movies centered on the Lambert family, the third and fourth entries did not. The Red Door brought the focus back on the Lamberts, specifically Josh (Patrick Wilson) and his son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) as they try to rid themselves of The Further for the last time. The films all center around this alternate sleep dimension called The Further, a place filled with spirits and dreamwalkers. Living people can become stuck there with the spirits and the terrifying Red-Faced Demon if another living soul can’t pull them out.

A Successful Installment Necessitated Another Sequel

The Red Door ended with Josh and Dalton remembering their time in The Further when Dalton was a child and escaping once again. In a post-credit scene, the light above the red door that leads into The Further in their minds flickers on again, indicating the Lamberts aren’t done with the spirit dream realm. An August 29th release date has already been scheduled for next summer for Insidious: Chapter 6.

Like many sequels on this list, the plot of the next installment has not been revealed, although it has been confirmed that it will follow the franchise’s main storyline, and will be separate from the previously announced spinoff, Thread: An Insidious Tale, which has not been scheduled for release.

‘The Conjuring: Last Rites’

James Wan’s second major horror franchise exploded in 2013 with The Conjuring. Often still considered one of the scariest films of all time, the movie tells the story of real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, and one of their most infamous cases.

The first film took place at a farmhouse in Rhode Island in 1971 where disturbing supernatural events occurred. The second film saw the Warrens across the pond in London to help a single mother in a house plagued by more supernatural events. The third film took a route more similar to The Exorcism of Emily Rose, placing the film in a courtroom.

A Fan-Favorite Supernatural Horror Series

The Conjuring: Last Rites is currently in post-production and expected to be released on September 5th of next year. A light plot synopsis has been released, stating that the Warrens must take on one last terrifying case to confront mysterious entities. So far, only Wilson and Farmiga have been confirmed as part of the sequel’s cast. Although the Conjuring Universe as a whole has featured some less spectacular entries, the main Conjuring series remains a fan-favorite and is sure to draw horror fans to the theaters to see the Warrens take on yet another horrifying supernatural case.

‘Saw XI’

James Wan and Leigh Whannell’s surprise 2004 hit Saw inspired a franchise that has been churning out new entries for 20 years now. The first film centered on notorious serial killer John Kramer, a.k.a the Jigsaw Killer, who holds his victims in undisclosed locations and forces them to participate in gruesome games to free themselves from even more gruesome traps.

While not every film in the franchise has featured John Kramer as the mastermind behind the deadly games, all the movies have followed the same setup of having morally corrupt victims desperately try to escape inventive torture traps.

An Inventive Franchise With a Dedicated Following

Fans of Saw continue to flock to the movie theaters each time a new installment is released, whether the movies are good or not. The tenth and most recent installment grossed over $125 million worldwide, making the upcoming eleventh installment a no-brainer. Saw X takes place between Saw and Saw II, and Saw XI is supposedly supposed to take place right after the events of Saw X, which takes place only weeks after the first movie. This would likely mean that Saw XI will take place near the beginning of the second movie, although no official details have been shared.

‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’

The first Final Destination movie was released in 2000 and has spawned six sequels, including the upcoming sixth installment Final Destination: Bloodlines. The films all follow a protagonist who gets a vision of their death and therefore prevents the event that would cause their death as well as others. Since each protagonist changes Death’s design, each survivor is killed in an even more gruesome way than what Death originally planned.

An Intriguing Reimagining of the Franchise

In March 2020, it was revealed that the sixth movie would take place in the same canon as the first five movies, but would be a sort of reimagining of the franchise. According to IMDB, there is no official plot synopsis. However, series producer Craig Perry stated they had played around with the idea of having the film center around first responders. Since EMTs, firefighters, and police officers deal with death on the frontlines daily, Perry said they thought it would be interesting to have a Final Destination film center around these people and put them in a nightmare situation where they’re personally facing death.

’28 Years Later’

Directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland, 28 Days Later is widely considered one of the best zombie films of all time. Led by an excellent performance from Cillian Murphy, the movie follows a man who wakes up from a coma in a deserted London, 28 days after the zombie apocalypse started. Besides featuring zombies that are actually fast and referring to them as Infected, 28 Days Later broke the mold for zombie flicks by creating characters the audience cares about and having a strong emotional core to the story.

The Ultimate Zombie Trilogy

A solid sequel, 28 Weeks Later, was released five years later and saw the U.S. Army arrive in Great Britain to secure an area of London to allow survivors to repopulate and start again, which of course didn’t go according to plan.

The long-awaited third film, 28 Years Later, will finally be released on June 20th, 2025. Both Garland and Boyle will be back to write and direct, respectively. Murphy will also star in the film as well, increasing the anticipation for the film. Newcomers to the trilogy include Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes, and Erin Kellyman. Much to fans’ chagrin, plot details for the third installment are also being kept under wraps. Nevertheless, the film is set up to be another incredible zombie movie with more of Cillian Murphy’s superb acting.