Your Daily Horror Digest for July 25, 2025

Welcome back! Today’s movie is one I’m a little conflicted about recommending. I enjoyed most of it, but the parts I didn’t care for happen in very important places. That, plus news and some great daily trivia!

---

Movie of the Day

The movie of the day today is The Banished. It’s a film that grabbed me right away, but loosened its grip considerably as it passed its halfway point.

The movie opens in media res with a woman, scared and alone in a forest, screaming for someone named Mr. Green. Through a non-linear narrative, we find out that the woman in the woods is Grace Jennings, and she’s searching for her estranged brother after the recent death of their father. Her investigation begins in the hometown that she left behind years ago, and clues about missing people in the area lead her into the wilderness we see her lost in at the beginning of the film. As her search continues, she finds herself getting close to a darkness that she should have stayed far away from.

I became engrossed in this movie quickly thanks to the editing and the way the story is told. If told in a linear way, Grace’s journey would be rather simple and somewhat formulaic. But by using a non-linear structure, the film emphasizes Grace’s scattered state of mind as she deals with her father’s death, her brother’s disappearance, and her traumatic family history. The intentionally orchestrated uncertainty created by telling the story out of order leads to impactful story beats being revealed at times that increase their efficacy. Also, the flashes of images interspersed through the arthouse editing style add an extra layer of intrigue. It works well. For about half of the movie.

At a certain point, the non-linear portion of the film meets with the opening scene of Grace alone in the woods and shouting for Mr. Green. From that point on, the story is told in chronological order. It becomes more of a straightforward survival-horror style of film, with some folk horror sprinkled in towards the ending. It mostly works, but it isn’t as engaging as the earlier parts of the movie. I still enjoyed it though, all the way up until the finale.

---

In the News

• J.T. Mollner, writer and director of Strange Darling, will write and direct a film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. (The Hollywood Reporter)
• Cinespace Studios in Toronto has renamed four of its sound stages in honor of Guillermo del Toro. The filmmaker has made many of his movies at Cinespace Studios including The Shape of Water (2017) and the upcoming Frankenstein (2025). (The Hollywood Reporter)
• Jamie Lee Curtis confirmed that she is set to play Jessica Fletcher in a Murder, She Wrote reboot. The role was famously played originally by Angela Lansbury. (Deadline)
• GKIDS will re-release Shin Godzilla in North American theaters with a new 4K remaster on August 14th, 2025. (Bloody Disgusting)

• A screenlife adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds is scheduled to premiere on Prime Video on July 30th. Ice Cube and Eva Longoria star. (Deadline)
• Faly Rakotohavana, Ava Jean, Sarah Bock, Daniel Di Tomasso, and Jack Cutmore-Scott have been cast as regulars in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer legacy sequel series. They join the previously announced new Slayer in Ryan Kiera Armstrong, and the returning Sarah Michelle Gellar. (Deadline)
• Isabela Merced (The Last of Us) and Noah Jupe (A Quiet Place) will star in the thriller Psyche. (Deadline)
• Karen Allen (Marion in the Indiana Jones movies) joins the cast of Rob Savage’s Other Mommy. (Deadline)

---

Birthdays

Filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour was born on July 25th, 1976. Her feature-film writing and directing debut was the critically acclaimed A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014). She went on to write and direct the cannibal love story The Bad Batch (2016), and since then she’s directed episodes of TV series including Castle Rock (2018), The Twilight Zone (2019-2020), and Cabinet of Curiosities (2022). She also wrote and directed Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon (2021). One of her next films will be an adaptation of the Joe Hill comic book series Basketful of Heads.

Also born on this day, in 1985, is Shantel VanSanten. Shantel played Lori in The Final Destination (2009). She was one of the stars of the film who almost made it to the ending credits alive. She also plays Becca, the estranged wife of Billy Butcher, in The Boys, and she starred in the horror movie Something Wicked in 2014.

---

Events on This Day

Maximum Overdrive was released in theaters on July 25th, 1986. It was the first and last movie that Stephen King directed. It was based on his short story “Trucks,” and in a contemporary interview from 1986 King says he chose to direct the movie himself because he was “curious.” King has repeatedly said over the years that he did a terrible job as a director, and that he was drinking heavily and doing drugs at that time in his life. Despite Stephen King not liking Maximum Overdrive, I love it. You can stream it for free on Tubi.

The Japanese gore movie Mermaid in a Manhole was released on video on July 25, 1988 (this is according to various sources, though the exact date is difficult to confirm). It is part of the Guinea Pig series of extreme horror movies released in Japan between 1985 and 1988 (with a best-of video released later in 1991). The story of Mermaid in a Manhole depicts an artist who paints a picture of a mermaid he keeps in his bathtub. However, the mermaid is dying of an illness that causes horrific boils to grow all over her body. It’s grotesque, but in an artful way.

---

Thanks as always for reading! Today should be a decently big release day for new horror movies, so be sure to check out our announcement article later.