The 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival kicks off tomorrow, running September 4–14, 2025, and brings with it a slew of buzzy new premieres and screenings. TIFF 2025 spreads its horror beyond the Midnight Madness programming section this year, including a special presentation of Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein or special restorations of repertory […]
The 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival kicks off tomorrow, running September 4–14, 2025, and brings with it a slew of buzzy new premieres and screenings.
TIFF 2025 spreads its horror beyond the Midnight Madness programming section this year, including a special presentation of Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein or special restorations of repertory titles like Nadja. Festival favorites like Dead Lover round out the lineup, which comes packed with genre-benders like The Man in My Basement and Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice. In other words, there’s plenty of room for cinematic discovery awaiting at this year’s fest.
Read on for 5 can’t miss horror screenings to catch at TIFF 2025:
Dust Bunny
Director: Bryan Fuller
A 10-year-old girl procures the services of a hit man (Mads Mikkelsen) to kill the monster under her bed in this whimsically macabre feature debut from acclaimed television showrunner Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies, Hannibal).
Mikkelsen reteaming with Fuller as a killer with a unique ethics code would be reason enough to land this on our radar, but its bedtime horror story setup further solidifies Dust Bunny as one to watch. If that’s still not enough to intrigue, Dust Bunny also stars Sigourney Weaver and David Dastmalchian.
Exit 8
Director: Genki Kawamura
A Dante-inspired spin on Kotake Create’s cult game traps Arashi singer Kazunari Ninomiya in a looping, sterile subway where one mistake resets everything.
Liminal horror ensues in Genki Kawamura’s adaptation of the cult video game. The pristine, sterile subway setting provides fertile ground for madness as a commuter gets trapped in its labythrine depths, tasked with observing for signs that something is amiss. It was recently acquired for 2026 release by Neon.
Honey Bunch
Directors: Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Dusty Mancinelli
When Diana (Grace Glowicki) wakes from a coma with fragmented memories, she and her husband (Ben Petrie) seek experimental treatments at a remote facility. As the procedures intensify, their marriage is put to the test, and Diana begins to question her husband’s true motives.
Dead Lover filmmaker Glowicki teams with the filmmakers behind intense revenge fable Violationfor a gothic psychological thriller that also stars Jason Isaacs (“The White Lotus”, Event Horizon), Kate Dickie (The Witch), India Brown (“Invasion”), and Julian Richings (Beau is Afraid, Anything for Jackson). The film was acquired by Shudder just ahead of its TIFF premiere.
Karmadonna
Director: Aleksandar Radivojević
An audacious satirical thriller about an expectant mother (Jelena Djokić) who receives a phone call from a deity that demands she obey a list of murderous instructions.
Aleksandar Radivojević, co-writer of A Serbian Film, makes his directorial debut with a violent, bloody feature that’s provocative and biting without veering too far into extreme territory. All of it centered around an unlikely protagonist faced with an unthinkable situation.
Obsession
Director: Curry Barker
When a hopeless romantic makes a wish that his long-time crush falls in love with him, a sinister enchantment ensues.
Curry Barker wrote, directed, and starred in last year’s viral found footage feature Milk & Serial. Now, the filmmaker shifts gears for a different type of freakout horror. Considering the psychological dread of Barker’s last horror film, Obsession feels primed to unleash discomforting terror with the Monkey’s Paw-type plot.
Stay tuned for Bloody Disgusting’s TIFF 2025 coverage.
