20 Recent Horror Movies WAY Better Than Expected
These new horror films all surpassed expectations - and then some.
Expectations are a funny thing - though we'd ideally go into any new movie as a total blank slate with no preconceptions whatsoever, it's near-impossible most of the time, especially in our ever-present, ever-saturated social media era.
As such we might well go into a new horror movie with low or middling expectations, only to be shocked and surprised by just how damn solid, maybe even genuinely great, the final film turned out.
And these 20 films all ended up blowing past popular expectations, in turn delivering beyond what just about anyone could've anticipated pre-release.
Whether we expected something terrible or just a solid yet unremarkable time, these films all soared far above their widely predicted quality.
The lesson here? No matter what you might think about a horror film - or really any film - before you watch it, there's always the potential for it to catch you off-guard and deliver far more than you thought possible.
As 2026's own horror slate kicks off in earnest, here's hoping the rest of the year has a ton of pleasant surprises in store...
20. Primate
The first trailer for Primate went a wee bit viral because, frankly, it looked totally effing ridiculous - a slasher movie in which the killer isn't a masked maniac but rather a rabies-infected chimpanzee.
It was difficult to have high expectations for this one given that it was co-written and directed by genre mainstay Johannes Roberts - a journeyman filmmaker best known for the underwhelming likes of both 47 Meters Down movies, The Strangers: Prey at Night, and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City.
But credit where it's due - Primate is a savagely effective blunt instrument of a horror film, a lean 89-minute exercise which delivers exactly what it promises on the tin.
The kills are brutal, the practical chimpanzee is shockingly convincing, it's well-shot, and it even has a keen sense of humour about its own absurdity. Pretty much a best-case scenario for a film like this.
As a result Primate became Johannes' best-reviewed film to date, and rightly so. Sign us up for Primate 2.