Welcome back to the fourth annual Scare Value Awards. Essentially, our version of a 2025 Horror Movie Awards. Today we will award some more traditional awards. We’ll crown Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Director and name the Best Picture of 2025.
We will also unveil which classic movie will join Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Psycho in this year’s class of the Scare Value Hall of Fame. Only the greatest, most important or most influential movies in horror history will be a part of this exclusive club.
You can check out Part 1 of our awards here. We crowned the Best Final Girl, Best Killer, Best Twist, Best Gore Effects and Best Kill. It’s been another great year for horror…let’s hand out some more awards.
2025 Scare Value Awards
Best Screenplay
Previous winners in this always competitive category include Ted Geoghegan’s Brooklyn 45, The Menu written by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy and The Coffee Table by Caye Casas and Chris Borobia. Five fresh scripts are set to do battle and join them. The nominees for Best Screenplay are…
Alex Garland – 28 Years Later
Drew Hancock – Companion
Ryan Coogler – Sinners
Chris Stuckmann – Shelby Oaks
Zach Cregger – Weapons
Alex Garland’s script for 28 Years Later examined the meaning of death in a world that was already dead. It opts for a quiet elegance that you wouldn’t expect from a sequel to 28 Days Later. Companion‘s screenplay mines the final girl trope for everything it is worth. Creating a character whose journey is as entertaining to watch as it is impactful. Ryan Coogler’s first project based on an original idea blew audiences away. His period piece/love letter to blues music/vampire story seamlessly blend together every idea he had.
Shelby Oaks brilliantly fuses together several film concepts to tell one cohesive story. From mockumentary to found footage to standard narrative…writer Chris Stuckmann knew how to employ every one of them. Weapons uncharacteristic design lets us connect to characters before we understand their place within the story. It even hides what kind of story it is…until it’s ready to send things fully over the top. Zach Cregger’s script is a magic trick…a fitting choice for a movie about a witch.
Each of these screenplays paves the way for their film’s ultimate success. Whether it’s the clever designs of Weapons and Shelby Oaks, the thoughtful souls of 28 Days Later and Sinners or the pure entertainment of the twisty Companion. Any one of the five would be a worthy winner. One screenplay stood out for how far its design elevated the material.
The Scary Goes To…
Zach Cregger – Weapons
Best Director
Jordan Peele (Nope), The Adams Family (Where the Devil Roams) and Robert Eggers (Nosferatu) are the previous winners of this award. Another five directors vie for a spot alongside them this year. The nominees for Best Director are…
Guillermo del Toro – Frankenstein
Ben Leonberg – Good Boy
Steven Soderbergh – Presence
Ryan Coogler – Sinners
Zach Cregger – Weapons
Frankenstein was the dream project for acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro. He was sure to deliver a lavish production…and he didn’t disappoint. Ben Leonberg spent years filming his own, untrained, dog as the lead in a unique haunted house story. In a way, every shot he gets is a breakthrough. Steven Soderbergh dipped his toes into the horror genre, and the result was as interesting as you’d expect. His style choices make Presence what it is. Sinners balances multiple concepts while also looking like a billion dollars. A showstopping number in the middle of the festivities shows off exactly how high Ryan Coogler’s talents can take him. Zach Cregger’s follow up to Barbarian was a highly anticipated one. Weapons is as confident a production as any filmmaker has turned in for years.
The award for Best Director tends to go towards filmmakers who manage to get their unfiltered visions on screen. That’s certainly the case with each of these nominees. Whether telling unique ghost stories like Presence and Good Boy, reanimating a classic like Frankenstein or presenting original takes on well-worn subgenres like Sinners and Weapons…great direction was all over in 2025. But the most strikingly impressive scenes this year in film, horror or otherwise, belonged to one visionary.
The Scary Goes To…
Ryan Coogler – Sinners
Best Actor
Neal Ward (Feed Me) took home the first ever Best Actor Scare Value Award. LaKeith Stanfield (Haunted Mansion) and David Dastmalchian (Late Night with the Devil) joined him in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Who will be the fourth recipient? The nominees for Best Actor are…
Jai Courney – Dangerous Animals
Dave Franco – Together
Oscar Isaac – Frankenstein
Michael B. Jordan – Sinners
John Malkovich – Opus
Jai Courtney is mesmerizing in Dangerous Animals. His villain, Tucker, is so compelling that you may find yourself rooting in the wrong direction. Together may be a two-hander starring a real-life couple…but Dave Franco emerges from the horror as the one you couldn’t take your eyes off of. His physical and emotional descent allows for a showier part…and Franco nails it at every turn. Oscar Isaac brings the mad scientist to life with a coldness to match his wild eyes. He’s not afraid to make you hold Victor Frankenstein in contempt…and pushes you in that direction through his performance.
Michael B. Jordan plays two roles in Sinners. He brings double the complexity and emotions to the dual roles…creating two unique characters whose primary care is each other. Opus may not be the best movie of the year…you won’t find it nominated in any other categories…but it has one great card up its sleeve. John Malkovich’s wild performance as a reclusive pop-icon is a memorable one. His dance sequence alone would earn him this nomination.
Six great performances from five talented actors. In the end…there was one twisted role that kept drawing you in. Even if it meant getting fed to a shark.
The Scary Goes To…
Jai Courney – Dangerous Animals
Best Actress
Demi Moore and Mia Goth ran away with the Scare Value Award for Best Actress in 2022 and 2023 for The Substance and Pearl, respectively. Sophie Wilde took home the 2023 prize for Talk to Me in a much closer contest. It’s time to see who the 2025 winner will be. The nominees for Best Actress are…
Landry Bender – Self-Help
Sally Hawkins – Bring Her Back
Blu Hunt – The Dead Thing
Amy Madigan – Weapons
Sophie Thatcher – Companion
Landry Bender was a revelation in Self-Help. She creates a clever, nuanced character who is able to stay ahead of a very dangerous situation. Hopefully this is just the beginning of her genre work. Sally Hawkins is no stranger to great performances. She brings a danger and unsettling nature to Bring Her Back. And that’s before she goes off the rails. The Dead Thing only works because of Blu Hunt’s committed performance. She makes you care about every strange thing that’s happening…walking us right into her toxic, supernatural, relationship status.
Aunt Gladys was, perhaps, the most talked about movie character in 2025. She gets all of her power from Amy Madigan’s unhinged performance and rapid mood swings. Whether playing sickly old woman or cheerful clown…Madigan turns Weapons entire world on its head. Companion has one of the best scripts of 2025…but it would go to waste without Sophie Thatcher’s tremendous performance. Funny, tragic and ultimately triumphant…Thatcher takes Iris, and the audience, on a full journey.
With all respect to the other nominees…for the second year in a row Best Actress was the easiest category to pick from. Like Demi Moore before her…one veteran actress was given the opportunity to deliver career best work. She exceeded even those lofty expectations.
The Scary Goes To…
Amy Madigan – Weapons
Best Picture
The most coveted prize of any film award show is Best Picture. Eskil Vogt’s The Innocents was our first ever winner. Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One took it home in 2023. Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance was last year’s winner. Which of the five worthy nominees will join them? The nominees for Best Picture are…
Companion isn’t exactly a horror movie by the strictest definition. But a key tenet of horror DNA is what drives its very existence. Without one of the best final girl stories ever put on film…Companion wouldn’t have any of its power. Dangerous Animals gains so much from Jai Courtney’s magnetic performance that it sails all the way into the top five horror movies of 2025. He’s that good. Dangerous Animals is proof that a strong villain, strong final girl…and an interesting (no pun intended) hook is enough to create one of the best horror experiences of the year. Guillermo del Toro has dreamed about making Frankenstein for a long time. He didn’t waste the opportunity. del Toro delivers arguably the best straight adaptation of Shelley’s classic novel. He tweaks some things for the better…and produces a memorable experience.
Sinners and Weapons might not seem like they have that much in common at first glance. One is a period piece about vampires and the blues. The other a contemporary fairy tale with a unique layout and one mesmerizing witch. But both represent major steps forward for their writer/director. Both look at horror through the lens of epic storytelling. And both pulled away to mark themselves as the two best horror movies of the year. This debate has been Sinners vs. Weapons from the start.
Only one can take home the top prize. Two great ensemble casts working with two great scripts. Two fully realized visions told the way only their talented filmmakers could tell them. It’s as close as any Best Picture award has been. But the award was won by the movie that built a house just to burn it down in the most impressive scene of the year…and build something completely different in the ashes.
The Scary Goes To…
Sinners
2025 Scare Value Hall of Fame Inductee
Each year two films will be selected to join the Scare Value Hall of Fame. These movies are the best of the best in horror history. They can be important of influential…or just a hell of a lot of fun. This year’s first inductee was unveiled in Part 1 of the 2025 Sare Value Awards yesterday. Now it’s time to find out what movie will join Halloween, Night of the Living Dead, Bride of Frankenstein, The Exorcist, Godzilla, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Psycho in the Scare Value Hall of Fame.
Jaws
There are still people that will try to tell you that Jaws isn’t a horror movie. It’s about a killer shark…features some of the most effective jump scares in history…and basically invented the opening kill scene. What they’re trying to tell you is that Jaws is too good to be just a horror movie. People who think like that are fools and should be ignored at every opportunity. It’s a horror movie. It just happens to have changed the summer blockbuster game and stands as one of the most perfect films ever made. It’s influenced so many movies…and yet nothing can quite recapture the magic the Stephen Spielberg and his broken mechanical shark found in those waters. A sure-fire Hall of Fame bet.
Thank you for checking out part 2 of the 2025 Scare Value Awards.
See you in 2026.
