The Fantastic Pavilion presents a weekly recap with the most relevant news about the world of genre cinema.
News
Spooky season is finally here! And to kick off the horror month, the streaming platform Shudder is debuting the anthology V/H/S/Halloween (2025) on October 3. This “collection of Halloween-themed videotapes” was directed by Bryan M. Ferguson, Casper Kelly, Micheline Pitt-Norman, R.H. Norman, Alex Ross Perry, Paco Plaza, and Anna Zlokovic. Watch the latest V/H/S/Halloween trailer.
Arturo and Roy Ambriz’s stop-motion animation film I Am Frankelda (Soy Frankelda, 2025) is heading to Mexican cinemas on October 23 (trailer in Spanish). I Am Frankelda can count Guillermo del Toro among its supporters: a couple of months ago, for example, he shared on Bluesky a bunch of rave reviews after the flick screened at Fantasia Fest – where it was ultimately chosen by the audience as the second best animated feature –.
Synopsis: “In 19th-century Mexico, Frankelda is a gifted writer whose dark tales are ignored and dismissed. Forced to suppress her voice, she refuses to give up, even as many try to silence her. But when she is thrust into her subconscious, the very monsters she created come to life. Guided by Herneval, a tormented prince trapped between dreams and nightmares, she must restore balance between fiction and reality before both realms collapse. Meanwhile, the sinister writer Procustes and his conspirators plot to seize control. As Frankelda and Herneval grow closer, their bond becomes both a strength and a curse. To rewrite their fate, she must confront a love that defies existence and reclaim her power as a storyteller, before dark forces consume her imagination and reveal horrors beyond her creation.”
James Cameron’s space opera Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) has gotten a brand-new trailer, ahead of its theatrical opening on December 19. It’s also worth noting that the previous entry in the franchise, Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), is having a one-week only re-release in theaters on October 3.
IFC and Shudder unveiled the teaser poster for Corin Hardy’s horror picture Whistle (2025), which had its world premiere on September 25 as the closing night film of Fantastic Fest. Whistle, starring Dafne Keen, premieres in U.S. cinemas on February 6.
Synopsis: “A misfit group of unwitting high school students stumble upon a cursed object, an ancient Aztec Death Whistle. They discover that blowing the whistle and the terrifying sound it emits will summon their future deaths to hunt them down. As the body count rises, the friends investigate the origins of the deadly artifact in a desperate effort to stop the horrifying chain of events that they have set in motion.”
Warner Bros. released the official teaser for The Bride! (2026), Maggie Gyllenhaal’s take on The Bride of Frankenstein (1935). The movie – set to hit the big screen on March 6 – follows “a lonely Frankenstein (Christian Bale)” who “travels to 1930s Chicago to ask groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening) to create a companion for him. The two revive a murdered young woman and The Bride (Jessie Buckley) is born. What ensues is beyond what either of them imagined: Murder! Possession! A wild and radical cultural movement! And outlaw lovers in a wild and combustible romance!”
The supernatural horror flick What Happened to Dorothy Bell? (2024) uses the found footage and screenlife formats, as we can see in its trailer. It opens in select U.S. theaters on October 3; it’ll be available on VOD from October 21.
Synopsis: “After uncovering disturbing revelations from her early childhood involving her late grandmother, Dorothy Bell, Ozzie Gray sets out to document her investigation into these events. Seeking answers, she visits the library that Dorothy died in to try to communicate with her spirit. As her attempts become increasingly desperate, Ozzie unwittingly awakens something far more malevolent than she could have ever imagined.”
A new Star Wars feature film is coming to cinemas on May 22: Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026), a continuation of the series that debuted in 2019. You can check out here its first trailer.
Synopsis: “The evil Empire has fallen, and Imperial warlords remain scattered throughout the galaxy. As the fledgling New Republic works to protect everything the Rebellion fought for, they have enlisted the help of legendary Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and his young apprentice Grogu.”