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Credit: Focus Features
When it comes to upcoming horror movies hitting theaters this month, I’ll be honest, I’ve been pretty underwhelmed by the choices, especially if you consider the only big release from the genre is The Black Phone 2. So many great horror movies have already come out pre-Halloween among the 2025 movie releases. However, I just got to see Yorgos Lanthimos’ new movie with Emma Stone Bugonia, and I can’t recommend making it your Halloween movie outing.
Why I Think You Should Add Bugonia To Your Spooky Season Watchlist
If you’ve followed Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos ongoing movie partnership, you probably expect something offkilter out of Bugonia already. However, I think there’s a fine line when it comes to “weird” movies for me, because I don’t want to be transported so much into a wild plotline that it loses me. I’m happy to report that Bugonia is absolutely the right kind of weird. While it’s more of a dark comedy than a horror movie, I totally want to revisit it for Halloween, and suggest fellow movie fans opt for the same.
I don’t want to get too into the weeds about the movie because it was fun for me to sort of go into blind, but I do want to pitch you on why I liked it so much. The basic premise of Bugonia is that Emma Stone plays the CEO of a major pharmaceutical company who gets kidnapped by one of the low-ranking employees of her business because he suspects her to be an alien who is causing the everyday calamity on Earth. Jesse Plemons beautifully plays the conspiracy theorist who has abducted her and made sure her head is shaved (yes, Stone shaved her head for real) so she can’t contact her race.
Obviously there’s a certain amount of ridiculousness to the plot as is, but I was really impressed about how Bugonia balances being this grounded movie about the current state of humanity with providing plenty of comedic moments. It’s one of those WTF movies, as I expected, but I was particularly impressed by how it’s a lot more accessible to audiences than other Lanthimos movies, like let’s say the director’s last movie, Kinds Of Kindness.
And for the horror fans out there. It’s definitely horrifying enough to satisfy your wants to be haunted during the spooky season. It was just as effective and actually felt like a thriller a lot more than I expected it might.
I Saw Bugonia At Focus Features’ Inaugural Fan-Centric Film Festival
I saw Bugonia when CinemaBlend was invited to attend the first-ever FocusFest at the Universal Backlot in Los Angeles, California. The all-day event allowed cinephiles to feel like they were in a film festival with retrospective viewings of The Big Lebowski and Promising Young Woman, along with advanced screenings for Bugonia and Obsession. As a huge movie fan myself, I was impressed with what the new festival had to offer, which included complementary themed food, refreshments, activations and a custom bowling shirt a la The Big Lebowski.
Focus Features is behind a lot of modern classics, like Dazed And Confused, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Lost In Translation, Brokeback Mountain and Pride & Prejudice, so I can definitely see how FocusFest could continue to happen yearly in Los Angeles and draw the city in by showing more of its beloved titles alongside their new releases. It was so much fun to see this movie alongside other movie fans for the first time, and early! You can check out Bugonia in theaters on October 31 (or during its limited release the week before).
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