Charli XCX Might Be the Biggest Horror Movie Fan Ever

Charli XCX, from her promotional image for her Alamo Drafthouse collaboration for "The Moment," with posters from "28 Years Later," "Halloween," "The Monkey" and "Heart Eyes" in the background.IMDb

Forget her mockumentary: Charli XCX herself is the moment. When Charli started hammering nails in the coffin of Brat Summer, she was also cementing her place as pop’s No. 1 cinephile. During Coachella 2025, Charli XCX shouted out David Cronenberg and Ari Aster, among other directors. And in that moment, we should have known that Charli XCX knows ball when it comes to horror movies.

I did a little grave-digging on her Letterboxd account @itscharlibb and uncovered the undead throughout her film diary. Here are all the horror movies, thrillers, and downright freaky films Charli XCX watched last year — only a fraction of what the Brat Summer queen watched overall — and where to find them.

January

• Lost Highway, dir. David Lynch (Criterion Channel)
• Vampyr, dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer (Philo)
• The Witches, dir. Nicolas Roeg (Rent at home)
• Cat People, dir. Paul Schrader (Rent at home)
• Opening Night, dir. John Cassavetes (HBO Max)

David Lynch will always be on the brain this time of year. The surrealist horror movie icon was born on Jan. 20, 1946 and died on Jan. 16, 2025. Seems that, like many of us, Charli was paying homage last year by getting at least one David Lynch movie under her belt.

Ahead of Charli XCX’s film The Moment, directed by Aidan Zamiri and hitting theaters on Jan. 30, she curated a film series for Alamo Drafthouse. Some of the films are music mockumentaries, such as This is Spinal Tap and Josie and the Pussycats, but the list also includes Opening Night, which follows a Broadway star suffering a nervous breakdown.

It makes you wonder: Will there be a tinge of this psychological drama in The Moment?

February

• Sanctuary, dir. Zachary Wigon (Hulu)
• Companion, dir. Drew Hancock (HBO Max)
• Creep, dir. Drew Hancock (Netflix)
• Naked, dir. Mike Leigh (Criterion Channel)
• Presence, dir. Steven Soderbergh (Hulu)

There’s much to enjoy about Steven Soderbergh’s Presence, a horror movie which Dread Central associate editor Chad Collins calls “a technically stunning haunted house.”

Still, Sanctuary was the standout for Charli XCX in between festival sets in Australia last year. Her main takeaway: Margaret Qualley is “SO GOOD. she’s like, on FIRE.”

Watch the trailer here

March

• The Invitation, dir. Karyn Kusama (Tubi, Peacock)
• Dr. Caligari, dir. Stephen Sayadian (Rent at home)

In March, Charli watched a 2015 film from Karyn Kusama, of Jennifer’s Body renown, because icons support icons, obviously. Mike Flanagan also co-signs The Invitation, calling it a “quiet, deeply unsettling urban nightmare.”

April

• The Shrouds, dir. David Cronenberg (Criterion Channel)
• Final Destination, dir. James Wong (Rent at home)

Listen when a queen speaks: “cronenberg summer just like i said!”, Charli wrote of The Shrouds.

May

• The Plague, dir. Charlie Polinger (Still in select theaters)
• Die My Love, dir. Lynne Ramsay (Mubi) 
• Final Destination 2, dir. David R. Ellis (Rent at home)
• Final Destination 3, dir. James Wong (Rent at home) 
• Final Destination 4, dir. David R. Ellis (Rent at home) 
• The Iron Rose, dir. Jean Rollin (Rent at home) 
• Final Destination 5, dir. Steven Quale (Rent at home) 
• The Appointment, dir. Lindsey C. Vickers (Roku)
• The Lake, dir. Lindsey C. Vickers (Amazon Prime
• The Happening, dir. M. Night Shyamalan (Rent at home)
• The Woman in Question, dir. Anthony Asquith (Criterion Channel)
• The Village, dir. M. Night Shyamalan (Rent at home)

The best part of being a rich and famous cinephile is getting to see so many movies early — if the privilege of seeing so many movies, period. 

Back in May, Charli said she had to just sit in the car for a minute after seeing Charlie Polinger’s The Plague: “the transition from charming boyhood to total fucking chaos left me shook,” she wrote.

She also called Jennifer Lawrence in Die My Love “fucking electrifying” and called M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village “fabulous.”

June

• Signs, dir. M. Night Shyamalan (Rent at home)
• 28 Years Later, dir. Danny Boyle (Netflix)
• Lux Aeterna, dir. Gaspar Noé (Tubi)
• Final Destination: Bloodlines, dir. Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein (HBO Max) 

Charli continued her classic horror movie franchise marathon by logging more M. Night Shyamalan flicks, Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later, and her last Final Destination installment, which she said she watched before taking the stage at Glastonbury.

July

• Drop, dir. Christopher Landon (Prime)
• Shallow Grave, dir. Danny Boyle (Rent at home)
• Red Eye, dir. Wes Craven (Pluto)
• Bits, dir. Lilliya Reid (Mubi)
• Alps, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos (Rent at home)
• Heart Eyes, dir. Josh Ruben (Netflix)
• Let the Right One In, dir. Tomas Alfredson (Tubi)
• M3GAN 2.0, dir. Gerard Johnstone (Peacock)
• Scream 3, dir. Wes Craven (Pluto)
• Perfect Blue, dir. Satoshi Kon (HBO Max)
• Scream 4, dir. Wes Craven (Rent at home)
• The Birds, dir. Alfred Hitchcock (Rent at home)

July was a mix of movies old and new. Between Red Eye and the Scream franchise, Charli XCX hits the nail on the head: “ain’t no jump like a wes craven jump!!”

August

• Cherry Falls, dir. Geoffrey Wright (Shudder)
• Paranoid Park, dir. Gus Van Sant (Kanopy)
• I Know What You Did Last Summer, dir. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Netflix)
• Baby Invasion, dir. Harmony Korine (Rent at home)
• The Watchers, dir. Ishana Night Shyamalan (HBO Max)
• Weapons, dir. Zach Cregger (HBO Max)
• Irreversible, dir. Gaspar Noé (Mubi)
• Lurker, dir. Alex Russell (Mubi)
• Suicide Club, dir. Sion Sono (Rent at home)
• The Ugly Stepsister, dir. Emilie Blichfeldt (Hulu)
• The Monkey, dir. Osgood Perkins (Hulu)
• The Visit, dir. M. Night Shyamalan (Rent at home)

Charli logged summer 2025’s obvious horror movie favorites, such as Weapons and I Know What You Did Last Summer, where Charli shouted out her homegirl Gabriette. 

Charli also logged deep cuts like Geoffrey Wright’s Cherry Falls, which she watched on her birthday.

Watch the trailer here

This prompted HBD comments, trips down memory lane by horror movie lovers of a certain age, and one fan begging Charli to use her clout to get the director’s cut of Cherry Falls out of the vault.

September

• Disturbia, dir. D. J. Caruso (Paramount+)

A very Y2K homage to Hitchcock’s Rear Window may actually be the best horror movie pregame to spooky season.

October

• The Canyons, dir. Paul Schrader (Roku, Mubi)
• Fascination, dir. Jean Rollins (Shudder, Criterion Channel) 
• The Brood, dir. David Cronenberg (Pluto, Plex, HBO Max)
• Teeth, dir. Mitchell Lichtenstein (Tubi)
• The Shout, dir. Jerzy Skolimowski (Tubi, PLEX)
• The Omen, dir. Jerzy Skolimowski (Tubi)
• The Wicker Man, dir. Robin Hardy (Tubi, Pluto)
• Children of the Corn, dir. Fritz Kiersch (Tubi, Roku)
• Halloween, dir. John Carpenter (Plex)
• Friday the 13th, dir. Sean Cunningham (Tubi)
• Sisters, dir. Brian De Palma (Tubi, Plex)
• Alucarda, dir. Juan López Moctezuma (Rent at home)
• Shivers, dir. David Cronenberg (Amazon Prime)
• Frankenstein, dir. Guillermo del Toro (Netflix)
• Sorority Row, dir. Stewart Hendler (Tubi, Plex)

If Brat Summer is forever, then of course Charli’s Cronenberg Summer slipped into October. The Brood gave way to Shivers, which Charli said is one of her favorite films from the Canadian director: “phallic, gruesome, deranged, forbidden and… funny (or was that just me?).”

Watch the trailer here

She also wrote an entry for Alucarda, noting the “fab hair” and costumes, and calling it “sexy as hell.”

November

• Bram Stoker’s Dracula, dir. Francis Ford Coppola (Netflix)
• Simon Killer, dir. Stewart Hendler (Tubi, Plex)
• The Devil All the Time, dir. Antonio Campos (Netflix)
• The Keeper, dir. Michael Mann (Rent at home)
• Bugonia, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos (Peacock)
• Afterschool, dir. Antonio Campos (Rent at home)
• L’Avventura, dir. Michelangelo Antonioni (HBO Max)
• HIM, dir. Justin Tipping (Peacock)
• Beauty and the Beast, dir. Jean Cocteau (Tubi, Plex)

Charli’s November horror movie watches ranged from continents, decades, and shades of the occult or supernatural, but the main film she logged was about a good old-fashioned murder. She called L’avventura “dazzling, spectacular and haunting” and the film’s score “rightfully ominous as fuck.”

December

• No Other Choice, dir. Park Chan-wook (In theaters)

Even before screenings expanded outside the festival circuit, No Other Choice was making headlines: The thriller’s distributors were asking people to let their job complaints rip on an anonymous forum in honor of the movie.

Now, is a horror movie about a man who hates his job on the nose for Charli, whose film The Moment seems to be hinting at work-related exhaustion and insanity? Only time will tell. 

Watch the trailer here

Something tells me The Moment isn’t explicitly horror, but I expect plenty of stomach-turning, absurd moments. And I think people in the Venn Diagram of horror movie fan and pop diva devotee are getting closer to what we really want to see: Charli XCX as a final girl.

Alexander Skarsgård, of True Blood and Infinity Pool fame, is in The Moment and clearly already in Charli XCX’s orbit. The pop star was also allegedly in a Faces of Death remake that has yet to see the light of day, but good news: according to Variety, Charli has already signed on as lead actress and producer of Audition director Takashi Miike’s next film.

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