My Fab Fives of ’25

Ahh, that time of year again. Not merely the holiday season, but also the yearly “Best of” lists and awards dispensations!

When I was still writing for music magazines and websites, now would be the time we critics would be asked to drop our annual Top 10 album lists. Sometimes we’d be asked for our top three or five individual category favorites (i.e. full bands, vocalists, guitarists, bassists, keyboardists and drummers, even record labels), but most of the time, we were asked for our favorite records of each year.

There was a certain bit of pressure when you received hundreds of promotional albums, videos and books and reviewed all that you could in a year’s time. Your rep was on the line according to what you dished on your annual Top 10. There was that grave risk of being labeled a poser if you went all mainstream, but on the flipside, you earned the trust of your readers if your list was loaded with deep dive records only the truly devout supported in the underground.

I stand on all the lists I was asked to whip up in my 16 years covering music, save for 2004. I still cringe at myself anytime I launch the album or “Blood and Thunder” roars to life on Sirius XM’s Liquid Metal. That year I errantly gave the pole position best album of ‘04 to Cradle of Filth’s Nymphetamine instead of Mastodon’s rumbling maelstrom, Leviathan. I still think Dani Filth and company dropped polished black metal gold, but Leviathan remains one of the all-time greatest metal recordings in the genre’s vaunted history. I shanked it giving Leviathan number two that year. I own it.

Siggghhhhh…

Well, I’m no longer called upon to pick the best of a year’s finest albums, and to be honest, I feel so out of it when I see current writers and fans dropping a slew of bands (take your pick of genre) that I have no clue about. I get my music largely through satellite radio since I’m not deep in the business and I seldom road dog anymore. My daily commute is a mere five minutes. It’s great for gas, total bullshit for the music consumption. Seriously, it’s disconcerting. I feel naked. I inadvertently feel like that poser I never wanted to be.

Then again, who the hell cares? I’m a horror author primarily now, so the only pressure I have on me is whatever I heap upon myself. Thus, with unnecessary caveats out of the way, I offer you all the added disclaimer when coming up with the categories and picks of my for-fun “Fab Five of ‘25” that I’m not that deep dive guy I used to be. Simply because the access is no longer there. Nor is the time. I’m writing, constantly. Reading or watching shows and films with my family when I’m not writing. Working out in the gym. I do a wild balancing act, to be sure.

Thus, what you see here is valid only to what I’ve been able to make the time for and pull into my radar. This is not an authentic Best-of listing of books, records, comics, films and t.v. shows. I ground out a lot with these categories, but I also shamefully missed a ton of stuff. In truth, with today’s expansive audile and visual streaming platforms, there is just too fragging much to stay on top of it all. Ditto for books and comics, which pains me to say as a writer vying for an audience as much as my brothers and sisters of the word.

So, enough of the self-flagellation. Let’s have at it with my Fab Fives of ‘25!

Books:

Now, I galloped my way through Joe Hill’s newest novel, King Sorrow specifically for this category, since the hype was massive and when it was gifted me last week in time for this favorites list, I got right on it. Keeping in mind I still have Clay McLeod Chapman’s Wake Up and Open Your Eyes in my TBR pile and Stephen King’s latest, Never Flinch on its way for Christmas from my dear friend Paulette (she’s gifted me every King book for Christmas since all the way back in 1983 beginning with Pet Semetary), this list is sorely remiss. Plus, I have my buddy T.D. Severin’s acclaimed medical thriller, Deadly Vision to knock out along with Richard and W.H. Chizmar’s expanded reissue of Widow’s Point. Patting myself on the back consolingly, I did get a lot of books knocked out this year, and here’s what I loved most:

Godzilla: The First 70 Years – Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski
The End of the World as We Know It – edited by Christopher Golden and Brian Keene
The Rack II – edited by Tom Deady
King Sorrow – Joe Hill
Thrift Store Puzzles – John Boden

Comic Books:

With recent price hikes and a forthcoming relocation to our new home, I’ve had to get somewhat stingy with my comic book pickups lately. It’s been a blast yakking about comics for my “Great Fraggin’ Life” newsletters, thus I keep searching for new titles to try and hopping back aboard existing properties which get sparkly lifeblood. I could easily flood this list alone with the horror comic anthologies, but let me simply give props to Creepshow, Hello Darkness and the EC/Oni Press reboots Epitaphs of the Abyss, Catacomb of Torment, Blood Type, Shiver SuspenStories, Cruel Kingdom, Cruel Universe and Outlaw Showdown. Horror comics in general are coming quite close to taking over the genre altogether. James Tynion IV alone is thriving as a horror comic scribe and 2025 was another gold standard year for him with W0rldtr33, Something is Killing the Children, The Deviant and one of my Fab Five picks for comics.

This has also been a banner year for Godzilla in comics as I find a comic starring King Green nearly every week in my pull box. When you have three different publishers (IDW, Marvel and DC) hammering out simultaneous titles, I mean, SKREEEEEONK!!! I’m gonna cut to the chase and give top ‘zilla honors to Van Jensen and Kelsey Ramsay’s Godzilla: Heist from IDW. Also stellar this year is DC Comics’ Absolute line. At first, I sneered at this initiative as a direct response rip on Marvel’s Ultimate line, which I dropped this year, except for Ultimate Black Panther, and that’s about to come to the finish line. The Absolute alterverse is for real, kids, and Kelly Thompson and Scott Snyder wrote what I consider the “absolute” triumphs of the year.

Absolute Wonder Woman
Absolute Batman
Exquisite Corpses
F.M.L.
Star Trek: Red Shirts

Albums:

Here is where I’ll ditch the spiel, since I feel like there’s an easy hundred albums from differing genres I missed out on this year. So I’ll merely drop my favorite new records of 2025. Two of which are soundtracks/film scores. I will say the only drama in this section came with my begrudgingly having to shoehorn the new Testament album, Para Bellum out of the running for Fab Five. This is a band which has enjoyed a far superior second career to a venerated first half. Testament Mark Two is one of the mightiest heritage metal acts out there. My top pick, that was a total no-brainer. The Deftones surpassed my expectations, and I’m an uber-fan. Private Music is their most sublime body of work ever, an incredible refinement of aggression and sensuousness. For me, Deftones remain one of the G.O.A.T.s of metal music, any generation. This is yet another legacy statement for the band. Perhaps the legacy statement.

Deftones – Private Music
Spirit World – Helldorado
Various Artists – Sinners soundtrack
Nine Inch Nails – Tron: Ares score
Orbit Culture – Death Above Life

Movies:

I got to many films this year and it’s been a pleasure having my kid with me for nearly all of them. It was a joy taking him to see the reissue of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. As his favorite in the entire series, he’d unfortunately been born two years after its original run in 2005. It was my honor to give him the cinematic experience and the pleasure on his face, man, that’s what you live for as a parent, especially once they approach adulthood. Likewise, the 4K reissue of Shin: Godzilla was a total blast, no matter how many times I’ve watched my DVD of it (and twice before on the anime streaming platform Crunchyroll). The theater was a-rumbling for that one night only event, as it was for the new Superman film, which was superb. Especially Nicholas Hoult, who served us a newly iconic Lex Luthor and Edi Gathegi, who stole the show as Mister Terrific. We saw a few clunkers, but most of our movie excursions were fun, including Ballerina and Guillermo del Toro’s brilliant reimagining of Frankenstein.

Del Toro truly deserves to land in my Fab Five films, and I mulled over it to the point of exasperation, but the films which made the cut are just that damned good, masterpieces in their own right. As a publisher told me when passing on one of my submissions, the competition was just that fierce and a 9.5 effort was beaten out by 10s. 10-rated films that were genuine events.

Sinners
The Long Walk
Weapons
Fantastic Four: First Steps
Bring Her Back

T.V. Shows:

Here is where I feel utterly lost when it comes to keeping up with all that’s current and fashionably hip. It’s just too goddamn much and we have five streaming platforms on top of cable. TJ and I watch a lot of Midsomer Murders mystery reruns, paranormal shows, historical and ancient civilization documentaries and I turned her on to James A. Janesse’s riotous kill counting YouTube channel, Dead Meat. Those are just for starters. I am forever working on Shameless (I’m at season 5) and Breaking Bad (season 3) and for Cobra Kai’s entire run, I’ve had to strongarm everyone out of the living room to blast that sucker. Twice. Cobra Kai ended on a nifty note at the beginning of 2025, even if the theatrical Karate Kid: Legends was entertaining enough, but a shortcutting, over-with-too-fast cheat. Cobra Kai remains one of my drugs. I’m always spinning Zach Robinson and Leo Birenberg’s masterful genre bending scores.

I push TJ into trying a lot of the new streaming shows out there and we’ve had a number become recent addictions like Andor, Shogun, The Last of Us and Reacher, which were gangbusters in 2025. I was hooked by The White Lotus, but TJ was not, and instead we fell into what became our summer into fall project. If our tube was ruled by one show this year, it’s Dexter. As I have been selected to appear on a livestream panel in the new year focusing on the beloved serial murder series, we binged the entire Dexter canon from Original Sin through the eight-season main arc to this year’s mind-blowing Resurrection. Now that we’ve completed our Dex journey (I’d originally watched Seasons 1 to 4 of the main run before nixing our Showtime subscription years ago), my son is begging us to hop on to the similarly unnerving television adaptation of Caroline Kepnes’ You series. Future agenda, kid. Promise.

So here are my picks for all the television we binged this year, and I wish I could add the totally sick and stupendous animated gem, Predator: Killer of Killers. It’s a standalone movie, alas, but one of the goriest blasts of shit-kicking fun out there. TJ and I had a scream geeking out over this one with Billy Chizmar at this year’s Frightreads.

Dexter: Resurrection
Love, Death + Robots Season 4
Welcome to Derry
Alien: Earth Season 1
Eyes of Wakanda

I’m exhausted just thinking about all I’ve taken down in media this year. Being a glutton for punishment, I’m counting down the months into 2026 for Blade Runner: 2099. My life will go on complete standstill when each episode of that one runs next year. Don’t even get me talking about Blade Runner 2049, my second favorite film ever. I think I’m listed out for now.

—Ray Van Horn, Jr.