Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed unleashes antediluvian malevolence, a chilling horror thriller, arriving Oct 2025 on top streamers

This blood-curdling otherworldly shockfest from cinematographer / cinematic mind Andrew Chiaramonte, unleashing an age-old dread when foreigners become instruments in a satanic ritual. Dropping October 2, 2025, on Amazon’s streaming platform, the YouTube platform, Google Play, Apple iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango platform.

L.A., CA (August 8th, 2025) – ready yourself for *Young & Cursed*, a gripping journey of continuance and forgotten curse that will revamp the horror genre this spooky time. Visualized by rising new wave horror talent Andrew Chiaramonte, this pressure-packed and shadowy fearfest follows five strangers who arise confined in a far-off dwelling under the malevolent power of Kyra, a tormented girl haunted by a millennia-old biblical demon. Be prepared to be enthralled by a cinematic event that unites primitive horror with arcane tradition, hitting on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Demonic control has been a well-established tradition in film. In *Young & Cursed*, that pattern is reversed when the entities no longer descend outside the characters, but rather inside their minds. This embodies the darkest side of the cast. The result is a bone-chilling mind game where the suspense becomes a constant confrontation between moral forces.


In a isolated landscape, five teens find themselves sealed under the possessive aura and spiritual invasion of a shadowy being. As the characters becomes helpless to withstand her rule, cut off and stalked by creatures beyond comprehension, they are driven to deal with their inner demons while the countdown unforgivingly edges forward toward their end.


In *Young & Cursed*, paranoia rises and friendships splinter, pressuring each member to contemplate their character and the idea of volition itself. The cost climb with every tick, delivering a nightmarish journey that merges supernatural terror with human vulnerability.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my narrative plan was to evoke ancestral fear, an presence born of forgotten ages, influencing mental cracks, and questioning a being that challenges autonomy when we lose control.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Living Kyra involved tapping into something more primal than sorrow. She is oblivious until the spirit seizes her, and that shift is haunting because it is so unshielded.”

Streaming Info

*Young & Cursed* will be distributed for on-demand beginning from October 2, 2025, on Amazon’s platform, Google’s video hub, Google’s store, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home—making sure customers in all regions can face this horror showcase.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just broadcast a new second trailer for *Young & Cursed*, live to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a continuation to its original clip, which has seen over 100K plays.


In addition to its first availability, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has made public that *Young & Cursed* will also be taken worldwide, exporting the fear to a global viewership.


Witness this soul-jarring exploration of dread. Join *Young & Cursed* this October the 2nd to acknowledge these terrifying truths about the human condition.


For featurettes, director cuts, and news from those who lived it, follow @YoungAndCursedFilm across your favorite networks and visit the movie’s homepage.





U.S. horror’s sea change: 2025 U.S. rollouts blends old-world possession, indie terrors, paired with IP aftershocks

Spanning survivor-centric dread suffused with legendary theology to IP renewals paired with surgical indie voices, 2025 looks like the most dimensioned as well as calculated campaign year of the last decade.

It is loaded, and also intentionally sequenced. the big studios plant stakes across the year with known properties, as SVOD players flood the fall with emerging auteurs plus legend-coded dread. On the festival side, independent banners is drafting behind the tailwinds of a banner 2024 fest year. Given Halloween is the centerpiece, the year beyond October is carefully apportioned. A dense September through October runway is now a rite of passage, distinctly in 2025, rollouts stretch into January, spring, and mid-summer. Viewers are primed, studios are calculated, and 2025 might go down as horror’s most intentional year yet.

Studio and Mini-Major Strategies: High-craft horror returns

Studios are not on the sidelines. If 2024 set the base, 2025 scales the plan.

Universal’s slate fires the first shot with a confident swing: a modernized Wolf Man, set not in some misty 19th-century European village, instead in a current-day frame. Led by Leigh Whannell and toplined by Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this iteration anchors the lycanthropy in a domestic breakdown. The arc is bodily and domestic, about marriage, caregiving, and fragile humanity. targeting mid January, it aligns with turning the winter slack into a premium lane, not a dumping lane.

Spring brings Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher adaptation reframed as lean dread. Guided by Eli Craig anchored by Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it moves like barn born dread with razor satire. Under the makeup, it dissects provincial panic, age gap tensions, and mob verdicts. Advance murmurs say it draws blood.

By late summer, Warner’s slate drops the final chapter of its most reliable horror franchise: The Conjuring: Last Rites. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson reprise Ed and Lorraine Warren, the piece hints at a heartfelt wrap as it treats a notorious case. Even if the pattern is recognizable, Michael Chaves appears to favor a elegiac, inward tone here. It arrives early September, buying space before the October wave.

Then comes The Black Phone 2. Planned for early summer, the October reposition reads assertive. Derrickson re teams, and so do the signature elements that made the first installment a sleeper hit: retro dread, trauma as text, along with eerie supernatural rules. This time, the stakes are raised, by digging further into the “grabber” mythos and grief’s generational echo.

Capping the big ticket run is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a picture that draws on name power. The next entry deepens the tale, builds out the animatronic fear crew, while aiming for teen viewers and thirty something game loyalists. It opens in December, buttoning the final window.

Platform Originals: Tight funds, wide impact

While cinemas swing on series strength, platforms are greenlighting boldly, and the needle moves.

A high ambition play arrives with Weapons, a cold file multi story chiller interlacing three eras linked by a mass vanishing. Directed by Zach Cregger fronted by Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the project unites horror with dramatic charge. Debuting in theaters late summer then streaming in fall, it should ignite online discourse and post viewing breakdowns, much like Barbarian.

On the minimalist axis arrives Together, a close quarters body horror study fronted by Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Trapped in a far off rental as a holiday fractures, the movie follows love and envy and self denial into corporeal breakdown. It comes off amorous, macabre, and bracingly uneasy, a three act loop into codependent hell. Even without a formal platform date, it is virtually assured for fall.

Then there is Sinners, a 1930s vintage vampire folk yarn featuring Michael B. Jordan. Framed in sepia richness with biblical metaphor, it mirrors There Will Be Blood meeting Let the Right One In. The work dissects American religious trauma using supernatural allegory. First test passes flag it as highly discussable at debut.

Further platform indies wait for their cue: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper each taps grief, vanishing, and identity, treating horror as metaphor more than spectacle.

The Possession Runs Deep: Young & Cursed

Posting October 2 across the big platforms, Young & Cursed positions itself as a rare hybrid, intimate in scope and mythic in reach. Shaped and helmed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the work follows five strangers rousing in a remote timber cabin, under Kyra’s control, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. As dusk gives way to night, Kyra’s grip intensifies, a violating force plundering fears, vulnerabilities, and regrets.

This fear is psychologically driven, pulsing with primal myth. Ducking the exorcism default of Catholic ritual and Latin text, this one bores into something older, something darker. Lilith bypasses ritual, she awakens from trauma, repression, and human fragility. Making possession internal threads Young & Cursed into the current of intimate character studies in genre skin.

Streaming platforms like Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home have positioned the film as a Halloween counterweight to theatrical sequels and monster revivals. It is a clever angle. No heavy handed lore. No continuity burden. Bare psychological dread, trim and tense, designed for binge and breath patterns. Amid spectacle, Young & Cursed can distinguish itself by whispering, then howling.

Festival Born, Buyer Ready

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF function as launch beds for the coming year’s horror. They feel like launchpads now, not just showcases.

Fantastic Fest posts a muscular horror lineup this year. Primate bows as a tropical body horror opener with Cronenberg and Herzog echoes. Whistle, a folkloric revenge piece in Aztec lore, likely shuts the fest with heat.

Midnight slots like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You earn noise for execution beyond quirky names. That title, with A24 backing, satirizes toxic fandom during a convention lockdown and is set to pop.

SXSW staged Clown in a Cornfield and lined up microbudget haunts for talks. Sundance is on track for grief tuned elevated horror, and Tribeca’s genre set plays urban, social, and surreal.

The festival game increasingly values branding over mere discovery. A Fantastic Fest or TIFF badge is phase one marketing, not a coda.

Legacy Brands: Follow Ups, Restarts, and Reframes

The legacy slate is stronger, and more deliberate, than in recent years.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, due in July, revives the ’90s horror franchise with a new lead and a throwback tone. Versus earlier beats, it favors camp and prom night melodrama. Expect tiaras, corn syrup blood, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 arrives late June, with a plan to deepen its techno horror mythos via new characters and AI terrors. The initial entry’s meme life and streaming legs push Universal to scale up.

Also on deck is The Long Walk, from an early, punishing Stephen King work, led by Francis Lawrence, it shows as a grim dystopian parable set in survival horror, a youth walk ending only in death. With the right pitch, it could function as The Hunger Games for grown horror audiences.

Other reboots and sequels, Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda, are scattered across the calendar, most waiting for strategic windows or last minute acquisitions.

Dials to Watch

Mythic horror goes mainstream
From Lilith in Young & Cursed across to Aztec curses in Whistle, slates mine ancient texts and symbols. This is less nostalgia, more reclamation of pre Christian archetypes. Horror surpasses shocks, it recalls evil’s antiquity.

Body horror comes roaring back
Titles such as Together, Weapons, and Keeper return focus to the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation symbolize heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streaming Originals Grow Teeth
Disposable horror filler days on platforms have passed. Streamers back real writing, real filmmakers, and genuine marketing. Pieces like Weapons and Sinners receive event status, not feed stock.

Festival Hype Equals Market Leverage
Festival status acts as leverage for exhibition, placement, and publicity. In 2025, a horror film lacking festival plan may fade.

Theatrical lanes are trust falls
Theatrical is reserved for titles believed to overperform or sow sequels. Other titles pivot PVOD or hybrid. Horror is not shrinking in theaters, but it is becoming more curated.

Near Term Outlook: Fall pileup, winter curveball

Stacking Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons in September and October yields saturation. Indies such as Bone Lake and Keeper will tussle for space. Keep an eye on possible slips into early 2026 or platform flips.

December centers on Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, but a final weeks surprise stream could still hit. Since big films lean mythic, a final monster or exorcism play can claim space.

Horror’s 2025 outcome will be decided not by one title, but by how its variety connects with splintered audiences. The mission is not a new Get Out, it is sustained horror beyond tickets.



The upcoming chiller year to come: continuations, Originals, And A Crowded Calendar aimed at frights

Dek The arriving scare calendar stacks from the jump with a January glut, then extends through the warm months, and pushing into the holidays, balancing marquee clout, creative pitches, and data-minded counterprogramming. Studios and streamers are doubling down on lean spends, exclusive theatrical windows first, and platform-native promos that elevate these offerings into water-cooler talk.

Horror’s position as 2026 begins

The horror marketplace has grown into the dependable release in annual schedules, a segment that can surge when it breaks through and still limit the drag when it misses. After the 2023 year showed top brass that responsibly budgeted pictures can own audience talk, the following year sustained momentum with high-profile filmmaker pieces and under-the-radar smashes. The tailwind moved into 2025, where re-entries and festival-grade titles showed there is capacity for diverse approaches, from returning installments to filmmaker-driven originals that perform internationally. The aggregate for 2026 is a lineup that reads highly synchronized across the industry, with intentional bunching, a pairing of legacy names and new concepts, and a recommitted priority on exclusive windows that fuel later windows on premium video on demand and streaming.

Distribution heads claim the horror lane now slots in as a wildcard on the grid. The genre can launch on nearly any frame, create a clear pitch for ad units and reels, and lead with viewers that appear on early shows and continue through the second frame if the release delivers. After a strike-impacted pipeline, the 2026 layout indicates comfort in that dynamic. The year begins with a front-loaded January schedule, then leans on spring and early summer for genre counterpoints, while leaving room for a fall corridor that carries into holiday-adjacent weekends and into post-Halloween. The map also includes the tightening integration of arthouse labels and digital platforms that can platform and widen, create conversation, and broaden at the optimal moment.

A second macro trend is legacy care across interlocking continuities and classic IP. Studios are not just rolling another installment. They are setting up brand continuity with a specialness, whether that is a art treatment that broadcasts a fresh attitude or a casting pivot that connects a new installment to a original cycle. At the parallel to that, the visionaries behind the most buzzed-about originals are celebrating in-camera technique, physical gags and grounded locations. That interplay delivers the 2026 slate a healthy mix of recognition and surprise, which is how the genre sells abroad.

Studios and mini-majors: what the big players are doing

Paramount fires first with two spotlight plays that bracket the tone map. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with original architect Kevin Williamson in the director position and Neve Campbell back at the focus, angling it as both a handoff and a heritage-centered character-focused installment. Filming is in progress in Atlanta, and the directional approach announces a throwback-friendly treatment without replaying the last two entries’ core arc for the Carpenter sisters. Plan for a rollout fueled by recognizable motifs, intro reveals, and a tiered teaser plan timed to late fall. Distribution is cinema-first via Paramount.

Paramount also reawakens a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are back together, with the Wayans brothers involved creatively for the first time since the early 2000s, a headline the campaign will lean on. As a summer counter-slot, this one will hunt large awareness through share-ready beats, with the horror spoof format fitting quick turns to whatever rules genre chatter that spring.

Universal has three discrete strategies. SOULM8TE hits January 9, 2026, a technology-driven offshoot from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The story engine is efficient, grief-rooted, and big-hook: a grieving man purchases an machine companion that evolves into a deadly partner. The date slots it at the front of a packed window, with the Universal machine likely to revisit creepy live activations and brief clips that melds longing and terror.

On May 8, 2026, the studio positions an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely rumored as the feature developed under development titles in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The dated slate currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which preserves a public title to become an headline beat closer to the initial promo. The timing secures a slot in early May while larger tentpoles own different weekends.

Completing the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film takes October 23, 2026, a slot he has commanded before. His projects are sold as filmmaker events, with a mystery-first teaser and a second beat that convey vibe without spoilers the concept. The late-month date offers Universal room to maximize pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then lean on the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, joins with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček commands, with Souheila Yacoub leading. The franchise has proven that a gritty, in-camera leaning style can feel elevated on a controlled budget. Look for a viscera-heavy summer horror surge that pushes global traction, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most international territories.

Sony’s horror bench is particularly deep. The studio mounts two brand plays in the back half. An untitled Insidious film bows August 21, 2026, maintaining a proven supernatural brand in play while the spin-off branch moves forward. The studio has moved dates on this title before, but the current plan anchors it in late summer, where Insidious has done well historically.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil re-enters in what the studio is positioning as a ground-zero restart for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a strategic part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a clearer mandate to serve both players and newcomers. The fall slot creates runway for Sony to build assets around setting detail, and monster aesthetics, elements that can boost premium booking interest and fan events.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, plants a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film maintains Eggers’ run of period horror driven by immersive craft and language, this time driven by werewolf stories. Focus’s team has already claimed the date for a holiday release, a signal of faith in the auteur as a specialty play that can build and expand if early reception is glowing.

Platform lanes and windowing

Platform strategies for 2026 run on tested paths. Universal’s slate shift to copyright after a cinema-first plus PVOD, a pacing that fortifies both opening-weekend urgency and subscriber lifts in the post-theatrical. Prime Video continues to mix library titles with global acquisitions and brief theater runs when the data recommends it. Max and Hulu optimize their lanes in deep cuts, using editorial spots, seasonal hubs, and staff picks to lengthen the tail on 2026 genre cume. Netflix stays opportunistic about original films and festival deals, finalizing horror entries closer to launch and coalescing around launches with short runway campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, leverages a laddered of selective theatrical runs and accelerated platforming that drives paid trials from buzz. That will play for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before turning to genre pipelines in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ treats carefully horror on a discrete basis. The platform has shown appetite to buy select projects with acclaimed directors or headline-cast packages, then give them a art-house footprint in partnership with exhibitors to meet awards-qualifying thresholds or to build credibility before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still benefits from the 20th Century Studios slate, a important input for sustained usage when the genre conversation swells.

Specialized lanes

Cineverse is curating a 2026 lane with two name-brand moves. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The sell is straightforward: the same haunting, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a genre cult touchstone, elevated for modern sound and cinematography. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a late-year slot, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. The distributor has signaled a cinema-first plan for Legacy, an healthy marker for fans of the nasty series and for exhibitors seeking darker fare in the autumn stretch.

Focus will cultivate the auteur lane with Werwulf, marshalling the project through the autumn circuit if the cut is ready, then pressing the year-end corridor to go wider. That positioning has paid off for auteur horror with crossover potential. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not released many dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines typically coalesce after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A fair assumption is a run of late-summer and fall platformers that can widen if reception warrants. Do not be surprised by an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that launches at Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work as partners, using select theatrical to spark the evangelism that fuels their membership.

Franchise entries versus originals

By proportion, the 2026 slate leans toward the recognizable IP side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all tap marquee value. The trade-off, as ever, is audience fatigue. The workable fix is to frame each entry as a new angle. Paramount is foregrounding character and continuity in Scream 7, Sony is positioning a from-scratch reboot for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is centering a French-flavored turn from a buzzed-about director. Those choices carry weight when the audience has so many options and social sentiment shifts fast.

Originals and director-first projects keep oxygen in the system. Jordan Peele’s October film will be presented as a brand unto itself. Sam Raimi’s Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, casts Rachel McAdams in a stranded survival premise with the filmmaker’s mischievous menace. SOULM8TE offers a precise, unnerving tech hook. Werwulf roots in era detail and an unyielding tone. Even when the title is not based on familiar IP, the bundle is assuring enough to turn curiosity into pre-sales and Thursday-night turnout.

Past-three-year patterns announce the strategy. In 2023, a exclusive cinema model that honored streaming windows did not hamper a simultaneous release test from winning when the brand was robust. In 2024, director-craft horror over-performed in big-format auditoriums. In 2025, a resuscitation of a beloved infection saga made clear that global horror franchises can still feel reinvigorated when they reorient and scale the storytelling. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which proceeds January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The linked-chapter plan, with chapters lensed back-to-back, builds a path for marketing to relate entries through protagonists and motifs and to keep assets alive without long gaps.

Behind-the-camera trends

The filmmaking conversations behind the 2026 entries forecast a continued turn toward practical, location-rooted craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not resemble any recent iteration of the property, a stance that aligns with the physical-effects bias he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film finished principal and is aimed at its April 17, 2026 date. Look for a campaign that spotlights atmosphere and fear rather than CG roller-coasters, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership making room for cost precision.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has outlined Werwulf as the most severe project he has tackled, which tracks with a feudal backdrop and authentic period speech, a combination that can make for layered sound design and a icy, primal tone on the big screen. Focus will likely seed this aesthetic in long-lead press and department features before rolling out a atmospheric tease that prioritizes vibe over plot, a move that has played for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is geared for visceral gnarl, a signature of the series that lands overseas in red-band trailers and generates shareable scream clips from early screenings. Scream 7 promises a meta pivot that re-anchors on the original star. Resident Evil will thrive or struggle on creature craft and set design, which align with convention activations and timed asset drops. Insidious tends to be a mix showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the big-screen case feel necessary. Look for trailers that spotlight hyper-detailed sound, deep-bass stingers, and hush beats that shine in top rooms.

Calendar cadence

January is packed. Universal’s SOULM8TE opens January 9, 2026, then Sony returns a week later with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple on January 16. Return to Silent Hill follows on January 23, a tonal palate cleanser amid larger brand plays. The month winds down with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival thriller from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is serious, but the spread of tones ensures lanes for each, and the five-week structure creates breathing room for each if word of mouth holds.

Q1 into Q2 load in summer. Paramount’s Scream 7 debuts February 27 with heritage buzz. In April, New Line’s The Mummy re-centers a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once played to genre counterprogramming and now nurtures big openers. The untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 steps into summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer clarifies the lanes. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is light and four-quadrant, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 delivers no-compromise intensity. The counterprogramming logic is coherent. The spoof can pop next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest caters to older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have rotated off PLF.

Shoulder season into fall leans series. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously worked. Resident Evil steps in after September 18, a pre-Halloween slot that still steps into Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event holds October 23 and will seize cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely driven by a minimalist tease strategy and limited information drops that lean on concept not plot.

Prestige-horror at year-end. Werwulf on December 25 is a marker that genre can live at Christmas when packaged as prestige-leaning horror. The distributor has done this before, measured platforming, then capitalizing on critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to keep the film in the conversation into January. If the film resonates with critics, the studio can add screens in the first week of 2027 while enjoying holiday hold and holiday card usage.

Film-by-film briefs

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting rolling out as production continues. Logline: Sidney returns to re-engage a new Ghostface while the narrative re-keys to the original film’s essence. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: roots-first with a today edge.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A sorrowing man’s AI companion turns into something perilously amorous. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming finished for an early-year bow. Positioning: tech shocker with heart.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (Sony, January 16, 2026)
Director: Nia DaCosta. Writer: Alex Garland. Top cast: Cillian Murphy, Jack O’Connell, and additional ensemble tied to a new antagonist faction. Logline: The second chapter in a trilogy enlarges the frame beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult hardens in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Twin-shot with the first film. Positioning: revived prestige horror saga’s second leg.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man travels back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to collide with a mutable reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed production with U.S. distribution. Positioning: gothic-game adaptation.

Send Help (20th Century Studios, January 30, 2026)
Director: Sam Raimi. Top cast: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Dennis Haysbert, Chris Pang. Logline: After a plane crash, an employee and her difficult boss work to survive on a desolate island as the control dynamic upends and mistrust rises. Rating: TBA. Production: Done. Positioning: celebrity-led survival horror from a legend.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles TBA in official materials. Logline: A contemporary retelling that returns the monster to fright, founded on Cronin’s practical craft and encroaching dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Principal wrapped. Positioning: iconic monster return with auteur mark.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A intimate haunting story that interrogates the fright of a child’s unreliable POV. Rating: TBA. Production: in the can. Positioning: studio-crafted and marquee-led ghost thriller.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers rejoining on the creative side. Logline: {A satirical comeback that skewers today’s horror trends and true-crime obsessions. Rating: undetermined. Production: fall 2025 production window. Positioning: broad-lane summer entry.

Evil Dead Burn (Warner Bros. domestic, July 24, 2026)
Director: Sébastien Vaniček. Top cast: Souheila Yacoub, with ensemble additions. Logline: A new infestation of Deadites spreads, with an global twist in tone and setting. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: principal photography in New Zealand. Positioning: hard-R franchise continuation built for premium large format.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: to be revealed later. Top cast: TBD. Logline: The Further ripples again, with a new family anchored to old terrors. Rating: undetermined. Production: on track for summer lensing before late-summer rollout. Positioning: dependable ghost-franchise slot that suits the brand.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: pending public reveal. Top cast: undisclosed. Logline: A clean reboot designed to reframe the franchise from the ground up, with an center of gravity in true survival horror over action-heavy spectacle. Rating: pending. Production: in active development with set date. Positioning: IP-accurate revival with mainstream runway.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: undisclosed. Logline: strategically hidden. Rating: to be announced. Production: in progress. Positioning: director-fronted event with teaser rhythm.

Werwulf (Focus Features, December 25, 2026)
Director: Robert Eggers. Top cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, with other regulars expected. Logline: A medieval werewolf story built on period language and primal menace. Rating: to be announced. Production: prepping toward a December 25 launch. Positioning: prestige horror for the holidays, with potential awards-season craft appeal.

Wolf Creek: Legacy (Cineverse, TBA 2026)
Director: Greg McLean. Top cast: John Jarratt expected to return as Mick Taylor. Logline: The Australian outback slasher returns, with a big-screen run before platforming. Status: date shifting, fall likely.

Why 2026, why now

Three execution-level forces define this lineup. First, production that hiccuped or re-slotted in 2024 required schedule breathing room. Horror can occupy those holes swiftly because scripts often use fewer locations, fewer large-scale VFX set pieces, and tighter schedules. Second, studios have become more orderly about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently out-earned straight-to-streaming releases. Third, social conversation converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will activate repeatable beats from test screenings, precision scare clips calibrated to Thursday preview timing, and experiential pop-ups that serve as influencer content. It is a repeatable playbook because it performs.

Calendar math also matters. Early corridors for family and capes are leaner in 2026, making room for genre entries that can take a weekend outright or stand as the older-leaning counter. January is the prime example. Four different flavors of horror will stack across five weekends, which allows chatter to build title by title. Summer provides the other window. The spoof can draft behind animation and action in early summer, then the hard-R entry can benefit from a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Money matters, ratings, and surprise hits

Budgets remain in the optimal band. Most of the films above will come in under $40–$50 million, with many far below. That allows for broad premium screen use without needing superhero-level volume to break even. The most likely R ratings include Evil Dead Burn, Werwulf, and possibly Resident Evil depending on the final cut. Scream 7, Insidious, and SOULM8TE can plausibly land PG-13 to maximize reach, though each franchise has toggled between ratings in the past. Specialty plays tend to lean R to preserve tone and intensity.

The sleeper-hit hunt continues in Q1, where lower and mid-budget genre can own weekends with minimal competition, and again in late summer, where horror often becomes the conversation when tentpoles tire. The 2026 slate is set up to harvest those lanes. January could easily deliver the first left-field winner of the year, and August into September gives Sony an avenue to hold screens with back-to-back supernatural IP while still leaving room for an indie breakout.

Internationally, brand recognition helps Resident Evil, Evil Dead, and Scream travel, while 28 Years Later benefits from a British setting and returning talent. Werwulf and The Mummy will lean on auteur and classic-monster awareness abroad. Streamers will amplify the tail, with copyright pickups boosting Universal’s slate and Shudder driving evangelism for Cineverse titles. Count on a vigorous PVOD arc overall, since horror fans have shown a willingness to pay for convenience after an opening weekend, especially when word of mouth is strong.

From viewer POV, the year

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers beat and breadth. January is a sampler, February delivers a legacy slasher, April revives a Universal monster, May and June provide a back-to-back supernatural punch for date nights and group outings, July gets blood-slick, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a somber, literate nightmare. That is how you preserve buzz while driving admissions without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can stack through the year, using earlier releases to trailhead the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors value the spacing. Horror delivers regular Thursday spikes, disciplined footprints, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three see here titles that can earn PLF placement, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing visual texture, sound, and visuals that benefit from larger formats. The calendar also leaves room for specialty platformers to open in New York and Los Angeles, build reviews, and slide into national conversation as the fall progresses.

A Promising 2026

Frames adjust. Ratings change. Casts rotate. But the spine of 2026 horror is established. There is brand gravity where needed, inventive vision where it helps, and a calendar that shows studios sense the cadence of scares. The awards and festival pipeline into 2027 will come into focus once the fall festivals lock, and it would not be surprising to see at least one closing-window arthouse pickup join the party. For now, the job is simple, craft precise trailers, keep the curtain closed, and let the fear sell the seats.