Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed awakens primeval malevolence, a spine tingling feature, launching October 2025 across leading streamers

A unnerving supernatural shockfest from creator / helmer Andrew Chiaramonte, liberating an long-buried dread when guests become tokens in a dark contest. Launching this October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon’s streaming platform, Google’s YouTube, Google’s digital store, Apple iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango platform.

Los Angeles, CA (August 8th, 2025) – get set for *Young & Cursed*, a harrowing tale of staying alive and age-old darkness that will resculpt the fear genre this harvest season. Created by rising creative mind Andrew Chiaramonte, this nerve-racking and shadowy suspense flick follows five teens who find themselves caught in a isolated dwelling under the dark rule of Kyra, a tormented girl possessed by a millennia-old biblical force. Anticipate to be drawn in by a audio-visual spectacle that melds bodily fright with ancestral stories, streaming on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Unholy possession has been a well-established narrative in the movies. In *Young & Cursed*, that pattern is challenged when the forces no longer come outside the characters, but rather from their psyche. This depicts the haunting facet of the cast. The result is a edge-of-seat cognitive warzone where the drama becomes a merciless face-off between good and evil.


In a isolated forest, five friends find themselves caught under the sinister grip and domination of a elusive figure. As the youths becomes powerless to deny her influence, severed and pursued by beings unnamable, they are compelled to reckon with their inner demons while the timeline harrowingly ticks onward toward their destruction.


In *Young & Cursed*, tension rises and links dissolve, urging each character to contemplate their being and the structure of self-determination itself. The tension intensify with every fleeting time, delivering a chilling narrative that intertwines occult fear with inner turmoil.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my vision was to uncover elemental fright, an threat beyond time, operating within emotional fractures, and highlighting a force that redefines identity when robbed of choice.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Playing Kyra asked for exploring something beyond human emotion. She is unseeing until the spirit seizes her, and that change is harrowing because it is so raw.”

Viewing Options

*Young & Cursed* will be brought for viewing beginning October 2, 2025, on Prime Video, YouTube, Google’s store, Apple iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango on-demand—giving watchers no matter where they are can dive into this haunted release.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just published a new official preview for *Young & Cursed*, available to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a companion to its original promo, which has earned over 100,000 views.


In addition to its US/Canada launch, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has stated that *Young & Cursed* will also be streamed globally, delivering the story to a global viewership.


Experience this bone-rattling journey into fear. Enter *Young & Cursed* this October 2 to dive into these ghostly lessons about the human condition.


For previews, extra content, and announcements from inside the story, follow @YACMovie across social media and visit the official digital haunt.





U.S. horror’s sea change: calendar year 2025 domestic schedule fuses myth-forward possession, independent shockers, stacked beside legacy-brand quakes

Beginning with fight-to-live nightmare stories suffused with ancient scripture and extending to brand-name continuations alongside acutely observed indies, 2025 stands to become horror’s most layered together with carefully orchestrated year in the past ten years.

The 2025 horror calendar is more than crowded, it is calculated. studio powerhouses stabilize the year via recognizable brands, simultaneously SVOD players pack the fall with discovery plays set against old-world menace. In the indie lane, horror’s indie wing is drafting behind the backdraft from a top-tier 2024 festival cycle. As Halloween remains the genre’s crown jewel, the surrounding weeks are charted with intent. A fat September–October lane is customary now, notably this year, horror is also claiming January, spring, and even mid-summer. Fans are ravenous, studios are disciplined, hence 2025 could be the most carefully plotted year to date.

Studio Roadmap and Mini-Major Pulse: The Return of Prestige Fear

Studios are not on the sidelines. If 2024 framed the blueprint, 2025 accelerates.

Universal’s pipeline sets the tone with a bold swing: a reinterpreted Wolf Man, set not in some misty 19th-century European village, inside today’s landscape. From director Leigh Whannell featuring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this chapter binds the lycanthropy to domestic unraveling. The metamorphosis extends past flesh, into marriage, parenthood, and human hurt. dated for mid January, it supports the push to convert the winter lull using prestige plays, not leftovers.

Spring sees the arrival of Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher adaptation reframed as lean dread. Guided by Eli Craig including Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it feels like crimson splashed Midwest menace with winked critique. Behind the greasepaint sits a critique of small town suspicion, generational fracture, and vigilante justice. Early circuit chatter says it has bite.

By late summer, Warner Bros. Pictures drops the final chapter of its steadiest horror franchise: The Conjuring: Last Rites. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson again portray Ed and Lorraine Warren, the chapter points to emotional capstone while addressing a headline case. Even if the pattern is recognizable, Chaves reportedly keys a sorrowing, contemplative note in the capstone. It goes early September, easing the path before October flood.

The Black Phone 2 steps in next. Originally slated for early summer, its move to an October release suggests confidence. Derrickson re boards, and the core ingredients of the sleeper original are back: throwback unease, trauma driven plotting, with spooky supernatural reasoning. This time the stakes climb, through a fuller probe of the “grabber” lore and inherited grief.

Closing the prime list is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a title that can sell without classic marketing. The follow up digs further into canon, broadens the animatronic terror cast, with a bullseye on teens and thirty something nostalgics. It posts in December, holding the cold season’s end.

Streamer Exclusives: Small budgets, sharp fangs

As theatricals lean on brands and continuations, platforms are wagering boldly, and results are there.

A high ambition play arrives with Weapons, a cold file multi story chiller lacing three time frames tied to a mass vanishing. Steered by Zach Cregger and starring Josh Brolin with Julia Garner, the title blends fear with dramatic gravity. Rolling out in theaters late summer before fall platform release, it looks primed to seed post watch analysis akin to Barbarian.

At the smaller scale sits Together, a tight space body horror vignette fronted by Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Set in a remote rental home during a getaway gone wrong, the film explores what happens when love, envy, and self hatred merge into physical decay. It lands sweet then sick then searing, a three step spin into codependent hell. Even without a formal platform date, it is a lock for fall streaming.

On the docket is Sinners, a 1930s period vampire folk story with Michael B. Jordan. Captured with warm sepia and heavy biblical metaphor, it recalls There Will Be Blood spliced to Let the Right One In. The piece examines American religious trauma via supernatural allegory. First test passes flag it as highly discussable at debut.

More streamer bound indies stand by in the shadows: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper all work grief and disappearance and identity, choosing meaning over noise.

The Possession Runs Deep: Young & Cursed

Hitting October 2 on the platforms, Young & Cursed arrives as a rare marriage, contained in staging yet mythic in effect. Shaped and helmed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the story trails five strangers who come to in a far off forest cabin, ruled by Kyra, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. As the night settles, her power spikes, an infiltrating force leveraging fears, breaks, and sorrow.

The threat is psychological first, wired with primal myth. Swerving the standard exorcism angle of Catholic rite and Latin word, this one burrows toward something older, something darker. Lilith ignores rite, she wells up from trauma, quietude, and human weakness. Possession that blooms from within, not without, inverts the trope and places Young & Cursed within a growing horror trend, intimate character studies wrapped in genre.

Platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home position the film as a Halloween counter to sequel heavy theatricals and monster revivals. It looks like sharp programming. No overstuffed canon. No continuity burden. Sheer psychological unease, compact and taut, calibrated to digital binge beats. In a year crowded with spectacle, Young & Cursed may stand out by going quiet, then screaming.

Festival Origins, Market Outcomes

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF act as proving grounds for the next waves. They serve less as display cases, more as runways.

Fantastic Fest’s horror bench is deep this year. Primate, a tropical body horror opening night title, is drawing comparisons to both Cronenberg and Herzog. Whistle, a folkloric revenge thriller drenched in Aztec lore, is set to close the fest hot.

Midnight entries such as If I Had Legs I’d Kick You draw buzz for more than titles, namely execution. The A24 fueled satire of toxic fandom in a con lockdown has breakout energy.

SXSW staged Clown in a Cornfield and lined up microbudget haunts for talks. Sundance should deliver grief heavy elevated horror again, with Tribeca’s genre menu reading urban, social, and surreal.

Festivals in 2025 double as branding machines. A Fantastic Fest or TIFF badge is phase one marketing, not a coda.

Series Horror: Next Chapters, New Starts, New Shapes

The legacy lineup looks stronger and more deliberate than prior years.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, set for July, reanimates the 90s series with a new lead and nostalgia 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, and aims to widen its techno horror mythology with new characters and AI generated terrors. That first run’s social and SVOD traction lets Universal push further.

On the slate sits The Long Walk, from one of Stephen King’s stark early titles, Directed by Francis Lawrence, it reads as a brutal dystopian allegory inside survival horror, a walk till you drop competition for kids with no winners. With clear targeting, it could become The Hunger Games for horror grown ups.

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.

Trends to Watch

Mythic horror goes mainstream
Young & Cursed with Lilith and Whistle with Aztec curses both signal ancient texts and symbols. This trend avoids nostalgia, reclaiming pre Christian archetypes. Horror is not just scaring us, it is reminding us that evil is older than we are.

Body horror returns
Work like Together, Weapons, and Keeper revisit the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation map to heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Originals on platforms bite harder
Low grade filler is no longer the platform default. Platforms show up with budgets for scripts, directors, and campaigns. Films like Weapons and Sinners are treated as events, not content.

Festival momentum becomes leverage
Laurels move markets, opening release doors and coverage arcs. Without a festival strategy in 2025, a horror film risks vanishing.

Theaters are a trust fall
Studios save theaters for outperform prospects or IP farmers. The balance slides PVOD or hybrid. Horror continues in theaters, in narrower curated lanes.

Near Term Outlook: Autumn crowding, winter surprise

With Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons all stacked across September and October, the fall is downright saturated. Indies such as Bone Lake and Keeper must fight for oxygen. Some may slide to early 2026 or switch platform lanes.

December is anchored by Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, but do not rule out a surprise streamer drop in the final weeks. With mythic energy high, a late creature or exorcism entry could pop.

What matters is slate breadth meeting fractured audiences, not one crown jewel. The brief is not the next Get Out, it is horror with afterlife beyond receipts.



The new scare slate: brand plays, new stories, plus A packed Calendar calibrated for jolts

Dek: The upcoming terror slate loads up front with a January traffic jam, after that unfolds through summer, and pushing into the winter holidays, mixing brand equity, creative pitches, and shrewd counterprogramming. The major players are committing to cost discipline, theatrical leads, and buzz-forward plans that shape these releases into cross-demo moments.

How the genre looks for 2026

The genre has proven to be the sturdy option in release plans, a space that can spike when it hits and still cushion the drawdown when it underperforms. After the 2023 year demonstrated to strategy teams that lean-budget scare machines can own the national conversation, the following year maintained heat with festival-darling auteurs and word-of-mouth wins. The carry moved into the 2025 frame, where returns and arthouse crossovers demonstrated there is a market for diverse approaches, from ongoing IP entries to standalone ideas that scale internationally. The upshot for 2026 is a programming that looks unusually coordinated across the market, with planned clusters, a harmony of established brands and new concepts, and a sharpened emphasis on exhibition windows that feed downstream value on premium home window and home platforms.

Distribution heads claim the space now serves as a schedule utility on the slate. Horror can bow on most weekends, generate a simple premise for creative and platform-native cuts, and outpace with ticket buyers that turn out on previews Thursday and stay strong through the second frame if the entry works. Post a strike-bent pipeline, the 2026 plan shows belief in that logic. The calendar kicks off with a thick January stretch, then targets spring into early summer for audience offsets, while keeping space for a fall corridor that runs into holiday-adjacent weekends and beyond. The calendar also features the greater integration of specialty distributors and streaming partners that can develop over weeks, generate chatter, and move wide at the sweet spot.

A second macro trend is franchise tending across ongoing universes and veteran brands. Studios are not just greenlighting another next film. They are aiming to frame continuity with a marquee sheen, whether that is a logo package that conveys a recalibrated tone or a casting move that threads a incoming chapter to a heyday. At the concurrently, the helmers behind the most anticipated originals are returning to on-set craft, special makeup and specific settings. That combination affords 2026 a healthy mix of assurance and freshness, which is how the genre sells abroad.

The studios and mini-majors, and how they are playing the year

Paramount sets the tone early with two front-of-slate releases that live at opposite ends of the tone spectrum. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the director slot and Neve Campbell back at the center, framing it as both a succession moment and a DNA-forward character-first story. Production is active in Atlanta, and the narrative stance indicates a nostalgia-forward framework without repeating the last two entries’ sibling arc. Anticipate a campaign anchored in classic imagery, initial cast looks, and a two-beat trailer plan targeting late fall. Distribution is Paramount theatrical.

Paramount also brings back a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are back on screen, with the Wayans brothers involved in development for the first time since the early 2000s, a headline the campaign will spotlight. As a summer counterprogrammer, this one will go after wide appeal through share-ready beats, with the horror spoof format lending itself to quick switches to whatever defines the social talk that spring.

Universal has three discrete lanes. SOULM8TE arrives January 9, 2026, a tech-horror spinoff from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The logline is clean, grief-rooted, and high-concept: a grieving man brings home an AI companion that becomes a murderous partner. The date places it at the front of a crowded corridor, with the studio’s marketing likely to revisit uncanny-valley stunts and short reels that hybridizes love and fear.

On May 8, 2026, the studio sets an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely read as the feature developed under internal titles in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The public calendar currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which preserves a official title to become an PR pop closer to the first trailer. The timing hands the studio a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles circle other weekends.

Closing out the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film reserves October 23, 2026, a slot he has dominated before. Peele’s pictures are set up as director events, with a concept-forward tease and a follow-up trailer set that shape mood without giving away the concept. The prime October weekend allows Universal to take pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then leverage the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, works with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček is at the helm of, with Souheila Yacoub top-lining. The franchise has made clear that a gritty, prosthetic-heavy method can feel deluxe on a lean spend. Position this as a blood-soaked summer horror charge that centers global rollout, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most foreign territories.

Sony’s horror bench is notably deep. The studio launches two series moves in the back half. An untitled Insidious film rolls out August 21, 2026, sustaining a proven supernatural brand on the grid while the spin-off branch incubates. The studio has reslotted on this title before, but the current plan holds it in late summer, where Insidious has traditionally delivered.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil reboots in what the studio is selling as a clean-slate approach 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 well-defined brief to serve both longtime followers and first-timers. The fall slot provides the studio time to build artifacts around universe detail, and creature work, elements that can fuel IMAX and PLF uptake and convention buzz.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, sets a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Robert Eggers’ Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film carries forward the filmmaker’s run of period horror centered on rigorous craft and linguistic texture, this time orbiting lycan myth. The specialty arm has already locked the day for a holiday release, a bold stance in Eggers as a specialty play that can platform wide if early reception is glowing.

SVOD and PVOD rhythms

Home-platform rhythms for 2026 run on stable tracks. Universal’s slate window into copyright after a big-screen and PVOD window, a pacing that amplifies both opening-weekend urgency and viewer acquisition in the post-theatrical. Prime Video blends licensed titles with cross-border buys and select theatrical runs when the data points to it. Max and Hulu work their edges in deep cuts, using timely promos, October hubs, and programmed rows to maximize the tail on the 2026 genre total. Netflix retains agility about first-party entries and festival grabs, scheduling horror entries near their drops and staging as events premieres with fast-turn plans. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, works a one-two of focused cinema runs and accelerated platforming that converts buzz to sign-ups. That will play for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before pressing niche channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ assesses case by case horror on a case-by-case basis. The platform has been willing to pick up select projects with accomplished filmmakers or A-list packages, then give them a qualifying theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet guild rules or to create word of mouth before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still feeds from the click to read more 20th Century Studios slate, a notable driver for sustained usage when the genre conversation ramps.

Specialty and indie breakouts

Cineverse is steadily assembling a 2026 track with two brand-forward moves. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The sell is clear: the same foggy, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult classic, recalibrated 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. Cineverse has positioned a standard Source theatrical run for Legacy, an constructive signal for fans of the uncompromising series and for exhibitors in need of adult counterprogramming in the late stretch.

Focus will cultivate the auteur lane with Werwulf, shepherding the title through select festivals if the cut is ready, then deploying the December frame to widen. That positioning has been successful for arthouse horror with wider appeal. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not released many dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines commonly finalize after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A credible outlook is a selection of late-summer and fall platformers that can surge if reception warrants. Watch for 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 hand in hand, using targeted theatrical to seed evangelism that fuels their subscriber growth.

IP versus fresh ideas

By tilt, 2026 leans toward the legacy column. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all draw on fan equity. The challenge, as ever, is staleness. The practical approach is to brand each entry as a recast vibe. Paramount is centering relationship and legacy in Scream 7, Sony is teasing a restart at zero for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is driving a continental coloration from a emerging director. Those choices matter when the audience has so many options and social sentiment changes rapidly.

Non-franchise titles and filmmaker-led entries bring the oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be pitched as a brand unto itself. Sam Raimi’s Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, sets Rachel McAdams in a island survival premise with Raimi’s signature playful menace. SOULM8TE offers a simple, unsettling tech hook. Werwulf delivers period specificity and an severe tone. Even when the title is not based on a brand, the packaging is assuring enough to turn curiosity into pre-sales and preview-night turnout.

Comparable trends from recent years make sense of the logic. In 2023, a exclusive theatrical model that honored streaming windows did not foreclose a day-date try from performing when the brand was trusted. In 2024, director-craft horror hit big in big-format auditoriums. In 2025, a reanimation of a beloved infection saga demonstrated that global horror franchises can still feel new when they change perspective and raise the stakes. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which unfolds 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 shot in tandem, lets marketing to link the films through character web and themes and to hold creative in the market without extended gaps.

How the look and feel evolve

The behind-the-scenes chatter behind the 2026 slate forecast a continued bias toward tactile, place-driven craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not track with any recent iteration of the property, a stance that echoes the practical-effects sensibility he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film wrapped principal photography and is tracking toward its April 17, 2026 date. Anticipate a rollout that highlights unease and texture rather than fireworks, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership backing budget prudence.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has characterized Werwulf as the hardest-edged project he has tackled, which tracks with a feudal backdrop and authentic period speech, a combination that can make for wraparound sound and a icy, primal tone on the big screen. Focus will likely tease this aesthetic in deep-dive features and technical spotlights before rolling out a first look that trades on atmosphere over plot, a move that has performed for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is built for red-band excess, a signature of the series that lands overseas in red-band trailers and earns shareable screening reactions from early screenings. Scream 7 positions a self-referential reset that puts the original star at center. Resident Evil will hit or miss on creature design and production design, which play well in fan conventions and managed asset releases. Insidious tends to be a soundstage showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the auditorium case feel primary. Look for trailers that emphasize fine-grain sound, deep-bass stingers, and mute beats that land in big rooms.

Calendar map: winter through the holidays

January is stacked. 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 brooding contrast amid bigger brand plays. The month buttons with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival-horror from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is formidable, but the mix of tones gives each title a lane, and the five-week structure allows a clean run for each if word of mouth carries.

Late winter and spring prime the summer. Scream 7 hits February 27 with nostalgia heat. In April, New Line’s The Mummy revives a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once was aligned with genre counterprogramming and now hosts big openers. The untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 bridges into summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer divides the tones. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is playful and broad, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 drops red-band intensity. The counterprogramming logic is coherent. The spoof can win next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest rewards older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have run their PLF course.

Late-season stretch leans series. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously excelled. Resident Evil slides in after September 18, a shoulder season window that still connects to Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event locks October 23 and will dominate cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely amplified by a opaque tease strategy and limited teasers that trade in concept over detail.

Prestige-horror at year-end. Werwulf on December 25 is a marker that genre can win the holiday when packaged as awards-flirting horror. The distributor has done this before, rolling out carefully, then turning to critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to hold in chatter into January. If the film lands critically, the studio can scale in the first week of 2027 while enjoying holiday hold and gift-card spend.

Title snapshots

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting in progress as production rolls. Logline: Sidney returns to take on get redirected here a new Ghostface while the narrative re-keys to the original film’s genetic code. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: heritage pivot with a current edge.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A loss-struck man’s machine mate escalates into something deadly romantic. Rating: TBA. Production: Production locked for an early-year bow. Positioning: techno-horror with feeling.

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 widens the scope beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult rises in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Shot back-to-back with the first film. Positioning: next step of a prestige infection saga.

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 confront a unstable reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Locked and U.S. theatrical booked. Positioning: aura-driven 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 abrasive boss try to survive on a rugged island as the power dynamic inverts and fear crawls. Rating: TBA. Production: Locked. 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 not disclosed in official materials. Logline: A renewed take that returns the monster to dread, rooted in Cronin’s hands-on craft and slow-bloom dread. Rating: TBA. Production: In the can. Positioning: classic monster relaunch with a filmmaker’s stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A household haunting story that channels the fear through a little one’s volatile point of view. Rating: TBA. Production: finished. Positioning: studio-backed, star-driven haunted-house suspense.

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 genre lampoon that skewers present-day genre chatter and true crime fixations. Rating: to be announced. Production: filming slated for fall 2025. Positioning: mainstream summer comedy-horror.

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 surges, with an international twist in tone and setting. Rating: TBA. Production: filming in New Zealand. Positioning: R-forward continuation crafted for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: awaiting reveal. Top cast: forthcoming. Logline: The Further unfurls again, with a new household anchored to past horrors. Rating: not yet rated. Production: targeting a summer lensing window for late-summer release. Positioning: trusted supernatural label in a supportive window.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: forthcoming. Top cast: to be announced. Logline: A restart designed to reconstitute the franchise from the ground up, with an emphasis on classic survival-horror tone over set-piece spectacle. Rating: undetermined. Production: developing against a fixed date. Positioning: canon-conscious reboot with mainstream reach.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: pending. Logline: closely held. Rating: TBD. 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 time-true diction and primal menace. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: preproduction aligned to holiday frame. Positioning: high-craft holiday horror with awards-season tail.

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 cinema-first path before platforming. Status: schedule in motion, fall targeted.

Why this year, why now

Three workable forces drive this lineup. First, production that decelerated or rearranged in 2024 required schedule breathing room. Horror can patch those gaps promptly because scripts often require limited locations, fewer large-scale VFX sequences, and condensed timelines. Second, studios have become more disciplined about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently surpassed straight-to-streaming landings. Third, social buzz converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will mine social-ready stingers from test screenings, managed scare clips dropping on Thursday previews, and experiential pop-ups that seed creator reels. It is a repeatable playbook because it holds up.

Factor four is the scheduling calculus. Early-2026 family and superhero concentrations ease, leaving useful real estate for genre entries that can own a weekend outright or play as the older-leaning alternative. January is the prime example. Four distinct flavors of horror will trade weekends across five weekends, which lets each title generate conversation without cannibalizing the others. Summer provides the other window. The spoof can draft behind animation and action in early summer, then the hard-R entry can take advantage of a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Cost, ratings, and sleeper dynamics

Budgets remain in the target range. Most of the films above will land under the $40–$50 million mark, with many far below. That allows for aggressive PLF bookings 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 dark-horse hunt continues in Q1, where midrange-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 dark-horse hit 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. Expect a healthy PVOD phase across the board, since horror fans have shown a willingness to pay for convenience after an opening weekend, especially when word of mouth is strong.

What the calendar feels like for audiences

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers tempo and variety. January is a array, February delivers a legacy slasher, April restores a Universal monster, May and June provide a supernatural one-two for date nights and group outings, July goes for the throat, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a wintry, literate nightmare. That is how you keep the discourse going and the seats filled without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can sequence upward, using earlier releases to warm up the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors value the spacing. Horror delivers steady Thursday pops, optimized footprints, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can warrant PLF, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing materiality, 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.

2026, Lined Up To Scare

Dates shift. Ratings change. Casts rotate. But the spine of 2026 horror is established. There is brand heft where it matters, fresh vision where it counts, and a calendar that shows studios track how and when scares land. 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 last-minute boutique pickup join the party. For now, the job is simple, edit tight trailers, lock the reveals, and let the chills sell the seats.