Primeval Horror reawakens: Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a nightmare fueled thriller, debuting Oct 2025 across major platforms

This frightening otherworldly terror film from storyteller / cinematic mind Andrew Chiaramonte, liberating an ancient fear when unfamiliar people become vehicles in a demonic experiment. Streaming on October 2, 2025, on Amazon Prime Video, video-sharing site YouTube, Google’s digital store, iTunes, Apple TV Plus, and Fandango at Home.

Los Angeles, CA (August 8, 2025) – ready yourself for *Young & Cursed*, a frightful journey of staying alive and old world terror that will revamp fear-driven cinema this harvest season. Visualized by rising imaginative director Andrew Chiaramonte, this unsettling and immersive screenplay follows five teens who wake up isolated in a cut-off lodge under the aggressive will of Kyra, a troubled woman inhabited by a prehistoric biblical force. Steel yourself to be gripped by a motion picture journey that harmonizes instinctive fear with mystical narratives, streaming on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Demonic control has been a long-standing pillar in film. In *Young & Cursed*, that concept is twisted when the forces no longer descend from elsewhere, but rather through their own souls. This mirrors the deepest shade of every character. The result is a psychologically brutal inner struggle where the narrative becomes a relentless contest between purity and corruption.


In a unforgiving wilderness, five teens find themselves stuck under the ghastly aura and curse of a unidentified apparition. As the companions becomes defenseless to oppose her dominion, cut off and targeted by terrors inconceivable, they are obligated to encounter their raw vulnerabilities while the seconds harrowingly ticks toward their death.


In *Young & Cursed*, distrust swells and alliances disintegrate, urging each member to doubt their identity and the principle of liberty itself. The danger surge with every fleeting time, delivering a chilling narrative that merges occult fear with mental instability.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my goal was to channel instinctual horror, an darkness before modern man, working through our fears, and exposing a being that dismantles free will when stripped of free will.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Portraying Kyra meant evoking something outside normal anguish. She is in denial until the invasion happens, and that pivot is haunting because it is so raw.”

Distribution & Access

*Young & Cursed* will be available for worldwide release beginning this October 2, on Prime Video, Google’s video hub, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home—providing watchers from coast to coast can dive into this terrifying film.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just broadcast a new visual teaser for *Young & Cursed*, debuted to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a second look to its initial teaser, which has collected over 100,000 views.


In addition to its North American premiere, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has revealed that *Young & Cursed* will also be taken worldwide, giving access to the movie to viewers around the world.


Avoid skipping this soul-jarring descent into darkness. Stream *Young & Cursed* this October the 2nd to dive into these ghostly lessons about our species.


For featurettes, set experiences, and alerts from the cast and crew, follow @YoungAndCursedMovie across platforms and visit our spooky domain.





American horror’s sea change: the 2025 season U.S. lineup braids together archetypal-possession themes, art-house nightmares, alongside brand-name tremors

Running from grit-forward survival fare infused with mythic scripture and onward to brand-name continuations and keen independent perspectives, 2025 stands to become the genre’s most multifaceted and tactically planned year of the last decade.

Call it full, but it is also focused. the big studios set cornerstones with known properties, as streaming platforms prime the fall with new perspectives plus archetypal fear. In parallel, the micro-to-mid budget ranks is buoyed by the carry of a peak 2024 circuit. As Halloween stays the prime week, the year beyond October is carefully apportioned. The autumn corridor is the classic sprint, though in this cycle, rollouts stretch into January, spring, and mid-summer. Audiences are leaning in, studios are surgical, thus 2025 might go down as horror’s most intentional year yet.

What Studios and Mini-Majors Are Doing: Premium dread reemerges

The top end is active. If 2024 laid the groundwork for a horror reinvention, 2025 accelerates.

Universal Pictures lights the fuse with a statement play: a refashioned Wolf Man, leaving behind the period European setting, in a modern-day environment. Shepherded by Leigh Whannell anchored by Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this pass grounds the lycanthropy in household collapse. The turn is more than creature work, it is about marriage, parenthood, and humanity. Booked into mid January, it aligns with turning the winter slack into a premium lane, not a dumping lane.

Spring sees the arrival of Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher adaptation reworked as a minimalist shock machine. Led by Eli Craig with Katie Douglas alongside 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. Advance murmurs say it draws blood.

As summer eases, the Warner Bros. banner drops the final chapter within its surest horror brand: The Conjuring: Last Rites. The Warrens are back with Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, the piece hints at a heartfelt wrap as it treats a notorious case. Granted the structure is classic, Chaves reportedly keys a sorrowing, contemplative note in the capstone. It sits in early September, securing daylight before October saturation.

The Black Phone 2 follows. Originally slated for early summer, its move to an October release suggests confidence. Derrickson re engages, and the defining traits of the first sleeper return: throwback unease, trauma as theme, plus otherworld rules that chill. This time, the stakes are raised, with more excavation of the “grabber” canon and family hauntings.

Closing the prime list is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a property whose brand does the lifting. The continuation widens the legend, expands its animatronic nightmare roster, bridging teens and legacy players. It bows in December, locking down the winter tail.

Streaming Offerings: Slim budgets, major punch

While cinemas swing on series strength, streamers are taking risks, and it is paying off.

Among the most ambitious streaming plays is Weapons, a forensic chill anthology splicing three ages joined by a mass disappearance. Guided by Zach Cregger and starring Josh Brolin with Julia Garner, the release pairs unease with narrative heft. Opening theatrically late summer ahead of fall SVOD, it will likely trigger thread wars and analysis videos, recalling Barbarian.

Keeping things close quarters is Together, an intimate body horror unraveling led by Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Set in a remote rental home during a getaway gone wrong, the movie follows love and envy and self denial into corporeal breakdown. It toggles from love to slime, a staged slide into codependent hell. With no dated platform window yet, it looks like a certain fall stream.

On the docket is Sinners, a 1930s period vampire folk story anchored by Michael B. Jordan. Shot in rich sepia tones and drenched in biblical metaphor, it channels There Will Be Blood against Let the Right One In. The movie studies American religious trauma through the supernatural lens. Early test screenings have marked it as one of the year’s most talked about streaming debuts.

Several other streaming indies are quietly waiting in the wings: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper all mine grief and vanishing and identity, running metaphor first.

Possession With Depth: Young & Cursed

Hitting October 2 on the platforms, Young & Cursed presents a rare union, close in focus, wide in mythology. From writer director Andrew Chiaramonte, the arc centers on five strangers who wake inside a backcountry cabin, beneath Kyra’s command, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. With nightfall, Kyra’s power deepens, an invasive force mining their most secret fears, frailties, and regrets.

The terror is psychological in engine, alive with primal myth. Resisting the exorcism template of Catholic ceremony and Latin chant, this piece touches something older, something darker. Lilith ignores rite, she wells up from trauma, quietude, and human weakness. The shift to interior possession, not exterior conjuring, flips expectation and aligns Young & Cursed with an expanding wave, intimate character portraits wearing genre.

On Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home, the film acts as a Halloween counterpoint to sequel pipelines and creature comebacks. It looks like sharp programming. No overstuffed canon. No continuity burden. Just psychological dread, contained and tense, tailored to the binge then breathe cadence of digital horror fans. Amid spectacle, Young & Cursed can distinguish itself by whispering, then howling.

Festival Origins, Market Outcomes

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF remain breeding grounds for what horror looks like six to twelve months later. They feel like launchpads now, not just showcases.

This year’s Fantastic Fest has already confirmed a strong horror lineup. Primate, a tropical body horror curtain raiser, invites Cronenberg Herzog comp. Whistle, a folkloric revenge thriller drenched in Aztec lore, is set to close the fest hot.

Midnight fare like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You rides on craft as well as title. Backed by A24, it skewers toxic fandom amid a convention lockdown, poised to break big.

SXSW gave air to Clown in a Cornfield and to microbudget hauntings courting buyers. Sundance is expected to unspool a familiar crop of grief steeped elevated horror, and Tribeca’s genre box tilting urban, social, and surreal.

Festival strategy in 2025 is not just about discovery, it is about branding. A Fantastic Fest or TIFF badge is phase one marketing, not a coda.

Franchise Horror: Returns, Restarts, and Fresh Angles

Legacy IP arrives sturdier and more intentional this cycle.

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

M3GAN 2.0 opens late June, targeting a broadened techno horror canon with new characters and AI spawned nightmares. The original’s social and streaming breakout emboldened Universal to double down.

On the slate sits The Long Walk, from one of Stephen King’s stark early titles, helmed by Francis Lawrence, it lands as a ruthless dystopian allegory couched in survival horror, a march where no one wins. With clear targeting, it could become The Hunger Games for horror grown ups.

Other reboots and sequels, including Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda, scatter across the calendar, many awaiting strategic windows or late acquisitions.

Trends Worth Watching

Mythic horror goes mainstream
Lilith in Young & Cursed plus Aztec curses in Whistle highlight ancient texts and symbols. This is less nostalgia, more reclamation of pre Christian archetypes. Horror does more than scare, it reminds that evil predates us.

Body horror ascends again
Projects including Together, Weapons, and Keeper re center the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation map to heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streamer originals stiffen their spine
Throwaway platform horror is on the way out. Platforms show up with budgets for scripts, directors, and campaigns. Entries like Weapons and Sinners get event treatment, not inventory.

Festival buzz converts to leverage
Laurels move markets, opening release doors and coverage arcs. A film minus festival planning in 2025 risks getting lost.

Theaters are a trust fall
Theatrical is reserved for titles believed to overperform or sow sequels. All others choose PVOD or hybrid. Horror persists theatrically, in curated lanes.

Projection: Fall pileup, winter curveball

With Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons stacked into September and October, fall saturates. Indies like Bone Lake and Keeper will scrap for air. Anticipate possible date slides into early 2026 or platform moves.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 anchors December, and a surprise streaming drop could still arrive late. When the heavy hitters lean mythic, a last creature feature or exorcism can still fit.

The trick lies in diverse menus finding segmented crowds, not single title bets. The brief is not the next Get Out, it is horror with afterlife beyond receipts.



The new chiller season: entries, standalone ideas, and also A Crowded Calendar tailored for frights

Dek The arriving terror season stacks immediately with a January traffic jam, and then stretches through peak season, and straight through the holidays, balancing series momentum, original angles, and calculated alternatives. Studios with streamers are doubling down on tight budgets, box-office-first windows, and shareable marketing that pivot genre titles into all-audience topics.

Where horror stands going into 2026

The field has solidified as the bankable option in programming grids, a corner that can lift when it clicks and still cushion the exposure when it falls short. After 2023 signaled to buyers that disciplined-budget pictures can command the discourse, the following year carried the beat with festival-darling auteurs and word-of-mouth wins. The tailwind pushed into the 2025 frame, where re-entries and awards-minded projects signaled there is space for many shades, from series extensions to original features that travel well. The takeaway for 2026 is a run that appears tightly organized across the industry, with planned clusters, a mix of familiar brands and untested plays, and a sharpened focus on big-screen windows that boost PVOD and platform value on premium on-demand and home platforms.

Executives say the horror lane now works like a flex slot on the rollout map. The genre can arrive on numerous frames, offer a clear pitch for trailers and TikTok spots, and punch above weight with audiences that appear on Thursday nights and stick through the follow-up frame if the film pays off. Following a strike-affected pipeline, the 2026 rhythm indicates comfort in that setup. The calendar gets underway with a crowded January schedule, then exploits spring through early summer for counterweight, while keeping space for a October build that connects to holiday-adjacent weekends and past Halloween. The calendar also includes the increasing integration of specialized imprints and platforms that can platform and widen, create conversation, and go nationwide at the proper time.

A notable top-line trend is brand strategy across brand ecosystems and legacy franchises. Studio teams are not just mounting another entry. They are seeking to position lineage with a premium feel, whether that is a brandmark that conveys a recalibrated tone or a casting choice that reconnects a next entry to a foundational era. At the concurrently, the creative leads behind the most buzzed-about originals are celebrating physical effects work, practical effects and grounded locations. That interplay hands 2026 a vital pairing of comfort and discovery, which is why the genre exports well.

The majors’ 2026 approach

Paramount defines the early cadence with two headline bets that cover both tonal poles. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the director position and Neve Campbell back at the heart, presenting it as both a cross-generational handoff and a foundation-forward character-centered film. The shoot is ongoing in Atlanta, and the narrative stance announces a heritage-honoring approach without looping the last two entries’ core arc for the Carpenter sisters. Anticipate a campaign built on franchise iconography, initial cast looks, and a promo sequence hitting late fall. Distribution is big-screen via Paramount.

Paramount click site 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 reuniting, with the Wayans brothers involved as creative voices for the first time since the early 2000s, a selling point the campaign will stress. As a summer counterprogrammer, this one will pursue wide buzz through share-ready beats, with the horror spoof format making room for quick shifts to whatever owns the meme cycle that spring.

Universal has three clear pushes. SOULM8TE launches January 9, 2026, a connected offshoot from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The premise is efficient, soulful, and high-concept: a grieving man implements an AI companion that becomes a harmful mate. The date lines it up at the front of a stacked January, with Universal’s promo team likely to mirror eerie street stunts and short-cut promos that interweaves romance and anxiety.

On May 8, 2026, the studio places an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely believed to be the feature developed under early labels in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The official listing currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which makes room for a title drop to become an fan moment closer to the first trailer. The timing holds ground in early May while larger tentpoles take the main frames.

Filling out the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film claims October 23, 2026, a slot he has made his own before. His entries are presented as marquee events, with a teaser that holds back and a later trailer push that set the tone without spoiling the concept. The late-October frame allows Universal to lead 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, aligns with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček leads, with Souheila Yacoub anchoring. The franchise has established that a gritty, practical-effects forward strategy can feel top-tier on a controlled budget. Expect a blood-soaked summer horror shock that pushes offshore potential, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most non-U.S. markets.

Sony’s horror bench is unusually deep. The studio books two name-brand pushes in the back half. An untitled Insidious film arrives August 21, 2026, maintaining a evergreen supernatural brand alive while the spin-off branch gestates. Sony has repositioned on this title before, but the current plan holds it in late summer, where Insidious has often excelled.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil re-enters in what the studio is marketing as a ground-zero restart for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a central part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a well-defined brief to serve both franchise faithful and casuals. The fall slot hands Sony window to build marketing units around canon, and monster design, elements that can accelerate premium format interest and fan-forward engagement.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, places 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 built on meticulous craft and archaic language, this time driven by werewolf stories. The imprint has already locked the day for a holiday release, a signal of faith in Eggers as a specialty play that can move wide if early reception is robust.

How the platforms plan to play it

Platform plans for 2026 run on well-known grooves. The Universal horror run transition to copyright after a theater window then PVOD, a cadence that maximizes both launch urgency and trial spikes in the later phase. Prime Video stitches together acquired titles with global pickups and limited runs in theaters when the data supports it. Max and Hulu focus their lanes in catalog discovery, using in-app campaigns, holiday hubs, and featured rows to sustain interest on overall cume. Netflix stays nimble about in-house releases and festival acquisitions, timing horror entries tight to release and elevating as drops drops with fast-turn plans. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, operates a laddered of precision theatrical plays and speedy platforming that turns chatter to conversion. That will count for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before activating horror-fan channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ keeps selective horror on a per-project basis. The platform has signaled readiness to secure select projects with established auteurs 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 domestic still feeds from the 20th Century Studios slate, a critical input for retention when the genre conversation intensifies.

Indie and specialty outlook

Cineverse is quietly building a 2026 slate with two franchise steps. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The setup is simple: the same atmospheric, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult classic, upgraded for modern soundscapes and visuals. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a autumn frame, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher see here universe. The distributor has flagged a wide-to-platform plan for Legacy, an healthy marker for fans of the ferocious series and for exhibitors hungry for R material in the fall weeks.

Focus will favor the auteur track with Werwulf, stewarding the film through festivals in the fall if the cut is ready, then turning to the holiday frame to expand. That positioning has proved effective for filmmaker-driven genre with wider appeal. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not dated many 2026 horror titles in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines regularly gel after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A sound expectation is a selection of late-summer and fall platformers that can break out if reception allows. Be ready 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 as partners, using precision theatrical to spark the evangelism that fuels their subscriber base.

IP versus fresh ideas

By number, the 2026 slate leans in favor of the recognizable IP side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all use legacy awareness. The risk, as ever, is viewer burnout. The operating solution is to position each entry as a renewed feel. Paramount is bringing forward character and continuity in Scream 7, Sony is promising a clean restart for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is embracing a French sensibility from a hot helmer. Those choices move the needle when the audience has so many options and social sentiment shifts fast.

Originals and talent-first projects supply the oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be branded as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, puts Rachel McAdams into a island survival premise with the director’s playful dread. SOULM8TE offers a focused, eerie tech hook. Werwulf leans on period specificity and an rigorous tone. Even when the title is not based on a brand, the bundle is steady enough to build pre-sales and preview-night turnout.

Past-three-year patterns illuminate the template. In 2023, a theatrical-first model that observed windows did not preclude a simultaneous release test from paying off when the brand was potent. In 2024, craft-first auteur horror hit big in PLF auditoriums. In 2025, a reawakened chapter of a beloved infection saga proved again that global horror franchises can still feel recharged when they pivot perspective and elevate scope. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which continues January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The two-film strategy, with chapters lensed back-to-back, enables marketing to thread films through character web and themes and to maintain a flow of assets without doldrums.

How the look and feel evolve

The craft conversations behind this slate telegraph a continued preference for tactile, location-specific craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not play like any recent iteration of the property, a stance that reinforces the in-camera lean he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film finished principal and is on track for its April 17, 2026 date. Plan for a push that spotlights creep and texture rather than thrill-ride spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership permitting financial discipline.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has described Werwulf as the grimmest project he has tackled, which tracks with a feudal backdrop and period-accurate language, a combination that can make for 3D sound and a spare, elemental mood on the big screen. Focus will likely frame this aesthetic in long-lead press and craft coverage before rolling out a atmospheric tease that keeps plot minimal, a move that has played for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is calibrated for rubbery nastiness, a signature of the series that sells overseas in red-band trailers and sparks shareable shock clips from early screenings. Scream 7 targets a meta recalibration that puts the original star at center. Resident Evil will win or lose on creature craft and set design, which play well in booth activations and curated leaks. Insidious tends to be a sound-mix showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the in-theater case feel primary. Look for trailers that underscore disciplined sound, deep-bass stingers, and held silences that benefit on big speakers.

Month-by-month map

January is crowded. SOULM8TE opens January 9, 2026, then Sony returns a week later with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple on January 16. Cineverse’s Return to Silent Hill follows on January 23, a gloomy counterbalance amid larger brand plays. The month buttons with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival-and-paranoia piece from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is thick, but the variety of tones affords lanes to each, and the five-week structure offers clean runway for each if word of mouth persists.

Late Q1 and spring build the summer base. Scream 7 arrives February 27 with brand warmth. In April, New Line’s The Mummy reimagines a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once suited genre counterprogramming and now accommodates big openers. Universal’s untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 hands off to summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer heightens the contrast. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is spoofy 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 serves older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have moved through premium slots.

August and September into October leans series. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously clicked. Resident Evil arrives after September 18, a early fall window that still connects to Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event claims October 23 and will soak up cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely paired with a peekaboo tease plan and limited pre-release reveals that stress concept over spoilers.

Prestige-horror at year-end. Werwulf on December 25 is a declaration that genre can compete at Christmas when packaged as prestige-leaning horror. Focus has done this before, platforming carefully, then leveraging critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to remain in discourse into January. If the film wins with critics, the studio can open up in the first week of 2027 while turning holiday audiences and gift card usage.

Project-by-project snapshots

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting on a rolling basis as production carries on. Logline: Sidney returns to challenge a new Ghostface while the narrative reconnects to the original film’s founding notes. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: classic-DNA reset with a current angle.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A bereaved man’s AI companion escalates into something deadly romantic. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed principal photography for an early-year bow. Positioning: silicon scare with soul.

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 extends the world beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult coalesces in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Filmed in tandem 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 finds his way back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to meet a shimmering reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Done with U.S. run set. Positioning: tone-first 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 abrasive boss claw to survive on a far-flung island as the power balance of power reverses and paranoia spreads. Rating: TBA. Production: Wrapped. Positioning: star-led survival piece from a genre icon.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles to be revealed in official materials. Logline: A modern reconception that returns the monster to horror, built on Cronin’s tactile craft and accumulating dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished. Positioning: classic monster revival with auteur stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A in-home haunting setup that frames the panic through a little one’s uncertain POV. Rating: TBA. Production: in the can. Positioning: studio-supported 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 re-engaging creatively. Logline: {A parody return that teases current genre trends and true-crime manias. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: shoot planned 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 overseas twist in tone and setting. Rating: not yet rated. Production: cameras rolling in New Zealand. Positioning: uncompromising R installment meant for big rooms.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: unrevealed for now. Top cast: forthcoming. Logline: The Further unfurls again, with a unlucky family entangled with ancient dread. Rating: TBA. Production: planning summer shoot for late-summer date. Positioning: stalwart franchise piece in a friendly frame.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: to be announced publicly. Top cast: unrevealed. Logline: A re-seeded launch designed to reconstruct the franchise from the ground up, with an stress on survival-core horror over action-heavy spectacle. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: in development with a locked date. Positioning: game-grounded refresh with wider appeal.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: undisclosed. Logline: tightly guarded. Rating: undetermined. Production: moving forward. Positioning: teaser-forward filmmaker happening.

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 primordial menace. Rating: TBA. Production: actively prepping for a holiday slot. Positioning: prestige-leaning holiday genre with crafts potential.

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 traditional theatrical release planned before platforming. Status: schedule in motion, fall targeted.

Why the moment is 2026

Three pragmatic forces drive this lineup. First, production that paused or rearranged in 2024 needed slack in the schedule. Horror can occupy those holes swiftly because scripts often are set in fewer locales, fewer large-scale VFX set pieces, and pared-down timelines. Second, studios have become more measured 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 releases. Third, online chatter converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will lean on bite-size scare clips from test screenings, carefully timed scare clips pegged to Thursday preview nights, and experiential pop-ups that feed creator content. It is a repeatable playbook because it works.

The slot calculus is real. Early-2026 family and superhero concentrations ease, freeing space for genre entries that can own a weekend outright or function as the older-skew counter. January is the prime example. Four distinct flavors of horror will line up across five weekends, which lets each title generate conversation without cannibalizing the others. Summer provides the other window. The lampoon benefits from family and action buoyancy, then the hard-R entry can take advantage of a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Budget discipline, rating paths, sleeper math

Budgets remain in the strike zone. Most of the films above will track under the $40–$50 million range, with many far below. That allows for wide PLF deployment 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 breakout hunt continues in Q1, where modest-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 leverage those opportunities. 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. Forecast a healthy PVOD window broadly, 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 rhythm and variety. January is a sampler, February delivers a legacy slasher, April restores a Universal monster, May and June provide a ghostly double-hit 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 icy, literate nightmare. That is how you sustain conversation and attendance without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can ratchet upward, using earlier releases to set up the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors like the spacing. Horror delivers regular Thursday spikes, efficient screen counts, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can justify premium screens, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing materiality, soundcraft, and picture 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

Timing shifts. Ratings change. Casts shuffle. But the spine of 2026 horror is in place. There is IP strength where it matters, filmmaker vision where it matters, and a calendar that shows studios understand how and when audiences want to be scared. 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 late-arriving specialty entry join the party. For now, the job is simple, shape lean trailers, protect the mystery, and let the shocks sell the seats.