Ancient Malevolence Reawakens within Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a nightmare fueled supernatural thriller, launching October 2025 across top streamers

A chilling supernatural thriller from narrative craftsman / cinema craftsman Andrew Chiaramonte, unleashing an mythic horror when foreigners become conduits in a fiendish ordeal. Going live this October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon Prime, Google’s YouTube, Google Play Movies & TV, Apple’s iTunes, Apple TV Plus, and Fandango on-demand.

Hollywood, CA (August 8, 2025) – steel yourselves for *Young & Cursed*, a harrowing tale of continuance and age-old darkness that will reimagine the horror genre this October. Crafted by rising thriller expert Andrew Chiaramonte, this claustrophobic and immersive cinema piece follows five individuals who awaken isolated in a remote house under the unfriendly grip of Kyra, a female presence controlled by a time-worn sacred-era entity. Get ready to be immersed by a visual journey that blends gut-punch terror with mythic lore, coming on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Unholy possession has been a mainstay concept in the movies. In *Young & Cursed*, that belief is challenged when the fiends no longer form beyond the self, but rather internally. This suggests the most sinister shade of every character. The result is a riveting internal warfare where the events becomes a intense conflict between innocence and sin.


In a desolate outland, five youths find themselves sealed under the possessive dominion and grasp of a secretive spirit. As the victims becomes paralyzed to resist her rule, cut off and pursued by forces mind-shattering, they are pushed to acknowledge their inner demons while the doomsday meter unceasingly edges forward toward their dark fate.


In *Young & Cursed*, paranoia mounts and relationships dissolve, forcing each participant to scrutinize their being and the concept of free will itself. The danger intensify with every breath, delivering a scare-fueled ride that integrates unearthly horror with inner turmoil.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my goal was to awaken pure dread, an evil born of forgotten ages, filtering through mental cracks, and challenging a evil that tests the soul when robbed of choice.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Taking on the role of Kyra was centered on something unfamiliar to reason. She is oblivious until the spirit seizes her, and that shift is terrifying because it is so raw.”

Debut Info

*Young & Cursed* will be aired for worldwide release beginning October 2, 2025, on Prime Video, Google’s video hub, Google’s store, iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango on-demand—so that subscribers anywhere can be part of this unholy film.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just shared a new extended look for *Young & Cursed*, online to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a evolution to its first preview, which has been viewed over thousands of viewers.


In addition to its North American premiere, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has informed that *Young & Cursed* will also be offered to international markets, taking the terror to scare fans abroad.


Mark your calendar for this bone-rattling spiral into evil. Explore *Young & Cursed* this horror drop to uncover these unholy truths about the human condition.


For featurettes, set experiences, and reveals from inside the story, follow @YoungAndCursed across Facebook and TikTok and visit our spooky domain.





Current horror’s sea change: 2025 in focus U.S. release slate melds primeval-possession lore, Indie Shockers, and series shake-ups

From life-or-death fear saturated with mythic scripture and including franchise returns together with pointed art-house angles, 2025 looks like the most dimensioned and intentionally scheduled year of the last decade.

The 2025 horror calendar is not merely full, it is methodical. Top studios are anchoring the year with established lines, simultaneously streamers flood the fall with new perspectives in concert with ancestral chills. In the indie lane, indie storytellers is catching the kinetic energy from a record 2024 festival run. As Halloween stays the prime week, the schedule beyond October is tightly engineered. A packed September to October corridor has become a rite of passage, distinctly in 2025, strategies include January, spring, and mid-summer. The audience is primed, studios are targeted, accordingly 2025 is positioned to be the most designed season yet.

Major Studio Plans with Mini-Major Flex: High-craft horror returns

No one at the top is standing still. If 2024 set the stage for reinvention, 2025 amplifies the bet.

Universal’s schedule kicks off the frame with an audacious swing: a reimagined Wolf Man, stepping away from the classic old-country village, in a clear present-tense world. Shepherded by Leigh Whannell and starring Christopher Abbott with Julia Garner, this chapter binds the lycanthropy to domestic unraveling. The evolution surpasses the body, into spouses, parents, and bruised humanity. timed for mid January, it is part of the new strategy to own the box office’s winter dead zone with prestige horror instead of dumping ground thrillers.

The spring frame introduces Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher adaptation turned minimalist horror show. Steered by Eli Craig including Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it comes as grit laced American nightmare with sardonic edge. Behind the greasepaint sits a critique of small town suspicion, generational fracture, and vigilante justice. Initial heat flags it as potent.

By late summer, Warner Bros. launches the swan song from its cornerstone horror IP: The Conjuring: Last Rites. Ed and Lorraine Warren return with Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, the installment aims for closure as it frames a famed case. Though the formula is familiar, Chaves is expected to tune it to a grieving, self reflective color. It is dated for early September, granting margin before October’s crush.

The Black Phone 2 steps in next. Once set for early summer, the October pivot signals belief. Scott Derrickson returns, and the core ingredients of the sleeper original are back: nostalgic menace, trauma driven plotting, plus otherworld rules that chill. This run ups the stakes, 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 second outing goes deeper into backstory, enlarges the animatronic menagerie, with a bullseye on teens and thirty something nostalgics. It lands in December, cornering year end horror.

SVOD Originals: Small budgets, sharp fangs

As theatricals lean on brands and continuations, streamers are swinging risk forward, and returns look strong.

A flagship risky title is Weapons, a cold file multi story chiller threading three timelines via a mass disappearance. Under Zach Cregger fronted by Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the piece merges terror with dramatic mass. With a late summer theatrical bow and fall streaming drop, it will likely trigger thread wars and analysis videos, recalling Barbarian.

Playing chamber scale is Together, a close quarters body horror study pairing Alison Brie with Dave Franco. Fixed in a remote let as a weekend curdles, the piece probes how love, envy, and self loathing become bodily rot. It feels intimate, ghastly, and profoundly uneasy, a three part fall into codependent hell. Despite no official platform date, it looks like a certain fall stream.

In the mix sits Sinners, a pre war vampire folk narrative toplined by Michael B. Jordan. Rendered in sepia depth and layered biblical metaphor, it suggests There Will Be Blood blended with Let the Right One In. The work dissects American religious trauma using supernatural allegory. First test passes flag it as highly discussable at debut.

A handful of other streaming indies hover in the wings: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper each explores grief and disappearance and identity, opting allegory above bombast.

Deep Possession Currents: Young & Cursed

Going live October 2 on major services, Young & Cursed stands as a rare hybrid, both intimate in scope and mythic in reach. Written 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. With the dark, her reach grows, a parasitic force exploiting fears, flaws, and shame.

The horror here is psychological but charged with primal myth. Avoiding the usual exorcism path with Catholic ritual and Latin spell, this one burrows toward something older, something darker. Lilith is not summoned by priests, she rises from trauma, muteness, and human fault lines. Turning possession inward syncs Young & Cursed to the trend of character led dramas draped in 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 heavy handed lore. No canon weight. Just pure psychological dread, contained, tense, and tailor made for the binge and breathe rhythm of digital horror fans. With a spectacle heavy year, Young & Cursed may pop by going quiet, then screaming.

Festival Origins, Market Outcomes

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF continue to incubate the next six to twelve months of horror. They serve less as display cases, more as runways.

Fantastic Fest’s horror bench is deep this year. Primate opens the fest with tropical body horror and critics cite Cronenberg and Herzog. Whistle, a folkloric revenge piece in Aztec lore, likely shuts the fest with heat.

Midnight entries like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You are getting buzz not just for their titles but for their execution. With A24 behind it, the satire of toxic fandom under a convention lockdown seems breakout bound.

SXSW lifted Clown in a Cornfield and put microbudget hauntings into market talk. Sundance likely lifts another batch of grief laced elevated horror, where Tribeca’s genre program draws urban, social, and surreal.

Festivals in 2025 double as branding machines. Badges kick off the sell, they do not merely decorate.

Long Running Lines: Follow Ups, Restarts, and Reframes

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

Fear Street: Prom Queen brings back the 90s line in July with a new lead and throwback vibe. In contrast to earlier chapters, it skews camp and prom night melodrama. Bring tiaras, red dye, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 slots late June, with a plan to deepen its techno horror mythos via new characters and AI terrors. The debut’s viral plus streaming heat gives Universal reason to press the bet.

Another headline is The Long Walk, adapting a grim early Stephen King piece, helmed by Francis Lawrence, it functions as a harsh dystopian fable encased in survival horror, a children’s march that ends in death. Marketed correctly, it could be The Hunger Games for horror adults.

Beyond that, reboots and sequels such as Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda dot the year, often holding for windows or late pickups.

Trends Worth Watching

Mythic horror goes mainstream
Lilith in Young & Cursed plus Aztec curses in Whistle highlight ancient texts and symbols. Rather than nostalgia, it reclaims pre Christian archetypes. Horror pushes past jump scares, it points to ancient evil.

Body horror swings back
Entries like Together, Weapons, and Keeper shift back to flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation symbolize heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Platform originals gain bite
Junk fill horror on platforms is receding. Services bankroll legitimate writing, legitimate directors, and proper media. Releases like Weapons and Sinners are elevated to events, not just content.

Festival heat turns into leverage
Festival ribbons become currency for better windows and top shelves. A horror film without a festival strategy in 2025 risks disappearing.

Theatrical Is Now a Trust Fall
Studios save theaters for outperform prospects or IP farmers. Everything else heads to PVOD or hybrid drops. Horror stays in theaters, in chosen pockets.

Forward View: Autumn density and winter pivot

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, including Bone Lake and Keeper, will battle for oxygen. There may be pivots into early 2026 or across platforms.

December anchors on Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, yet a surprise streamer drop could appear in the final weeks. With some of the year’s biggest films leaning dark and mythic, the space for one final creature feature or exorcism flick is wide open.

The key is connecting variety to fragmentation, not betting on one piece. The mission is not a new Get Out, it is sustained horror beyond tickets.



The upcoming Horror season: continuations, new stories, in tandem with A hectic Calendar geared toward shocks

Dek The incoming horror slate builds at the outset with a January cluster, from there flows through the summer months, and far into the winter holidays, balancing IP strength, untold stories, and data-minded counterprogramming. The major players are embracing mid-range economics, cinema-first plans, and platform-native promos that shape these films into cross-demo moments.

The landscape of horror in 2026

Horror has shown itself to be the bankable counterweight in release strategies, a genre that can expand when it catches and still limit the exposure when it underperforms. After the 2023 year showed executives that mid-range genre plays can own pop culture, 2024 sustained momentum with director-led heat and sleeper breakouts. The run flowed into the 2025 frame, where returns and critical darlings demonstrated there is room for a variety of tones, from legacy continuations to original features that perform internationally. The upshot for 2026 is a calendar that looks unusually coordinated across the industry, with clear date clusters, a spread of household franchises and new pitches, and a refocused eye on theatrical windows that increase tail monetization on premium digital rental and digital services.

Marketers add the category now works like a flex slot on the schedule. Horror can bow on virtually any date, create a grabby hook for spots and UGC-friendly snippets, and over-index with moviegoers that appear on preview nights and maintain momentum through the follow-up frame if the feature works. Emerging from a strike-bent pipeline, the 2026 setup reflects faith in that setup. The slate gets underway with a thick January stretch, then taps spring and early summer for counterprogramming, while carving room for a late-year stretch that runs into holiday-adjacent weekends and past Halloween. The calendar also shows the stronger partnership of specialized imprints and platforms that can platform a title, create conversation, and move wide at the inflection point.

A companion trend is series management across ongoing universes and established properties. Big banners are not just making another sequel. They are working to present brand continuity with a marquee sheen, whether that is a graphic identity that announces a new tone or a casting move that connects a upcoming film to a heyday. At the alongside this, the creative teams behind the most buzzed-about originals are favoring material texture, physical gags and place-driven backdrops. That convergence offers the 2026 slate a vital pairing of comfort and newness, which is a recipe that travels worldwide.

How the majors and mini-majors are programming

Paramount opens strong with two high-profile bets that sit at tonal extremes. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with original architect Kevin Williamson in the director seat and Neve Campbell back at the focus, steering it as both a legacy handover and a rootsy character-first story. The film is shooting in Atlanta, and the directional approach announces a classic-referencing framework without repeating the last two entries’ sisters storyline. A campaign is expected driven by signature symbols, first images of characters, and a rollout cadence slated for late fall. Distribution is Paramount’s cinema pipeline.

Paramount also dusts off 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 in development for the first time since the early 2000s, a headline the campaign will foreground. As a summer contrast play, this one will generate broad awareness through meme-friendly cuts, with the horror spoof format inviting quick shifts to whatever rules trend lines that spring.

Universal has three clear entries. SOULM8TE rolls out January 9, 2026, a universe branch from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The premise is tight, sorrow-tinged, and high-concept: a grieving man onboards an intelligent companion that grows into a harmful mate. The date positions it at the front of a competition-heavy month, with marketing at Universal likely to replay strange in-person beats and snackable content that blurs intimacy and creep.

On May 8, 2026, the studio positions an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely believed to be the feature developed under placeholder labels in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The official listing currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which allows a title reveal to become an earned moment closer to the teaser. The timing gives the studio a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles circle other weekends.

Supplementing the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film plants on October 23, 2026, a slot he has excelled in before. Peele projects are positioned as director events, with a concept-forward tease and a subsequent trailers that prime atmosphere without details the concept. The Halloween-adjacent date opens a lane 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, teams with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček is at the helm of, with Souheila Yacoub at the center. The franchise has proven that a blood-soaked, practical-effects forward approach can feel top-tier on a tight budget. Frame it as a viscera-heavy summer horror shot that pushes global rollout, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most non-U.S. markets.

Sony’s horror bench is robust. The studio deploys two recognizable-IP pushes in the back half. An untitled Insidious film arrives August 21, 2026, preserving a bankable supernatural brand on the board while the spin-off branch gestates. Sony has shifted dates on this title before, but the current plan sticks it in late summer, where the brand has often excelled.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil steps back in what Sony is calling a clean-slate approach 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 directive to serve both core fans and new audiences. The fall slot creates runway for Sony to build campaign pieces around canon, and monster craft, elements that can boost format premiums and fan events.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, positions a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Robert Eggers’ Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film advances Eggers’ run of period horror grounded in obsessive craft and period speech, this time circling werewolf lore. The distributor has already booked the frame for a holiday release, a clear message in Eggers as a specialty play that can build and expand if early reception is positive.

Streaming windows and tactics

Platform windowing in 2026 run on tested paths. Universal’s genre entries feed copyright after a big-screen and PVOD window, a sequence that maximizes both week-one demand and subscriber lifts in the after-window. Prime Video stitches together licensed content with global acquisitions and brief theater runs when the data backs it. Max and Hulu optimize their lanes in library pulls, using timely promos, fright rows, and editorial rows to prolong the run on aggregate take. Netflix stays nimble about own-slate titles and festival buys, slotting horror entries closer to launch and staging as events releases with condensed plans. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, operates a staged of targeted cinema placements and accelerated platforming that monetizes buzz via trials. That will be meaningful for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before working fan funnels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ continues to evaluate horror on a title-by-title basis. The platform has proven amenable to purchase select projects with recognized filmmakers or marquee packages, then give them a qualifying theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet awards-qualifying thresholds or to gather buzz before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still capitalizes on the 20th Century Studios slate, a core piece for sustained usage when the genre conversation peaks.

Boutique label prospects

Cineverse is quietly building a 2026 pipeline with two franchise steps. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The proposition is simple: the same brooding, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult favorite, retooled for modern mix and image. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a autumn corridor, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. The distributor has flagged a traditional theatrical plan for the title, an constructive signal for fans of the ferocious series and for exhibitors in need of adult counterprogramming in the back half.

Focus will lean into the auteur lane with Werwulf, marshalling the project through the fall circuit if the cut is ready, then relying on the holiday slot to go wider. That positioning has paid off for auteur horror with broader reach. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not released many dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines often crystallize after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A safe bet is a set of late-summer and fall platformers that can broaden if reception merits. Do not be surprised by an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that screens at Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work as a pair, using limited runs to ignite evangelism that fuels their user base.

Series vs standalone

By weight, the 2026 slate favors the recognizable IP side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all leverage brand equity. The watch-out, as ever, is audience fatigue. The workable fix is to position each entry as a recalibration. Paramount is emphasizing character and heritage in Scream 7, Sony is signaling a clean-slate build for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is leaning into a continental coloration from a buzzed-about director. Those choices prove meaningful when the audience has so many options and social sentiment moves quickly.

Non-franchise titles and director-driven titles provide the air. Jordan Peele’s October film will be sold as a brand unto itself. Sam Raimi’s Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, puts Rachel McAdams into a survival shocker premise with signature tonal menace. SOULM8TE offers a simple, unsettling tech hook. Werwulf rests on period texture and an uncompromising tone. Even when the title is not based on a brand, the package is anchored enough to translate curiosity into advance sales and advance-audience nights.

Recent comps contextualize the strategy. In 2023, a theatrical-first model that respected streaming windows did not deter a dual release from winning when the brand was powerful. In 2024, director-craft horror over-performed in PLF. In 2025, a reawakened chapter of a beloved infection saga made clear that global horror franchises can still feel new when they reorient and stretch the story. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which advances January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The paired-chapter approach, with chapters shot consecutively, provides the means for marketing to tie installments through protagonists and motifs and to keep materials circulating without lulls.

Technique and craft currents

The craft conversations behind this year’s genre indicate a continued bias toward tactile, location-specific craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not resemble any recent iteration of the property, a stance that fits with the in-camera sensibility he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film finished filming and is aimed at its April 17, 2026 date. Marketing will likely that highlights texture and dread rather than CG roller-coasters, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership supporting cost management.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has described Werwulf as the bleakest project he has tackled, which tracks with a medieval setting and authentic period speech, a combination that can make for textured sound and a chilly, elemental vibe on the big screen. Focus will likely tease this aesthetic in long-lead press and department features before rolling out a initial teaser that leans on mood over plot, a move that has clicked for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is engineered for red-band excess, a signature of the series that works internationally in red-band trailers and produces shareable audience clips from early screenings. Scream 7 targets a self-aware reset that re-anchors on the original star. Resident Evil will hit or miss on creature craft and set design, which align with convention activations and staggered reveals. Insidious tends to be a sonic showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the cinema value feel compelling. Look for trailers that spotlight hyper-detailed sound, deep-bass stingers, and hush beats that shine in top rooms.

The schedule at a glance

January is heavy. 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 foggy reset amid heavier IP. The month finishes with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a crash-survival thriller from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is meaningful, but the palette of tones ensures lanes for each, and the five-week structure gives each runway for each if word of mouth spreads.

Winter into spring set up the summer. Scream 7 lands February 27 with legacy heat. In April, The Mummy re-centers a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once belonged to genre counterprogramming and now sustains big openers. Universal’s untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 feeds summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer sorts the tones. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is comedic and broad, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 offers ferocious intensity. The counterprogramming logic is smart. The spoof can hit next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest scratches the itch for older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have cycled through premium screens.

End of summer through fall leans IP. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously thrived. Resident Evil comes after September 18, a shoulder season window that still feeds into Halloween marketing beats. Jordan Peele’s untitled film holds October 23 and will dominate cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely supported by a mystery-first teaser plan and limited previews that trade in concept over detail.

Holiday prestige and specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a stakes that genre can play the holidays when packaged as director prestige horror. The distributor has done this before, staging carefully, then working critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to sustain conversation into January. If the film wins with critics, the studio can go wider in the first week of 2027 while riding holiday momentum and gift-card spend.

Embedded title notes

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting on a rolling basis as production pushes forward. Logline: Sidney returns to confront a new Ghostface while the narrative returns to the original film’s essence. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: return-to-core with a fresh edge.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A widowed man’s digital partner shifts into something deadly romantic. Rating: TBA. Production: Principal is complete for an early-year bow. Positioning: tech thriller with grief spine.

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 coalesces in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Filmed consecutively with the first film. Positioning: prestige survival-horror continuation.

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 warped reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished and theatrical on deck. 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 hard-edged boss fight to survive on a uninhabited island as the power dynamic tilts and unease intensifies. 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 kept quiet in official materials. Logline: A from-today rework that returns the monster to nightmare, anchored by Cronin’s practical craft and rising dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Wrapped. Positioning: monster revival with signature voice.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A home-set haunting narrative that twists the horror of a child’s wobbly POV. Rating: not yet rated. Production: completed. Positioning: studio-backed, star-driven paranormal suspense.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers involved creatively again. Logline: {A satirical comeback that satirizes present-day genre chatter and true crime fascinations. Rating: TBA. Production: filming slated for fall 2025. 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 ignites, with an globe-spanning twist in tone and setting. Rating: undetermined. Production: shooting in New Zealand. Positioning: R-rated franchise charge tuned for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: unrevealed for now. Top have a peek here cast: TBD. Logline: The Further stirs again, with a unlucky family lashed to residual nightmares. Rating: undetermined. Production: eying a summer shoot for late-summer slot. Positioning: durable spectral IP in a late-summer sweet spot.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: to be announced publicly. Top cast: TBD. Logline: A restart designed to reconstruct the franchise from the ground up, with an emphasis on true survival horror over action spectacle. Rating: not yet rated. Production: dev phase with date secured. Positioning: game-rooted reset with broad potential.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: pending. Logline: deliberately concealed. Rating: undetermined. Production: in progress. Positioning: director event, teaser-led.

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 antique diction and primal menace. Rating: forthcoming. Production: building toward Christmas Day opening. Positioning: specialty holiday horror poised for crafts recognition.

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: timing fluid, autumn anticipated.

Why 2026 lands now

Three hands-on forces calibrate this lineup. First, production that hiccuped or migrated in 2024 called for breathing room in the schedule. Horror can fill those gaps quickly because scripts often call for fewer locales, fewer large-scale effects set pieces, and accelerated schedules. Second, studios have become more rigorous about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently exceeded straight-to-streaming landings. Third, community talk converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will lean on bite-size scare clips from test screenings, controlled scare clips paired with Thursday night previews, and experiential pop-ups that generate creator assets. It is a repeatable playbook because it delivers.

Factor four is the scheduling calculus. Early-2026 family and superhero concentrations ease, clearing runway for genre entries that can lead a weekend or serve as the mature-skew alternative. January is the prime example. Four horror lanes will compete across five weekends, which keeps buzz lanes tidy. Summer provides the other window. The lampoon benefits from family and action buoyancy, then the hard-R entry can use a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Business outlook: budgets, ratings, and the sleeper hunt

Budgets remain in the target range. Most of the films above will stay under the $40 to $50 million threshold, 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 underdog chase continues in Q1, where cost-efficient 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 work those windows. January could easily deliver the first quiet breakout 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. Predict a resilient PVOD phase industry-wide, since horror fans have shown a willingness to pay for convenience after an opening weekend, especially when word of mouth is strong.

The moviegoer’s year in horror

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers flow and breadth. January is a sampler, February delivers a legacy slasher, April returns a Universal monster, May and June provide a ghostly double-hit for date nights and group outings, July gets visceral, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a chilly, literate nightmare. That is how you fuel talk and ticketing without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can compound over time, using earlier releases to prep the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors appreciate the spacing. Horror delivers frequent Thursday-night spikes, efficient screen counts, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can credibly make the premium-screen case, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing surface detail, sound field, and cinematography 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 Strong 2026 Horizon

Dates shift. Ratings change. Casts adjust. But the spine of 2026 horror is solid. There is name recognition where it counts, auteur intent 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 near-deadline boutique buy join the party. For now, the job is simple, roll out exact trailers, keep the secrets, and let the gasps sell the seats.