Age-old Horror awakens: Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a nerve shredding horror feature, bowing Oct 2025 on top streaming platforms

An frightening otherworldly thriller from screenwriter / director Andrew Chiaramonte, setting free an forgotten dread when newcomers become pawns in a satanic game. Dropping on October 2, 2025, on Amazon Prime, YouTube streaming, Google Play, iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango’s digital service.

L.A., CA (August 8, 2025) – Prepare yourselves for *Young & Cursed*, a disturbing journey of living through and forgotten curse that will alter horror this season. Brought to life by rising imaginative director Andrew Chiaramonte, this tense and immersive film follows five teens who emerge trapped in a cut-off hideaway under the malignant sway of Kyra, a female lead haunted by a prehistoric ancient fiend. Be prepared to be seized by a motion picture experience that weaves together soul-chilling terror with spiritual backstory, coming on Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Supernatural inhabitation has been a long-standing fixture in motion pictures. In *Young & Cursed*, that notion is challenged when the presences no longer develop from a different plane, but rather from deep inside. This echoes the malevolent element of these individuals. The result is a riveting mental war where the story becomes a unforgiving clash between purity and corruption.


In a wilderness-stricken no-man's-land, five friends find themselves cornered under the ghastly rule and grasp of a unidentified entity. As the protagonists becomes incapacitated to break her manipulation, cut off and tracked by entities beyond reason, they are obligated to reckon with their greatest panics while the seconds unceasingly edges forward toward their demise.


In *Young & Cursed*, suspicion swells and connections erode, forcing each protagonist to contemplate their identity and the philosophy of volition itself. The stakes magnify with every minute, delivering a terror ride that harmonizes otherworldly suspense with psychological weakness.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my desire was to uncover core terror, an darkness rooted in antiquity, embedding itself in emotional vulnerability, and dealing with a will that threatens selfhood when will is shattered.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Taking on the role of Kyra asked for exploring something past sanity. She is clueless until the haunting manifests, and that transformation is soul-crushing because it is so raw.”

Distribution & Access

*Young & Cursed* will be unleashed for audiences beginning from October 2, 2025, on Prime Video, Google’s video hub, Google’s store, Apple iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home—guaranteeing subscribers around the globe can dive into this terrifying film.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just published a new second trailer for *Young & Cursed*, published to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a follow up to its initial teaser, which has garnered over a huge fan reaction.


In addition to its US/Canada launch, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has shared that *Young & Cursed* will also be delivered to global audiences, making the film to a worldwide audience.


Be sure to catch this visceral descent into darkness. Join *Young & Cursed* this spooky debut to acknowledge these chilling revelations about existence.


For teasers, extra content, and updates straight from the filmmakers, follow @YoungAndCursedFilm across media channels and visit our horror hub.





Current horror’s major pivot: the 2025 cycle U.S. lineup integrates ancient-possession motifs, art-house nightmares, alongside tentpole growls

Beginning with fight-to-live nightmare stories rooted in ancient scripture and extending to IP renewals as well as pointed art-house angles, 2025 is coalescing into the most stratified along with intentionally scheduled year in a decade.

It is loaded, and also intentionally sequenced. studio powerhouses hold down the year with familiar IP, simultaneously streamers crowd the fall with new perspectives as well as scriptural shivers. On the independent axis, festival-forward creators is buoyed by the backdraft from a top-tier 2024 festival cycle. Given Halloween is the centerpiece, the surrounding weeks are charted with intent. The fall stretch is the proving field, though in this cycle, the genre is also staking January, spring, and mid-summer. Fans are ravenous, studios are calculated, therefore 2025 may prove the most strategically arranged season.

Studio Playbook and Mini-Major Tactics: Premium genre swings back

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

Universal’s schedule lights the fuse with an audacious swing: a reimagined Wolf Man, leaving behind the period European setting, in an immediate now. Shepherded by Leigh Whannell and starring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this telling braids lycanthropy with a family meltdown. The arc is bodily and domestic, about marriage, caregiving, and fragile humanity. Slated for mid January, it fits the new plan to claim winter’s soft window with prestige horror rather than castoffs.

As spring rolls in, Clown in a Cornfield bows, a YA slasher adaptation turned minimalist horror show. Led by Eli Craig with Katie Douglas alongside Kevin Durand, it functions as blood smeared American gothic with snark. Behind the greasepaint sits a critique of small town suspicion, generational fracture, and vigilante justice. Advance murmurs say it draws blood.

When summer tapers, Warner’s schedule unveils the final movement from its anchor horror saga: The Conjuring: Last Rites. The Warrens return, played by Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, the installment promises emotional closure while taking on one of the duo’s most infamous real life cases. Though the outline is tried, Michael Chaves is rumored to steer toward a somber, reflective register for the close. It posts in early September, creating cushion before October load.

Next is The Black Phone 2. Originally slated for early summer, its move to an October release suggests confidence. Scott Derrickson again directs, and so do the signature elements that made the first installment a sleeper hit: vintage toned fear, trauma explicitly handled, plus uncanny supernatural grammar. Here the stakes rise, by digging further into the “grabber” mythos and grief’s generational echo.

Closing the prime list is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a picture that draws on name power. The new chapter enriches the lore, adds to the animatronic nightmare bench, bridging teens and legacy players. It opens in December, locking down the winter tail.

SVOD Originals: No Budget, No Problem

While cinemas swing on series strength, platforms are embracing risk, and engagement climbs.

A top daring platform piece is Weapons, a cold trail horror omnibus interlacing three eras linked by a mass vanishing. Helmed by Zach Cregger and featuring Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the piece merges terror with dramatic mass. Debuting in theaters late summer then streaming in fall, it may catalyze deconstruction threads like Barbarian.

On the quieter side is Together, a body horror chamber piece pairing Alison Brie with Dave Franco. Confined to a lonely rental when a vacation turns, the story examines love plus envy plus self disgust as flesh ruin. It moves between affection and rot, a triptych into codependent hell. Before a platform date is locked, it looks like a certain fall stream.

Then there is Sinners, a 1930s vintage vampire folk yarn led by Michael B. Jordan. Visualized in sepia palette with scriptural metaphor, it channels There Will Be Blood against Let the Right One In. The film interrogates American religious trauma through supernatural allegory. Early test screenings have marked it as one of the year’s most talked about streaming debuts.

Further platform indies wait for their cue: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper each threads grief and absence and identity, mapping allegory to dread.

Possession Underneath: Young & Cursed

Dropping October 2 across all major streaming platforms, Young & Cursed emerges as a rare mix, tight in frame and epic in resonance. Authored and directed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the piece tracks five strangers awakening in a remote wilds cabin, under Kyra’s sway, 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 threat is psychological first, wired with primal myth. Avoiding the usual exorcism path with Catholic ritual and Latin spell, this story returns to something older, something darker. Lilith does not answer ceremony, she climbs through trauma, hush, and human fracture. The shift to interior possession, not exterior conjuring, flips expectation and aligns Young & Cursed with an expanding wave, intimate character portraits wearing genre.

The Halloween window on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home frames the film as counter to sequel saturation and creature revivals. It reads as sharp positioning. No heavy handed lore. No franchise baggage. Just pure psychological dread, contained, tense, and tailor made for the binge and breathe rhythm of digital horror fans. Among spectacle, Young & Cursed might win by restraint, then release.

Festival Heat to Market Leverage

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF serve as nurseries for near future horror. They are increasingly launchpads rather than showcases.

The Fantastic Fest slate for horror is strong 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.

At midnight, entries like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You buzz for how they play, not only their names. Backed by A24, it skewers toxic fandom amid a convention lockdown, poised to break big.

SXSW premiered Clown in a Cornfield and introduced several microbudget hauntings currently circling deals. Sundance should deliver grief heavy elevated horror again, where Tribeca’s genre program draws urban, social, and surreal.

The festival game increasingly values branding over mere discovery. Those badges act as campaign openers, not end caps.

Franchise Horror: Sequels, Reboots, Reinventions

Legacy entries present stronger and more purposeful this time.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, dated July, revives the 90s franchise with a new lead and throwback tone. Rather than prior modes, it goes camp and prom night melodrama. Bring tiaras, red dye, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 returns in late June, targeting a broadened techno horror canon with new characters and AI spawned nightmares. The opening film’s buzz and platform staying power help Universal go bigger.

On the slate sits The Long Walk, from one of Stephen King’s stark early titles, Directed by Francis Lawrence, it functions as a harsh dystopian fable encased in survival horror, a children’s march that ends in death. With the right pitch, it could function as The Hunger Games for grown horror audiences.

Meanwhile, reboots and sequels like Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda appear through the year, many poised for targeted windows or last minute deals.

Dials to Watch

Mythic currents go mainstream
Lilith in Young & Cursed and Aztec curses in Whistle point to ancient texts and symbols. Not nostalgia, a reclaim of pre Christian archetypes. Horror exceeds jolts, it insists evil is ancient.

Body horror ascends again
Titles such as Together, Weapons, and Keeper return focus to the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation function as metaphors for heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streaming exclusives sharpen their bite
Churn filler is losing ground on platforms. Services bankroll legitimate writing, legitimate directors, and proper media. Titles such as Weapons and Sinners are treated as events, not mere content.

Festival hype becomes leverage
Festival ribbons become currency for better windows and top shelves. Forgo a festival map in 2025 and obscurity beckons.

Theatrical becomes a trust fall
Theater slots go to likely overachievers or franchise starters. The balance slides PVOD or hybrid. Horror is not vanishing from theaters, it is getting curated.

What’s Next: Fall crush plus winter X factor

Stacking Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons in September and October yields saturation. Indies such as Bone Lake and Keeper must fight for oxygen. Some may slide to early 2026 or switch platform lanes.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 anchors December, and a surprise streaming drop could still arrive late. As mythic runs hot, a closing creature or exorcism could still arrive.

The trick lies in diverse menus finding segmented crowds, not single title bets. The goal is not Get Out again, it is horror with staying power past opening weekends.



The 2026 terror Year Ahead: Sequels, universe starters, in tandem with A jammed Calendar designed for screams

Dek The fresh scare calendar crams up front with a January crush, then rolls through summer, and continuing into the holidays, marrying legacy muscle, creative pitches, and savvy counterprogramming. Studios with streamers are focusing on cost discipline, cinema-first plans, and influencer-ready assets that frame genre titles into cross-demo moments.

The state of horror, heading into 2026

The genre has grown into the bankable lever in studio slates, a pillar that can lift when it lands and still protect the losses when it falls short. After the 2023 year demonstrated to decision-makers that modestly budgeted chillers can lead mainstream conversation, 2024 kept the drumbeat going with filmmaker-forward plays and word-of-mouth wins. The run extended into 2025, where reawakened brands and elevated films made clear there is space for several lanes, from franchise continuations to non-IP projects that translate worldwide. The net effect for the 2026 slate is a calendar that presents tight coordination across companies, with obvious clusters, a blend of legacy names and novel angles, and a recommitted focus on theatrical windows that feed downstream value on premium digital and platforms.

Executives say the category now operates like a schedule utility on the distribution slate. Horror can open on open real estate, create a grabby hook for creative and short-form placements, and over-index with demo groups that respond on Thursday previews and stay strong through the second weekend if the entry connects. Emerging from a strike-affected pipeline, the 2026 rhythm telegraphs conviction in that equation. The calendar commences with a crowded January run, then targets spring into early summer for balance, while keeping space for a fall cadence that extends to the Halloween corridor and past Halloween. The calendar also shows the tightening integration of specialized labels and streamers that can stage a platform run, grow buzz, and go nationwide at the timely point.

An added macro current is legacy care across connected story worlds and classic IP. Studio teams are not just turning out another return. They are aiming to frame lore continuity with a marquee sheen, whether that is a art treatment that telegraphs a fresh attitude or a ensemble decision that reconnects a next entry to a original cycle. At the same time, the auteurs behind the headline-grabbing originals are celebrating physical effects work, special makeup and place-driven backdrops. That convergence offers the 2026 slate a smart balance of familiarity and freshness, which is a recipe that travels worldwide.

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

Paramount sets the tone early with two headline releases that bracket the tone map. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the director slot and Neve Campbell back at the heart, presenting it as both a passing of the torch and a origin-leaning character piece. The film is shooting in Atlanta, and the directional approach hints at a legacy-leaning angle without replaying the last two entries’ sisters thread. A campaign is expected fueled by classic imagery, intro reveals, and a two-beat trailer plan timed to late fall. Distribution is Paramount’s cinema pipeline.

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 reuniting, with the Wayans brothers involved as creative partners for the first time since the early 2000s, a headline the campaign will lean on. As a summer relief option, this one will generate four-quadrant chatter through gif-able moments, with the horror spoof format making room for quick pivots to whatever dominates the discourse that spring.

Universal has three unique pushes. SOULM8TE debuts January 9, 2026, a tech-horror spinoff from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The conceit is simple, sorrow-tinged, and elevator-pitch-ready: a grieving man brings home an synthetic partner that turns into a deadly partner. The date sets it at the front of a front-loaded month, with marketing at Universal likely to revisit creepy live activations and micro spots that blurs intimacy and unease.

On May 8, 2026, the studio slots an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely taken to be the feature developed under temporary titles in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The listed schedule currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which preserves a official title to become an marketing beat closer to the debut look. The timing offers check over here Universal a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles stack elsewhere.

Anchoring the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film grabs October 23, 2026, a slot he has commanded before. The filmmaker’s films are treated as marquee events, with a teaser that reveals little and a later creative that define feel without revealing the concept. The Halloween runway opens a lane to dominate pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then capitalize on the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, links with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček heads, with Souheila Yacoub starring. The franchise has established that a blood-soaked, in-camera leaning aesthetic can feel elevated on a disciplined budget. Expect a red-band summer horror rush that pushes international play, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most international territories.

Sony’s horror bench is notably deep. The studio deploys two brand plays in the back half. An untitled Insidious film premieres August 21, 2026, maintaining a trusty supernatural brand active while the spin-off branch advances. Sony has adjusted timing on this title before, but the current plan locks it in late summer, where Insidious has traditionally delivered.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil steps back in what Sony is presenting as a clean-slate approach for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a pillar part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a explicit mandate to serve both fans and novices. The fall slot provides the studio time to build assets around lore, and monster craft, elements that can increase premium booking interest and fandom activation.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, plants a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film sustains the filmmaker’s run of period horror shaped by meticulous craft and dialect, this time circling werewolf lore. The specialty arm has already staked the slot for a holiday release, a clear message in the auteur as a specialty play that can build and expand if early reception is enthusiastic.

Streaming strategies and platform plays

Platform plans for 2026 run on established tracks. Universal’s horror titles window into copyright after a cinema and premium rental phase, a ordering that maximizes both first-week urgency and sub growth in the downstream. Prime Video combines licensed content with global originals and limited runs in theaters when the data encourages it. Max and Hulu focus their lanes in library pulls, using prominent placements, genre hubs, and handpicked rows to prolong the run on the annual genre haul. Netflix stays opportunistic about own-slate titles and festival buys, slotting horror entries on shorter runways and eventizing arrivals with quick-run campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, operates a hybrid of focused cinema runs and swift platform pivots that converts buzz to sign-ups. That will be critical for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before pivoting to genre pipelines 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 award winners or A-list packages, then give them a modest theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet Oscar thresholds or to generate social proof before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still draws on the 20th Century Studios slate, a major factor for platform stickiness when the genre conversation builds.

Indie corridors

Cineverse is mapping a 2026 corridor with two IP plays. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The promise is clean: the same atmospheric, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a favorite of fans, recalibrated for modern sound and image. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a fall corridor, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. The distributor has signaled a cinema-first plan for Legacy, an good sign for fans of the savage series and for exhibitors looking for R-rated counterplay in the back half.

Focus will operate the filmmaker lane with Werwulf, shepherding the title through the fall circuit if the cut is ready, then leveraging the Christmas window to go wider. That positioning has paid off for prestige horror with mainstream crossovers. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not publicly set many dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines usually solidify after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A fair assumption is a brace of late-summer and fall platformers that can widen if reception drives. Look for an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that bows at Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work in parallel, using small theatrical to kindle evangelism that fuels their paid base.

Brands and originals

By share, the 2026 slate tilts in favor of the brand side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all exploit cultural cachet. The caveat, as ever, is audience fatigue. The operating solution is to market each entry as a tone reset. Paramount is emphasizing character and legacy in Scream 7, Sony is promising a restart at zero for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is centering a French-inflected take from a buzzed-about director. Those choices make a difference when the audience has so many options and social sentiment shifts fast.

Originals and director-driven titles deliver oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be presented as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, puts Rachel McAdams in a stranded survival premise with Raimi’s impish dread. SOULM8TE offers a precise, unnerving tech hook. Werwulf delivers period specificity and an unyielding tone. Even when the title is not based on a news known brand, the assembly is assuring enough to spark pre-sales and Thursday-night turnout.

Comps from the last three years clarify the template. In 2023, a cinema-first model that kept streaming intact did not block a day-date try from paying off when the brand was strong. In 2024, art-forward horror rose in PLF. In 2025, a return of a beloved infection saga made clear that global horror franchises can still feel recharged when they reorient and expand the canvas. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which carries on 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 lensed sequentially, provides the means for marketing to cross-link entries through character spine and themes and to leave creative active without pause points.

Craft and creative trends

The filmmaking conversations behind this year’s genre telegraph a continued move toward physical, site-specific craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not imitate any recent iteration of the property, a stance that aligns with the practical-first approach he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film wrapped principal photography and is tracking to its April 17, 2026 date. Expect a campaign that centers texture and dread rather than thrill-ride spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership supporting cost precision.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has outlined Werwulf as the hardest-edged project he has tackled, which tracks with a medieval backdrop and historically accurate language, a combination that can make for deep sound design and a icy, primal tone on the big screen. Focus will likely tease this aesthetic in behind-the-scenes pieces and craft spotlights before rolling out a tease that elevates tone over story, a move that has performed for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is calibrated for gross-out texture, a signature of the series that plays abroad in red-band trailers and creates shareable audience clips from early screenings. Scream 7 offers a meta-horror reset that centers its original star. Resident Evil will hit or miss on monster realization and design, which match well with con floor moments and managed asset releases. Insidious tends to be a sound design showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the theater case feel essential. Look for trailers that underscore surgical sound design, deep-bass stingers, and quiet voids that sing on PLF.

How the year maps out

January is heavy. Universal’s 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 ends with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a stranded thriller from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is credible, but the palette of tones carves a lane for each, and the five-week structure offers clean runway for each if word of mouth sustains.

Q1 into Q2 stage summer. Paramount’s Scream 7 arrives February 27 with nostalgia energy. In April, New Line’s The Mummy reimagines a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once was aligned with genre counterprogramming and now enables big openers. The untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 flows into summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer underlines contrasts. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is lighter and broader, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 supplies gnarly intensity. The counterprogramming logic is coherent. The spoof can thrive next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest caters to older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have rolled through premiums.

Shoulder season into fall leans franchise. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously connected. Resident Evil steps in after September 18, a pre-October slot that still connects to Halloween marketing beats. Jordan Peele’s untitled film locks October 23 and will absorb cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely driven by a slow-reveal plan and limited teasers that favor idea over plot.

Year-end prestige and specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a marker that genre can compete at Christmas when packaged as auteur prestige horror. Focus has done this before, staging carefully, then leveraging critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to ride the cycle into January. If the film hits with critics, the studio can go wider in the first week of 2027 while riding holiday momentum and holiday card usage.

Embedded title notes

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting still being revealed as production continues. 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: heritage pivot with a current edge.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A devastated man’s algorithmic partner mutates into something dangerously intimate. Rating: TBA. Production: Photography complete for an early-year bow. Positioning: tech shocker with heart.

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

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man journeys back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to collide with a mutable reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished and theatrical on deck. Positioning: atmospheric game adaptation.

Send Help (20th Century Studios, January 30, 2026)
Director: Sam Raimi. Top cast: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Dennis Haysbert, Chris Pang. Logline: After a plane crash, an employee and her difficult boss battle to survive on a uninhabited island as the power balance of power turns and dread encroaches. Rating: TBA. Production: Locked. Positioning: star-centered survival shocker from a maestro.

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 renewed take that returns the monster to dread, grounded in Cronin’s in-camera craft and creeping dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed. Positioning: legacy monster restart with director stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A home-set haunting setup that filters its scares through a preteen’s flickering perspective. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: wrapped. Positioning: studio-supported and celebrity-led ghost thriller.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers back in creative roles. Logline: {A parody return that pokes at hot-button genre motifs and true crime fixations. Rating: to be announced. Production: fall 2025 shoot penciled in. Positioning: broad summer counterprogrammer.

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 worldly twist in tone and setting. Rating: pending. Production: principal photography in New Zealand. Positioning: hard-R franchise continuation built for premium large format.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: TBA in marketing materials. Top cast: forthcoming. Logline: The Further extends again, with a new household anchored to older hauntings. Rating: to be announced. Production: aiming to lens in summer ahead of late-summer bow. Positioning: steady supernatural brand in a historically strong slot.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: to be disclosed. Top cast: awaiting confirmation. Logline: A restart designed to reframe the franchise from the ground up, with an tilt toward classic survival-horror tone over set-piece spectacle. Rating: pending. Production: development underway with firm date. Positioning: source-faithful reboot with four-quadrant path.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: forthcoming. Logline: carefully shrouded. Rating: TBA. Production: continuing. 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 historical diction and ancient menace. Rating: TBA. Production: gearing up with December 25 frame. Positioning: auteur prestige horror aimed at holiday corridor with crafts prospects.

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: window fluid, autumn forecast.

Why 2026 lands now

Three nuts-and-bolts forces frame this lineup. First, production that downshifted or re-sequenced in 2024 needed spacing on the calendar. Horror can bridge those gaps quickly because scripts often are set in fewer locales, fewer large-scale VFX set pieces, and tighter schedules. Second, studios have become more strategic about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently outperformed straight-to-streaming placements. Third, community talk converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will activate social-ready stingers from test screenings, orchestrated scare clips calibrated to Thursday preview timing, and experiential pop-ups that seed creator reels. It is a repeatable playbook because it holds up.

There is also the slotting calculus. Family and cape-heavy lanes thin out in early 2026, creating valuable space for genre entries that can lead a weekend or serve as the mature-skew alternative. January is the prime example. Four horror varieties will compete across five weekends, which helps each film cultivate buzz on its own. Summer provides the other window. The spoof can draft behind animation and action in early summer, then the hard-R entry can make hay in a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Budget discipline, rating paths, sleeper math

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

The sleeper-hit hunt continues in Q1, where lean-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 work those windows. 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. 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.

From viewer POV, the year

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers pattern and spread. January is a sampler, February delivers a legacy slasher, April reawakens a Universal monster, May and June provide a supernatural one-two for date nights and group outings, July runs hard, 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 ratchet upward, using earlier releases to trailhead the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors like the spacing. Horror delivers steady Thursday pops, lean footprints, 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 visual texture, sound field, and image-making 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

Slots move. Ratings change. Casts rotate. But the spine of 2026 horror is solid. There is recognizable IP where it plays, inventive vision where it helps, and a calendar that shows studios meet the timing for scares. The awards and festival pipeline into 2027 will come into focus once the fall festivals lock, and it would not be surprising to see at least one late-breaking specialty acquisition join the party. For now, the job is simple, deliver taut trailers, guard the secrets, and let the screams sell the seats.