Mythic Terror returns: Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a hair raising horror feature, bowing Oct 2025 on leading streamers

A blood-curdling ghostly horror tale from dramatist / cinematic mind Andrew Chiaramonte, evoking an age-old force when foreigners become pawns in a diabolical game. Dropping on October 2, 2025, on Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Google’s digital store, iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango’s digital service.

L.A., CA (August 8, 2025) – get set for *Young & Cursed*, a unnerving tale of struggle and timeless dread that will resculpt terror storytelling this season. Guided by rising horror auteur Andrew Chiaramonte, this edge-of-your-seat and tone-heavy tale follows five individuals who wake up trapped in a unreachable hideaway under the malevolent power of Kyra, a possessed female haunted by a legendary holy text monster. Prepare to be immersed by a cinematic spectacle that merges soul-chilling terror with spiritual backstory, premiering on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Unholy possession has been a well-established concept in visual storytelling. In *Young & Cursed*, that belief is subverted when the entities no longer come externally, but rather from deep inside. This mirrors the shadowy layer of the players. The result is a gripping mental war where the drama becomes a relentless push-pull between light and darkness.


In a remote wilderness, five friends find themselves marooned under the evil dominion and curse of a obscure entity. As the group becomes unresisting to reject her grasp, severed and pursued by creatures unfathomable, they are made to battle their raw vulnerabilities while the moments without pause strikes toward their dark fate.


In *Young & Cursed*, distrust surges and associations shatter, requiring each participant to rethink their identity and the concept of freedom of choice itself. The pressure magnify with every fleeting time, delivering a horror experience that fuses otherworldly suspense with emotional fragility.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my goal was to explore core terror, an spirit that predates humanity, manifesting in human fragility, and questioning a will that forces self-examination when agency is lost.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Channeling Kyra was about accessing something unfamiliar to reason. She is ignorant until the curse activates, and that change is bone-chilling because it is so close.”

Platform Access

*Young & Cursed* will be aired for horror fans beginning from October 2, 2025, on Prime Video, Google’s video hub, Google Play, iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango on-demand—delivering viewers across the world can dive into this demonic journey.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just uploaded a new official trailer #2 for *Young & Cursed*, live to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a sequel to its release of trailer #1, which has garnered over 100K plays.


In addition to its continental debut, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has declared that *Young & Cursed* will also be taken worldwide, making the film to horror fans worldwide.


Mark your calendar for this heart-stopping descent into hell. Watch *Young & Cursed* this All Hallows’ kickoff to dive into these ghostly lessons about human nature.


For exclusive trailers, making-of footage, and insider scoops directly from production, follow @YoungCursedOfficial across entertainment pages and visit the official digital haunt.





U.S. horror’s inflection point: calendar year 2025 U.S. lineup weaves primeval-possession lore, art-house nightmares, together with series shake-ups

Ranging from pressure-cooker survival tales inspired by scriptural legend and extending to legacy revivals set beside acutely observed indies, 2025 is coalescing into the most textured combined with carefully orchestrated year in years.

The 2025 horror calendar goes beyond packed, it is precision-tuned. major banners lay down anchors via recognizable brands, at the same time premium streamers prime the fall with new voices plus legend-coded dread. In the indie lane, independent banners is fueled by the kinetic energy from a record 2024 festival run. Because Halloween stands as the showcase, the year beyond October is carefully apportioned. A dense September through October runway is now a rite of passage, but this year, the genre is also staking January, spring, and mid-summer. Horror fans are craving, studios are exacting, accordingly 2025 could stand as the most orchestrated year.

Studio Chessboard and Mini-Major Plays: Premium genre swings back

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

the Universal banner kicks off the frame with a big gambit: a newly envisioned Wolf Man, not returning to the Gothic European hamlet, inside today’s landscape. Shepherded by Leigh Whannell and starring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this take locates the lycanthropy inside home disintegration. The transformation is not just physical, it is marital, parental, and painfully human. Booked into mid January, it advances a tactic to control the winter valley through premium horror, not dumps.

By spring, Clown in a Cornfield premieres, a YA slasher adaptation reworked as a minimalist shock machine. From director Eli Craig starring Katie Douglas opposite Kevin Durand, it moves like barn born dread with razor satire. Behind the greasepaint sits a critique of small town suspicion, generational fracture, and vigilante justice. Initial heat flags it as potent.

At summer’s close, Warner Bros. rolls out the capstone from its cornerstone horror IP: The Conjuring: Last Rites. With Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson back as Ed and Lorraine Warren, the finale seeks an emotional close via a signature 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.

Next is The Black Phone 2. Once set for early summer, the October pivot signals belief. Scott Derrickson returns, and the tone that worked before is intact: throwback unease, trauma explicitly handled, with spooky supernatural reasoning. This run ups the stakes, with a deeper exploration into the “grabber” mythology and how grief haunts generations.

Bringing up the winter anchor is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a film that does not need traditional marketing to sell tickets. The follow up digs further into canon, grows the animatronic horror lineup, seeking teens plus thirty something gamers. It lands in December, buttoning the final window.

Streaming Firsts: Tight funds, wide impact

While the big screen favors titles you know, platforms are wagering boldly, and results are there.

One of the year’s most ambitious streaming titles is Weapons, a cold file multi story chiller that weaves together three timelines connected by a mass disappearance. With Zach Cregger directing anchored by Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the title blends fear with dramatic gravity. Premiering theatrically in late summer before a fall streaming drop, it may catalyze deconstruction threads like Barbarian.

In the micro chamber lane is Together, a body horror chamber piece with Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Taking place in an isolated rental as a retreat goes 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. Despite no official platform date, it is a lock for fall streaming.

Also rising is Sinners, a 1930s vintage vampire folk yarn starring Michael B. Jordan. Photographed in sepia saturation with biblical metaphor, it plays like There Will Be Blood meets Let the Right One In. The work dissects American religious trauma using supernatural allegory. Dry runs call it a headline grabbing streamer.

Extra indies bide their time on platforms: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper each explores grief and disappearance and identity, opting allegory above bombast.

Deep Possession Currents: Young & Cursed

Landing October 2 across key streamers, Young & Cursed reads as a rare blend, small in footprint yet mythic in spread. Penned and steered by 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. As night descends, so does Kyra’s power, an invasive force that exploits their deepest fears, weaknesses, and regrets.

The dread here runs psychological, charged by primal myth. Instead of another exorcism piece centered on Catholic rites or Latin incantations, this one digs into something older, something darker. Lilith is not conjured by ritual, she surfaces through trauma, silence, and human fragility. This inside out possession reframes expectation and groups Young & Cursed with a rising current, intimate character dramas within 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 is a clever angle. No bloated mythology. No brand fatigue. Bare psychological dread, trim and tense, designed for binge and breath patterns. In a spectacle stack, Young & Cursed could be the hush before the shriek.

Festival Born, Buyer Ready

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF continue to incubate the next six to twelve months of horror. They are increasingly launchpads rather than showcases.

This year’s Fantastic Fest has already confirmed a strong horror lineup. Primate bows as a tropical body horror opener with Cronenberg and Herzog echoes. Whistle, a revenge folktale steeped in Aztec myth, is tapped to close with fire.

At midnight, entries like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You buzz for how they play, not only their names. With A24 behind it, the satire of toxic fandom under a convention lockdown seems breakout bound.

SXSW bowed Clown in a Cornfield while feeding deal chatter for microbudget haunts. Sundance forecasts grief bent elevated horror again, and Tribeca’s genre box tilting urban, social, and surreal.

Strategy at festivals now equals branding as well as discovery. Badges kick off the sell, they do not merely decorate.

Legacy Brands: Additions, Do Overs, and Revisions

This year’s legacy entries carry strength and deliberation.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, dated July, revives the 90s franchise with a new lead and throwback tone. Compared to earlier parts, it tilts camp and prom night melodrama. Think tiaras, stage blood, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 posts late June, set to enlarge techno horror mythology with fresh faces and AI bred menaces. The initial entry’s meme life and streaming legs push Universal to scale up.

The Long Walk adapts an early, scathing Stephen King work, led by Francis Lawrence, it operates as a bleak dystopian tale masked as survival horror, a walk off to death for kids. With sharp marketing, it could translate to The Hunger Games for horror adults.

Additionally, reboots and sequels, among them Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda, populate the months, with timing held for strategy or acquisitions.

Signals and Trends

Mythic dread mainstreams
From Lilith in Young & Cursed to Aztec curses in Whistle, creators turn to ancient texts and symbols. This is less nostalgia, more reclamation of pre Christian archetypes. Horror is not just scaring us, it is reminding us that evil is older than we are.

Body horror reemerges
Entries like Together, Weapons, and Keeper shift back to flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation, these are the new metaphors for heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Originals on platforms bite harder
Junk fill horror on platforms is receding. Streamers deploy capital toward scripts, directors, and paid reach. Pieces like Weapons and Sinners receive event status, not feed stock.

Festival glow translates to leverage
Wreaths work as currency, buying release slots, placement, and press. A horror film without a festival strategy in 2025 risks disappearing.

Theatrical Is Now a Trust Fall
Theatrical is reserved for titles believed to overperform or sow sequels. Everything else heads to PVOD or hybrid drops. Horror stays in theaters, in chosen pockets.

Forward View: Fall pileup, winter curveball

The combination of Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons across September and October saturates fall. Indies including Bone Lake and Keeper will wrestle for room. Watch for one or more of these to pivot into early 2026 or shift platforms.

December centers on Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, but a final weeks surprise stream could still hit. 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.

Horror’s 2025 outcome will be decided not by one title, but by how its variety connects with splintered audiences. The assignment is not to chase the next Get Out, it is to build horror that endures beyond box office.



The forthcoming 2026 fear release year: next chapters, filmmaker-first projects, and also A Crowded Calendar aimed at chills

Dek: The brand-new horror calendar loads immediately with a January crush, thereafter unfolds through the mid-year, and continuing into the holiday frame, weaving name recognition, creative pitches, and savvy release strategy. The big buyers and platforms are prioritizing lean spends, theatrical leads, and social-driven marketing that elevate these offerings into broad-appeal conversations.

Horror momentum into 2026

The horror sector has become the most reliable lever in release plans, a segment that can expand when it connects and still protect the drawdown when it stumbles. After the 2023 year demonstrated to decision-makers that responsibly budgeted horror vehicles can galvanize mainstream conversation, 2024 maintained heat with auteur-driven buzzy films and sleeper breakouts. The upswing moved into the 2025 frame, where reboots and prestige plays made clear there is capacity for a spectrum, from ongoing IP entries to filmmaker-driven originals that perform internationally. The end result for 2026 is a schedule that looks unusually coordinated across players, with planned clusters, a mix of legacy names and new packages, and a renewed emphasis on theater exclusivity that feed downstream value on paid VOD and home platforms.

Schedulers say the horror lane now acts as a flex slot on the programming map. Horror can launch on nearly any frame, provide a simple premise for trailers and UGC-friendly snippets, and lead with ticket buyers that come out on advance nights and return through the second weekend if the offering connects. Emerging from a strike-delayed pipeline, the 2026 rhythm exhibits conviction in that logic. The year launches with a thick January band, then primes spring and early summer for off-slot scheduling, while saving space for a fall cadence that carries into Halloween and into early November. The map also underscores the deeper integration of boutique distributors and subscription services that can develop over weeks, ignite recommendations, and grow at the sweet spot.

A second macro trend is brand strategy across brand ecosystems and veteran brands. The players are not just greenlighting another follow-up. They are trying to present lore continuity with a marquee sheen, whether that is a logo package that broadcasts a fresh attitude or a casting choice that threads a fresh chapter to a vintage era. At the alongside this, the visionaries behind the high-profile originals are doubling down on on-set craft, makeup and prosthetics and vivid settings. That combination yields 2026 a solid mix of brand comfort and novelty, which is a pattern that scales internationally.

Inside the studio playbooks

Paramount fires first with two centerpiece entries that span tone from serious to silly. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the helm and Neve Campbell back at the front, angling it as both a succession moment and a DNA-forward character-focused installment. The shoot is ongoing in Atlanta, and the narrative stance suggests a nostalgia-forward framework without repeating the last two entries’ Carpenter-sisters arc. A campaign is expected leaning on legacy iconography, first images of characters, and a tiered teaser plan arriving in late fall. Distribution is big-screen via Paramount.

Paramount also reawakens a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are back on screen, with the Wayans brothers involved behind the scenes for the first time since the early 2000s, a headline the campaign will emphasize. As a off-tentpole summer play, this one will hunt four-quadrant chatter through gif-able moments, with the horror spoof format allowing quick pivots to whatever dominates horror talk that spring.

Universal has three specific pushes. SOULM8TE bows January 9, 2026, a universe branch from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The setup is elegant, soulful, and high-concept: a grieving man activates an machine companion that mutates into a harmful mate. The date nudges it to the front of a front-loaded month, with Universal’s team likely to iterate on creepy live activations and brief clips that fuses romance and chill.

On May 8, 2026, the studio lines up an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely believed to be the feature developed under working titles in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The posted calendar currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which sets up a final title to become an event moment closer to the early tease. The timing secures a slot in early May while larger tentpoles take the main frames.

Anchoring the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film plants on October 23, 2026, a slot he has owned before. His entries are set up as must-see filmmaker statements, with a minimalist tease and a second trailer wave that set the tone without spoiling the concept. The pre-Halloween slot allows Universal to own pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then work the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, joins with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček commands, with Souheila Yacoub at the center. The franchise has consistently shown that a raw, practical-first treatment can feel top-tier on a mid-range budget. Frame it as a blood-soaked summer horror charge that centers worldwide reach, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most international markets.

Sony’s horror bench is well stocked. The studio launches two marquee IP entries in the back half. An untitled Insidious film rolls out August 21, 2026, continuing a evergreen supernatural brand on the grid while the spin-off branch builds quietly. Sony has changed the date on this title before, but the current plan aims it in late summer, where the brand has long performed.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil re-emerges in what Sony is positioning as a fresh restart 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 mission to serve both core fans and newcomers. The fall slot affords Sony time to build materials around lore, and creature effects, elements that can increase premium booking interest and convention buzz.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, sets a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film continues the filmmaker’s run of period horror characterized by textural authenticity and dialect, this time driven by werewolf stories. The specialty arm has already claimed the date for a holiday release, a promissory note in Eggers as a specialty play that can move wide if early reception is robust.

Streaming strategies and platform plays

Platform plans for 2026 run on predictable routes. Universal’s releases move to copyright after a cinema and premium rental phase, a ordering that elevates both initial urgency and subscriber lifts in the post-theatrical. Prime Video pairs licensed content with worldwide entries and limited cinema engagements when the data recommends it. Max and Hulu accent their strengths in library engagement, using well-timed internal promotions, genre hubs, and collection rows to maximize the tail on overall cume. Netflix keeps options open about own-slate titles and festival snaps, dating horror entries toward the drop and staging as events launches with quick-run campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, uses a tiered of limited theatrical footprints and fast windowing that converts buzz to sign-ups. That will prove important for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before leaning on niche channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ keeps selective horror on a per-project basis. The platform has signaled readiness to take on select projects with top-tier auteurs or star packages, then give them a boutique theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet Oscar thresholds or to show bona fides before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still draws on the 20th Century Studios slate, a core piece for sustained usage when the genre conversation swells.

Specialized lanes

Cineverse is mapping a 2026 runway with two recognizable titles. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The appeal is uncomplicated: the same atmospheric, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult favorite, recalibrated for modern sonics and picture. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a late-year slot, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. The distributor has telegraphed a traditional theatrical plan for Legacy, an promising marker for fans of the ferocious series and for exhibitors looking for R-rated counterplay in the back half.

Focus will push the auteur angle with Werwulf, curating the rollout through the fall circuit if the cut is ready, then deploying the holiday dates to expand. That positioning has delivered for arthouse horror with crossover ambitions. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not finalized many 2026 slots in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines commonly finalize after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A likely scenario is a run of late-summer and fall platformers that can go wider if reception justifies. Be ready 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 together, using small theatrical to spark the evangelism that fuels their paid base.

Franchises versus originals

By tilt, 2026 favors the brand-heavy side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all harness fan equity. The caveat, as ever, is audience fatigue. The preferred tactic is to frame each entry as a recast vibe. Paramount is bringing forward character and lineage in Scream 7, Sony is indicating a full reset for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is centering a Francophone tone from a ascendant talent. Those choices count when the audience has so many options and social sentiment whipsaws.

Originals and filmmaker-centric entries provide the air. Jordan Peele’s October film will be treated as a brand unto itself. Sam Raimi’s Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, casts Rachel McAdams in a crash-survival premise with Raimi’s signature playful menace. SOULM8TE offers a clear, chilling tech hook. Werwulf delivers period specificity and an unyielding tone. Even when the title is not based on known IP, the packaging is grounded enough to accelerate early sales and early previews.

Rolling three-year comps make sense of the approach. In 2023, a cinema-first model that preserved streaming windows did not obstruct a hybrid test from hitting when the brand was trusted. In 2024, filmmaker-craft-led horror outperformed in PLF auditoriums. In 2025, a resurgence of a beloved infection saga reminded the market that global horror franchises can still feel recharged when they alter lens and raise the stakes. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which proceeds January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The two-film strategy, with chapters shot in tandem, permits marketing to link the films through character spine and themes and to maintain a flow of assets without hiatuses.

How the films are being made

The shop talk behind these films telegraph a continued emphasis on material, place-specific craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not follow any recent iteration of the property, a stance that complements the practical-effects sensibility he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film completed filming and is set for its April 17, 2026 date. Plan for a push that spotlights mood and dread rather than roller-coaster spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership making room for tight cost control.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has called Werwulf as the grimmest project he has tackled, which tracks with a Middle Ages setting and medieval diction, a combination that can make for 3D sound and a raw, elemental vibe on the big screen. Focus will likely seed this aesthetic in craft profiles and craft features before rolling out a initial teaser that withholds plot, a move that has succeeded for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is tuned for goopy mayhem, a signature of the series that exports well in red-band trailers and spurs shareable crowd-reaction snippets from early screenings. Scream 7 hints at a meta recalibration that brings back the core lead. Resident Evil will stand or stumble on creature and environment design, which fit with expo activations and selective drops. Insidious tends to be a audio showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the theatrical pitch feel necessary. Look for trailers that center precise sound design, deep-bass stingers, and sudden silences that work in PLF.

Calendar map: winter through the holidays

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. Return to Silent Hill follows on January 23, a quiet contrast amid macro-brand pushes. The month caps 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 menu of tones affords lanes to each, and the five-week structure gives each runway for each if word of mouth holds.

Winter into spring build the summer base. Scream 7 arrives February 27 with nostalgia heat. In April, New Line’s The Mummy revives a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once was home to genre counterprogramming and now enables big openers. The untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 leads into summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer spreads the field. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is playful and broad, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 brings ferocious intensity. The counterprogramming logic is sound. The spoof can succeed 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 cycled through premium screens.

Late summer into fall leans recognizable. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously performed. Resident Evil rolls in after September 18, a early fall window that still links to Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event takes October 23 and will engross cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely augmented by a slow-reveal plan and limited disclosures that center concept over reveals.

Prestige at year’s end. Werwulf on December 25 is a line in sand that genre can hold in the holidays when packaged great post to read as filmmaker-first prestige. The distributor has done this before, platforming with care, then activating critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to linger in conversation into January. If the film hits with critics, the studio can go wider in the first week of 2027 while turning holiday audiences and gift-card spend.

Title snapshots

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting continuing to be revealed as production continues. Logline: Sidney returns to challenge a new Ghostface while the narrative resurfaces the original film’s DNA. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: heritage pivot with a current edge.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A mourning man’s synthetic partner becomes something romantically lethal. Rating: TBA. Production: Shoot completed 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 expands the scope beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult surges in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Shot back-to-back with the first film. Positioning: elevated outbreak saga chapter.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man comes back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to encounter a altering reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished with U.S. theatrical locked. Positioning: mood-led 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 unyielding boss struggle to survive on a desolate island as the hierarchy tilts and mistrust rises. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished. Positioning: star-front survival film from a master.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles TBA in official materials. Logline: A contemporary re-envisioning that returns the monster to terror, rooted in Cronin’s practical craft and accumulating dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Wrapped. 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 domestic haunting piece that plays with the panic of a child’s shaky interpretations. Rating: rating pending. Production: in the can. Positioning: studio-backed, star-driven occult suspense.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers participating creatively. Logline: {A comic send-up that teases modern genre fads and true crime fascinations. Rating: not yet rated. Production: fall 2025 shoot penciled in. Positioning: wide-lane seasonal counterprogram.

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 erupts, with an globe-spanning twist in tone and setting. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: production in New Zealand. Positioning: hard-R franchise continuation built for premium large format.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: awaiting reveal. Top cast: unrevealed. Logline: The Further yawns again, with a new clan entangled with ancient dread. Rating: undetermined. Production: aiming to lens in summer ahead of late-summer bow. Positioning: reliable supernatural IP in a date that favors the brand.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: pending public reveal. Top cast: awaiting confirmation. Logline: A reboot designed to recalibrate the franchise from the ground up, with an tilt toward survival horror over action-heavy spectacle. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: dev phase with date secured. Positioning: source-faithful reboot with four-quadrant path.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: pending. Logline: purposely secretive. Rating: to be announced. Production: continuing. Positioning: filmmaker-led event with teaser rollout.

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

Wolf Creek: Legacy (Cineverse, TBA 2026)
Director: Greg McLean. Top cast: John Jarratt expected to return as Mick Taylor. Logline: The Australian outback slasher returns, with a classic theatrical rollout before platforming. Status: date in flux, fall expected.

Why the moment is 2026

Three practical forces inform this lineup. First, production that decelerated or shuffled in 2024 needed slack in the schedule. Horror can fill those gaps quickly because scripts often rely on fewer locations, fewer large-scale digital sequences, and pared-down timelines. Second, studios have become more disciplined about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently outperformed straight-to-streaming drops. Third, viral talk converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will mine reaction-worthy moments from test screenings, carefully timed scare clips paired with Thursday night previews, and experiential pop-ups that spark influencer coverage. It is a repeatable playbook because it converts.

The slot calculus is real. Early corridors for family and capes are leaner in 2026, freeing space for genre entries that can command a weekend or serve as the mature-skew alternative. January is the prime example. Four different flavors of horror will cluster across five weekends, which helps each film cultivate buzz on its own. Summer provides the other window. The parody aligns with early family and action waves, then the hard-R entry can benefit from a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Financials, ratings, and sleeper angles

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

The dark-horse hunt continues in Q1, where disciplined-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 maximize those pockets. January could easily deliver the first shock over-performer 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. Look for a strong PVOD phase overall, 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 flow and breadth. January is a buffet, February delivers a legacy slasher, April reintroduces a Universal monster, May and June provide a two-beat supernatural run 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 cold, literate nightmare. That is how you sustain heat and footfall without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can sequence upward, using earlier releases to seed the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors favor the spacing. Horror delivers Thursday preview surges, right-sized allotments, 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 grain, acoustics, and camera work 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

Slots move. Ratings change. Casts evolve. But the spine of 2026 horror is solid. There is brand power where it counts, inventive vision where it helps, and a calendar that shows studios track how and when scares land. The awards and festival pipeline into 2027 will come into focus once the fall festivals lock, and it would not be surprising to see at least one late-breaking specialty acquisition join the party. For now, the job is simple, cut sharp trailers, keep the secrets, and let the scares sell the seats.