Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed confronts primeval malevolence, a chilling supernatural thriller, landing October 2025 across top streamers

A hair-raising metaphysical thriller from screenwriter / filmmaker Andrew Chiaramonte, unleashing an primeval nightmare when strangers become tokens in a satanic ordeal. Available on October 2, 2025, on Amazon Prime Video, Google’s YouTube, Google’s Play platform, Apple’s iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home.

Hollywood, CA (August 8, 2025) – get ready for *Young & Cursed*, a disturbing chronicle of resilience and timeless dread that will alter fear-driven cinema this season. Produced by rising new wave horror talent Andrew Chiaramonte, this psychological and shadowy feature follows five unacquainted souls who find themselves stranded in a hidden cottage under the oppressive manipulation of Kyra, a female lead consumed by a 2,000-year-old ancient fiend. Anticipate to be ensnared by a audio-visual event that melds soul-chilling terror with legendary tales, hitting on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Demon possession has been a classic theme in film. In *Young & Cursed*, that tradition is turned on its head when the forces no longer descend from external sources, but rather from their psyche. This symbolizes the shadowy part of every character. The result is a riveting inner struggle where the drama becomes a unforgiving push-pull between innocence and sin.


In a unforgiving forest, five adults find themselves contained under the possessive aura and domination of a secretive character. As the characters becomes defenseless to break her command, detached and chased by evils unimaginable, they are made to stand before their worst nightmares while the seconds brutally edges forward toward their death.


In *Young & Cursed*, tension deepens and bonds break, coercing each survivor to rethink their values and the structure of independent thought itself. The cost surge with every tick, delivering a terror ride that combines occult fear with psychological weakness.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my intention was to evoke ancestral fear, an darkness older than civilization itself, manipulating inner turmoil, and wrestling with a force that dismantles free will when choice is taken.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Portraying Kyra called for internalizing something darker than pain. She is insensitive until the demon emerges, and that pivot is terrifying because it is so internal.”

Watch the Horror Unfold

*Young & Cursed* will be brought for audience access beginning from October 2, 2025, on Amazon’s platform, YouTube, Google’s store, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango on-demand—guaranteeing viewers everywhere can be part of this spirit-driven thriller.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just shared a new video trailer for *Young & Cursed*, uploaded to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a next step to its initial teaser, which has collected over six-figure audience.


In addition to its initial rollout, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has informed that *Young & Cursed* will also be taken worldwide, spreading the horror to thrill-seekers globally.


Don’t miss this mind-warping descent into hell. Join *Young & Cursed* this spooky debut to confront these haunting secrets about the psyche.


For bonus footage, extra content, and press updates from behind the lens, follow @YACMovie across Instagram and Twitter and visit our spooky domain.





Today’s horror tipping point: the 2025 cycle domestic schedule weaves archetypal-possession themes, festival-born jolts, and tentpole growls

Kicking off with survivor-centric dread infused with primordial scripture and onward to brand-name continuations together with cutting indie sensibilities, 2025 appears poised to be the most dimensioned combined with deliberate year for the modern era.

The 2025 horror calendar is not merely full, it is methodical. the big studios bookend the months with familiar IP, as streamers saturate the fall with new perspectives alongside archetypal fear. Meanwhile, the independent cohort is fueled by the echoes from a record 2024 festival run. As Halloween remains the genre’s crown jewel, the non-October slots are tuned with exactness. The September, October gauntlet has become standard, distinctly in 2025, bookings reach January, spring, and mid-summer. Viewers are hungry, studios are calculated, therefore 2025 may prove the most strategically arranged season.

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

The upper tier is moving decisively. If 2024 prepared the terrain, 2025 scales the plan.

Universal’s distribution arm kicks off the frame with a big gambit: a newly envisioned Wolf Man, leaving behind the period European setting, in a modern-day environment. Under director Leigh Whannell and starring Christopher Abbott with Julia Garner, this version roots the lycanthropy in family fracture. The turn is more than creature work, it is about marriage, parenthood, and humanity. dated for mid January, it backs a move to shape winter into a prestige corridor, not a discard corridor.

As spring rolls in, Clown in a Cornfield bows, a YA slasher adaptation reframed as lean dread. Helmed by Eli Craig and featuring Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it is blood soaked Americana horror with a satirical streak. Beneath the facade, it probes hometown suspicion, boomer to zoomer divides, and mob retribution. Initial fest notes point to real bite.

As summer winds down, Warner Bros. Pictures rolls out the capstone from its cornerstone horror IP: The Conjuring: Last Rites. Farmiga and Wilson return as the Warrens, the finale seeks an emotional close via a signature case. Even if the pattern is recognizable, Michael Chaves appears to favor a elegiac, inward tone here. It sets in early September, opening runway before October heat.

Next is The Black Phone 2. First targeted at early summer, the move into October reads bullish. Derrickson re teams, and the hallmarks that turned the first into a sleeper reappear: 70s style chill, trauma as text, and a cold supernatural calculus. This time the stakes climb, with a deeper exploration into the “grabber” mythology and how grief haunts generations.

Finishing the tentpole list is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, an offering that markets itself. The sophomore entry expands the mythology, builds out the animatronic fear crew, while aiming for teen viewers and thirty something game loyalists. It arrives in December, securing the winter cap.

Streaming Offerings: Low budgets, big teeth

With cinemas leaning into known IP, streamers are trying sharper edges, and buzz accrues.

A leading ambitious platform entry is Weapons, a multi timeline cold-case dread piece splicing three ages joined by a mass disappearance. Helmed by Zach Cregger fronted by Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the film fuses dread with dramatic heft. Hitting theaters late summer with fall digital, it looks primed to seed post watch analysis akin to Barbarian.

On the quieter side is Together, a body horror duet anchored by Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Trapped in a far off rental as a holiday fractures, the narrative traces love and jealousy and self contempt into body collapse. It toggles from love to slime, a staged slide into codependent hell. Absent a posted platform date, it is tracking toward an autumn slot.

Next comes Sinners, a thirties set vampire folk saga with Michael B. Jordan. Visualized in sepia palette with scriptural metaphor, it recalls There Will Be Blood spliced to Let the Right One In. The film interrogates American religious trauma through supernatural allegory. Dry runs call it a headline grabbing streamer.

A handful of other streaming indies hover in the wings: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper all lean on grief, loss, and identity, favoring allegory over fireworks.

Possession Runs Deep: Young & Cursed

Posting October 2 across the big platforms, Young & Cursed operates as a rare duality, minimal in staging, maximal in myth. Authored and directed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the narrative rides with five strangers waking in a secluded woodland cabin, held by Kyra, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. As dusk gives way to night, Kyra’s grip intensifies, a violating force plundering fears, vulnerabilities, and regrets.

The terror is psychological in engine, alive with primal myth. Not another exorcism story reliant on Catholic rite and Latin phrase, this entry turns to something older, something darker. Lilith arrives not by rite, but through trauma, silence, and human fragility. The shift to interior possession, not exterior conjuring, flips expectation and aligns Young & Cursed with an expanding wave, intimate character portraits wearing genre.

The platforms, including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home, angle the film as Halloween counterprogramming to sequel load and monster re ups. That is a savvy move. No heavy handed lore. No franchise baggage. Straight psychological chill, boxed and tight, aimed at the binge, pause, and pulse habits of streamers. In the noise, Young & Cursed could cut through by staying hushed, then erupting.

Festival Badges as Fuel

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF serve as nurseries for near future horror. They feel like launchpads now, not just showcases.

Fantastic Fest this cycle touts a strong horror menu. Primate, an opening night tropical body-horror, invites Cronenberg meets Herzog talk. Whistle, Aztec coded revenge folklore, may cap the fest blazing.

Midnight offerings such as If I Had Legs I’d Kick You surge on execution beyond the hook. The A24 fueled satire of toxic fandom in a con lockdown has breakout energy.

SXSW premiered Clown in a Cornfield and introduced several microbudget hauntings currently circling deals. Sundance tends to present grief infused elevated horror and likely will, where Tribeca’s genre program draws urban, social, and surreal.

Festival strategy in 2025 is not just about discovery, it is about branding. Festival laurels are opening moves, not closing notes.

Legacy Brands: Follow Ups, Restarts, and Reframes

This year’s legacy entries carry strength and deliberation.

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

M3GAN 2.0 opens late June, and aims to widen its techno horror mythology with new characters and AI generated terrors. The debut’s viral plus streaming heat gives Universal reason to press the bet.

The Long Walk arrives off an early Stephen King survival piece, steered by Francis Lawrence, it functions as a harsh dystopian fable encased in survival horror, a children’s march that ends in death. If packaged well, it could track like 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.

Trend Lines

Old myth goes broad
Lilith in Young & Cursed plus Aztec curses in Whistle highlight ancient texts and symbols. This reads not as nostalgia but as reclaiming pre Christian archetypes. Horror surpasses shocks, it recalls evil’s antiquity.

Body horror reemerges
With Together, Weapons, and Keeper, the genre goes back to the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation now read as metaphors for heartbreak, grief, and regret.

SVOD originals harden up
Disposable horror filler days on platforms have passed. Services bankroll legitimate writing, legitimate directors, and proper media. Films like Weapons and Sinners are treated as events, not content.

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

Big screen is a trust fall
The big screen goes to those expected to beat comps or build series. The rest moves to PVOD or hybrid patterns. Horror stays in theaters, in chosen pockets.

What’s Next: Autumn crowding, winter surprise

The combination of Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons across September and October saturates fall. Indies like Bone Lake and Keeper will grind for attention. Do not be surprised if one or two move to early 2026 or switch platforms.

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

The genre’s success in 2025 will hinge not on any one title, but on how well its diverse slate reaches its scattered, increasingly segmented audience. This year is not about chasing the next Get Out, it is about building horror that lives beyond the box office.



The upcoming chiller slate: entries, universe starters, plus A stacked Calendar calibrated for shocks

Dek The incoming genre slate crowds at the outset with a January traffic jam, then rolls through summer corridors, and deep into the holidays, mixing marquee clout, inventive spins, and smart counterprogramming. Studios and streamers are leaning into tight budgets, box-office-first windows, and influencer-ready assets that turn these pictures into national conversation.

Horror momentum into 2026

Horror has turned into the steady tool in distribution calendars, a segment that can expand when it connects and still mitigate the drag when it fails to connect. After the 2023 year reassured studio brass that disciplined-budget entries can galvanize the national conversation, 2024 kept the drumbeat going with auteur-driven buzzy films and sleeper breakouts. The trend fed into 2025, where resurrections and festival-grade titles underscored there is a market for different modes, from sequel tracks to original one-offs that translate worldwide. The upshot for 2026 is a grid that feels more orchestrated than usual across the industry, with clear date clusters, a mix of legacy names and new packages, and a tightened focus on cinema windows that increase tail monetization on premium on-demand and home streaming.

Executives say the space now serves as a flex slot on the grid. The genre can premiere on numerous frames, create a quick sell for ad units and vertical videos, and exceed norms with viewers that arrive on Thursday nights and stay strong through the follow-up frame if the picture lands. Emerging from a strike-bent pipeline, the 2026 layout reflects conviction in that logic. The year rolls out with a weighty January window, then turns to spring and early summer for off-slot scheduling, while carving room for a autumn stretch that runs into late October and beyond. The program also includes the increasing integration of specialized labels and OTT outlets that can launch in limited release, stoke social talk, and widen at the strategic time.

A reinforcing pattern is brand strategy across linked properties and legacy franchises. Major shops are not just rolling another follow-up. They are moving to present ongoing narrative with a occasion, whether that is a title treatment that announces a fresh attitude or a star attachment that anchors a incoming chapter to a first wave. At the concurrently, the writer-directors behind the top original plays are championing in-camera technique, real effects and vivid settings. That interplay provides 2026 a robust balance of familiarity and novelty, which is a pattern that scales internationally.

How the majors and mini-majors are programming

Paramount defines the early cadence with two front-of-slate entries that sit at tonal extremes. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the director’s chair and Neve Campbell back at the lead, angling it as both a legacy handover and a origin-leaning character-centered film. The film is shooting in Atlanta, and the creative posture indicates a roots-evoking approach without retreading the last two entries’ sisters storyline. Expect a marketing push rooted in iconic art, character spotlights, and a staggered trailer plan hitting late fall. Distribution is Paramount in theaters.

Paramount also reboots a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are set to reunite, with the Wayans brothers involved as creative contributors for weblink the first time since the early 2000s, a hook the campaign will play up. As a summer relief option, this one will chase four-quadrant chatter through meme-friendly cuts, with the horror spoof format permitting quick pivots to whatever owns the discourse that spring.

Universal has three separate plays. SOULM8TE rolls out January 9, 2026, a technology-driven offshoot from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The foundation is tight, somber, and premise-first: a grieving man purchases an AI companion that turns into a harmful mate. The date locates it at the front of a front-loaded month, with marketing at Universal likely to recreate eerie street stunts and short-cut promos that interweaves love and dread.

On May 8, 2026, the studio lines up an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely considered the feature developed under internal titles in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The public calendar currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which reserves space for a branding reveal to become an attention spike closer to the first trailer. The timing gives Universal a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles occupy other frames.

Completing the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film lands October 23, 2026, a slot he has excelled in before. Peele’s pictures are branded as creative events, with a opaque teaser and a second trailer wave that establish tone without plot reveals the concept. The prime October weekend opens a lane to command pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then activate the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, collaborates with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček leads, with Souheila Yacoub headlining. The franchise has established that a raw, on-set effects led mix can feel elevated on a moderate cost. Frame it as a gore-forward summer horror hit that leans hard into worldwide reach, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most offshore territories.

Sony’s horror bench is well stocked. The studio books two series moves in the back half. An untitled Insidious film hits August 21, 2026, holding a evergreen supernatural brand in the market while the spin-off branch builds quietly. The studio has moved dates on this title before, but the current plan sticks it in late summer, where the brand has done well historically.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil restarts in what Sony is describing as a reset for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a core part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a explicit mandate to serve both franchise faithful and newcomers. The fall slot offers Sony space to build promo materials around setting detail, and practical creature work, elements that can accelerate IMAX and PLF uptake and convention buzz.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, books a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Robert Eggers’ Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film maintains Eggers’ run of period horror grounded in minute detail and textual fidelity, this time focused on werewolf legend. Focus Features has already set the date for a holiday release, a bold stance in Eggers as a specialty play that can move wide if early reception is warm.

SVOD and PVOD rhythms

Platform plans for 2026 run on stable tracks. Universal’s genre entries transition to copyright after a theatrical and PVOD run, a ordering that boosts both FOMO and sign-up momentum in the post-theatrical. Prime Video interleaves outside acquisitions with global pickups and brief theater runs when the data warrants it. Max and Hulu work their advantages in catalog engagement, using seasonal hubs, horror hubs, and staff picks to prolong the run on the year’s genre earnings. Netflix keeps options open about own-slate titles and festival grabs, finalizing horror entries on shorter runways and turning into events arrivals with fast-turn plans. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, uses a paired of tailored theatrical exposure and swift platform pivots that translates talk to trials. That will be meaningful for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before using fan pipelines in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ treats carefully horror on a curated basis. The platform has demonstrated openness to purchase select projects with prestige directors or star packages, then give them a select cinema run in partnership with exhibitors to meet guild rules or to gather buzz before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still pulls from the 20th Century Studios slate, a critical input for retention when the genre conversation peaks.

Art-house genre prospects

Cineverse is putting together a 2026 pipeline with two brand plays. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The angle is tight: the same brooding, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a favorite of fans, elevated for modern sound and image. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a autumn corridor, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. Cineverse has flagged a standard theatrical run for the title, an promising marker for fans of the brutal series and for exhibitors looking for R-rated counterplay in the September weeks.

Focus will work the auteur lane with Werwulf, stewarding the film through festivals in the fall if the cut is ready, then activating the holiday corridor to increase reach. That positioning has shown results for director-led genre with crossover potential. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not publicly set many dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines often crystallize after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A safe bet is a run of late-summer and fall platformers that can broaden if reception justifies. Look for an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that plays Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work hand in hand, using targeted theatrical to seed evangelism that fuels their subscriber base.

Legacy titles versus originals

By skew, the 2026 slate leans toward the series side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all draw on cultural cachet. The risk, as ever, is audience fatigue. The practical approach is to package each entry as a new angle. Paramount is centering character and heritage in Scream 7, Sony is suggesting a clean-slate build for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is embracing a French-accented approach from a rising filmmaker. Those choices matter when the audience has so many options and social sentiment changes rapidly.

Originals and auteur plays provide the air. Jordan Peele’s October film will be framed as a brand unto itself. Sam Raimi’s Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, puts Rachel McAdams into a island-set survival premise with the director’s playful dread. SOULM8TE offers a lean, creepy tech hook. Werwulf brings period specificity and an rigorous tone. Even when the title is not based on a known brand, the package is comforting enough to generate pre-sales and preview-night crowds.

Three-year comps clarify the template. In 2023, a exclusive theatrical model that preserved streaming windows did not deter a parallel release from delivering when the brand was powerful. In 2024, meticulous-craft horror exceeded expectations in PLF. In 2025, a revived cycle of a beloved infection saga reminded the market that global horror franchises can still feel recharged when they shift POV and stretch the story. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which extends 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 produced back-to-back, creates space for marketing to cross-link entries through character and theme and to keep assets alive without lulls.

Craft and creative trends

The behind-the-scenes chatter behind the year’s horror telegraph a continued lean toward tactile, place-driven craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not track with any recent iteration of the property, a stance that matches the in-camera lean he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film wrapped photography and is tracking to its April 17, 2026 date. Marketing will likely that elevates aura and dread rather than CG roller-coasters, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership enabling budget rigor.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has described Werwulf as the most severe project he has tackled, which tracks with a 13th-century milieu and archaic dialect, a combination that can make for immersive sound design and a spare, elemental mood on the big screen. Focus will likely tease this aesthetic in long-lead features and guild coverage before rolling out a teaser that elevates tone over story, a move that has clicked for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is set up for visceral gnarl, a signature of the series that works internationally in red-band trailers and drives shareable jump-cut reactions from early screenings. Scream 7 aims for a meta inflection that puts the original star at center. Resident Evil will hit or miss on creature work and production design, which fit with expo activations and selective drops. Insidious tends to be a audio showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the in-theater case feel irresistible. Look for trailers that spotlight precise sound design, deep-bass stingers, and mute beats that shine in top rooms.

From winter to holidays

January is crowded. 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 atmospheric change-up amid big-brand pushes. The month finishes with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival-horror from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is serious, but the tonal variety makes lanes for each, and the five-week structure offers clean runway for each if word of mouth sticks.

Late Q1 and spring set up the summer. Scream 7 lands February 27 with nostalgia heat. In April, The Mummy re-centers a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once favored genre counterprogramming and now nurtures 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 jokier and broader, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 supplies brutal intensity. The counterprogramming logic is strong. The spoof can play next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest delights older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have run their PLF course.

August and September into October leans IP. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously connected. Resident Evil comes after September 18, a pre-Halloween slot that still ties into Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event locks October 23 and will own cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely backed by a shroud-first teaser rhythm and limited plot reveals that favor idea over plot.

Holiday prestige and specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a stakes that genre can thrive over the holidays when packaged as auteur prestige horror. Focus has done this before, selective rollout, then using critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to hold in chatter into January. If the film hits with critics, the studio can broaden in the first week of 2027 while enjoying holiday hold and gift-card spend.

Project-by-project snapshots

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting ongoing as production rolls. Logline: Sidney returns to challenge a new Ghostface while the narrative relinks to the original film’s core. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: roots reset with a contemporary edge.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A heartbroken man’s virtual companion shifts into something lethally affectionate. Rating: TBA. Production: Production locked for an early-year bow. Positioning: techno-horror with feeling.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (Sony, January 16, 2026)
Director: Nia DaCosta. Writer: Alex Garland. Top cast: Cillian Murphy, Jack O’Connell, and additional ensemble tied to a new antagonist faction. Logline: The second chapter in a trilogy widens the scope beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult organizes in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Double-shot 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 comes back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to stumble upon a mutable reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed with U.S. theatrical distribution secured. Positioning: ambience-forward 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 scramble to survive on a cut-off island as the power balance reverses and mistrust rises. Rating: TBA. Production: Locked. Positioning: star-led survival piece from a genre icon.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles not disclosed in official materials. Logline: A renewed take that returns the monster to horror, founded on Cronin’s physical craft and rising dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Wrapped. Positioning: iconic monster return with auteur mark.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A family-home haunting tale that explores the chill of a child’s wobbly point of view. Rating: to be announced. Production: picture-locked. Positioning: studio-scale and name-above-title ghost thriller.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers reuniting creatively. Logline: {A send-up revival that satirizes modern genre fads and true-crime buzz. Rating: TBD. Production: cameras due to roll fall 2025. Positioning: four-quadrant summer counterplay.

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 spreads, with an overseas twist in tone and setting. Rating: forthcoming. Production: lensing in New Zealand. Positioning: R-forward continuation crafted for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: awaiting reveal. Top cast: forthcoming. Logline: The Further ripples again, with a fresh family anchored to past horrors. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: eying a summer shoot for late-summer slot. Positioning: trusted supernatural label in a supportive window.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: to be announced publicly. Top cast: awaiting confirmation. Logline: A from-scratch rebuild designed to reconstitute the franchise from the ground up, with an stress on classic survival-horror tone over set-piece spectacle. Rating: pending. Production: development underway with firm date. Positioning: lore-true modernization with broad upside.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: TBD. Logline: strategically hidden. Rating: not yet rated. Production: ongoing. Positioning: teaser-forward filmmaker happening.

Werwulf (Focus Features, December 25, 2026)
Director: Robert Eggers. Top cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, with other regulars expected. Logline: A medieval werewolf story built on period-specific language and ancient menace. Rating: undetermined. Production: in preparation with Christmas frame locked. Positioning: prestige-leaning holiday genre with crafts potential.

Wolf Creek: Legacy (Cineverse, TBA 2026)
Director: Greg McLean. Top cast: John Jarratt expected to return as Mick Taylor. Logline: The Australian outback slasher returns, with a cinema-first path before platforming. Status: date variable, fall window probable.

Why 2026 lands now

Three practical forces inform this lineup. First, production that stalled or re-sequenced in 2024 called for breathing room in the schedule. Horror can plug those gaps fast because scripts often demand fewer locations, fewer large-scale visual effects runs, and shorter schedules. Second, studios have become more structured about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal click site for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently overdelivered vs. straight-to-streaming landings. Third, digital word of mouth converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will work repeatable beats from test screenings, metered scare clips aligned to Thursday preview shows, and experiential pop-ups that seed creator reels. It is a repeatable playbook because it holds up.

Another factor is the scheduling math. Family and superhero corridors are not as densely packed in early 2026, leaving useful real estate for genre entries that can lead a weekend or operate as the older-skew option. January is the prime example. Four horror varieties will jostle across five weekends, which gives each title a lane and limits cannibalization. Summer provides the other window. The satire rides the animated and action tide, then the hard-R entry can pounce on a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Financials, ratings, and sleeper angles

Budgets remain in the optimal band. Most of the films above will track under the $40–$50 million range, with many far below. That allows for robust premium-format allocation 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 low-to-mid budget genre can own weekends with minimal competition, and again in late summer, where horror often becomes the conversation when tentpoles tire. The 2026 slate is set up to harvest those lanes. January could easily deliver the first dark-horse hit of the year, and August into September gives Sony an avenue to hold screens with back-to-back supernatural IP while still leaving room for an indie breakout.

Internationally, brand recognition helps Resident Evil, Evil Dead, and Scream travel, while 28 Years Later benefits from a British setting and returning talent. Werwulf and The Mummy will lean on auteur and classic-monster awareness abroad. Streamers will amplify the tail, with copyright pickups boosting Universal’s slate and Shudder driving evangelism for Cineverse titles. Plan on a solid PVOD window generally, 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 beat and breadth. January is a buffet, February delivers a legacy slasher, April reanimates a Universal monster, May and June provide a ghostly double-hit for date nights and group outings, July goes for the throat, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a cold, literate nightmare. That is how you sustain conversation and attendance without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can scale over time, using earlier releases to prep the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors like the spacing. Horror delivers consistent Thursday swells, lean footprints, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can qualify for PLF, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing texture, audio design, and framing that benefit from larger formats. The calendar also leaves room for specialty platformers to open in New York and Los Angeles, build reviews, and slide into national conversation as the fall progresses.

2026 Looks Exciting

Schedules slip. Ratings change. Casts shuffle. But the spine of 2026 horror is intact. There is brand power where it counts, creative ambition where it counts, and a calendar that shows studios sense the cadence of 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 final-hour specialty addition join the party. For now, the job is simple, cut crisp trailers, guard the secrets, and let the frights sell the seats.