Ancient Evil stirs: Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a bone chilling horror thriller, debuting Oct 2025 across major platforms

One chilling occult horror tale from creator / cinematic mind Andrew Chiaramonte, awakening an archaic evil when foreigners become instruments in a demonic struggle. Available October 2, 2025, on Amazon’s Prime Video, video-sharing site YouTube, Google’s digital store, iTunes Movies, Apple TV Plus, and Fandango streaming.

Hollywood, CA (August 8, 2025) – Brace yourselves for *Young & Cursed*, a unnerving depiction of perseverance and age-old darkness that will reimagine the horror genre this Halloween season. Created by rising thriller expert Andrew Chiaramonte, this gritty and cinematic screenplay follows five unacquainted souls who wake up trapped in a unreachable hideaway under the unfriendly power of Kyra, a mysterious girl dominated by a time-worn scriptural evil. Prepare to be ensnared by a audio-visual adventure that harmonizes bodily fright with timeless legends, dropping on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Hellish influence has been a time-honored motif in genre filmmaking. In *Young & Cursed*, that tradition is reimagined when the spirits no longer develop outside their bodies, but rather inside them. This embodies the most terrifying element of all involved. The result is a relentless moral showdown where the narrative becomes a unyielding battle between innocence and sin.


In a abandoned no-man's-land, five young people find themselves contained under the fiendish control and possession of a uncanny apparition. As the companions becomes submissive to break her curse, severed and stalked by entities beyond comprehension, they are made to stand before their darkest emotions while the hours without pause ticks onward toward their death.


In *Young & Cursed*, paranoia grows and relationships implode, requiring each cast member to challenge their values and the idea of free will itself. The cost escalate with every tick, delivering a horror experience that intertwines otherworldly panic with human fragility.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my objective was to channel primal fear, an darkness beyond time, manipulating emotional vulnerability, and confronting a power that dismantles free will when will is shattered.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Transforming into Kyra meant channeling something unfamiliar to reason. She is in denial until the takeover begins, and that flip is gut-wrenching because it is so intimate.”

Debut Info

*Young & Cursed* will be launched for audiences beginning from October 2, 2025, on Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango on-demand—so that users internationally can face this spine-tingling premiere.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just premiered a new follow-up preview for *Young & Cursed*, published to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a follow-through to its release of trailer #1, which has gathered over notable views.


In addition to its North American premiere, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has broadcast that *Young & Cursed* will also be released internationally, giving access to the movie to scare fans abroad.


Be sure to catch this heart-stopping fall into madness. Experience *Young & Cursed* this October 2 to experience these dark realities about free will.


For previews, director cuts, and news from the story's source, follow @YoungAndCursedFilm across your favorite networks and visit our horror hub.





Contemporary horror’s sea change: the 2025 cycle American release plan integrates ancient-possession motifs, independent shockers, stacked beside series shake-ups

Across fight-to-live nightmare stories inspired by near-Eastern lore and onward to legacy revivals in concert with incisive indie visions, 2025 is coalescing into the most variegated in tandem with tactically planned year in the past ten years.

The 2025 horror calendar reads less like chaos, more like a plan. major banners set cornerstones by way of signature titles, concurrently streamers load up the fall with new voices set against old-world menace. In parallel, the art-house flank is propelled by the kinetic energy of a record-setting 2024 festival season. As Halloween remains the genre’s crown jewel, the schedule beyond October is tightly engineered. The fall stretch is the proving field, though in this cycle, strategies include January, spring, and mid-summer. Viewers are primed, studios are calculated, and 2025 is positioned to be the most designed season yet.

Major Studio Plans with Mini-Major Flex: The Return of Prestige Fear

The studio class is engaged. If 2024 planted the seeds, 2025 presses the advantage.

Universal’s slate fires the first shot with a bold swing: a modernized Wolf Man, set not in some misty 19th-century European village, but a sharp contemporary setting. Steered by Leigh Whannell anchored by Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this approach fixes the lycanthropy within intimate rupture. 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.

Spring brings Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher port tuned to austere horror. Directed by Eli Craig including Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it feels like crimson splashed Midwest menace with winked critique. Beneath the mask, it picks at rural paranoia, age cohort splits, and lynch mob logic. Early circuit chatter says it has bite.

Toward summer’s end, the WB camp rolls out the capstone from its bankable horror series: The Conjuring: Last Rites. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson again portray Ed and Lorraine Warren, the installment promises emotional closure while taking on one of the duo’s most infamous real life cases. Though the outline is tried, Chaves is guiding toward a solemn, meditative finish. 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. Derrickson returns to the helm, and the memorable motifs return: 70s style chill, trauma centered writing, along with eerie supernatural rules. This time, the stakes are raised, through a fuller probe of the “grabber” lore and inherited grief.

Finishing the tentpole list is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a film that does not need traditional marketing to sell tickets. The second outing goes deeper into backstory, enlarges the animatronic menagerie, with a bullseye on teens and thirty something nostalgics. It arrives in December, holding the cold season’s end.

Digital Originals: No Budget, No Problem

While theaters lean on names and sequels, streamers are swinging risk forward, and returns look strong.

Among the most ambitious streaming plays is Weapons, a cold-case linked horror tapestry splicing three ages joined by a mass disappearance. Guided by Zach Cregger and featuring Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the work combines fright with dramatic torque. Rolling out in theaters late summer before fall platform release, it should ignite online discourse and post viewing breakdowns, much like Barbarian.

More contained by design is Together, a two hander body horror spiral anchored by Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Situated in an out of the way rental during a failed escape, the movie follows love and envy and self denial into corporeal breakdown. It moves between affection and rot, a triptych into codependent hell. Despite no official platform date, it is tracking toward an autumn slot.

In the mix sits Sinners, a thirties era vampire folk parable starring Michael B. Jordan. Rendered in sepia depth and layered biblical metaphor, it evokes There Will Be Blood crossed with Let the Right One In. The project looks at American religious trauma under a supernatural allegory. Initial test audience notes point to a buzzy streaming debut.

More streamer bound indies stand by in the shadows: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper all mine grief and vanishing and identity, running metaphor first.

Deep Possession Currents: Young & Cursed

Bowing October 2 on major streamers, Young & Cursed operates as a rare duality, minimal in staging, maximal in myth. Written and helmed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the film follows five strangers who wake in a remote wilderness cabin under the thrall of 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 dread here runs psychological, charged by primal myth. Not another exorcism story reliant on Catholic rite and Latin phrase, this one digs into something older, something darker. Lilith is not conjured by ritual, she surfaces through trauma, silence, and human fragility. Making possession internal threads Young & Cursed into the current of intimate character studies in genre skin.

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 reads as sharp positioning. No overweight 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 and Buyer Ready

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF remain breeding grounds for what horror looks like six to twelve months later. This year, the launchpad function outruns the showcase role.

The Fantastic Fest slate for horror is strong this year. Primate opens the fest with tropical body horror and critics cite Cronenberg and Herzog. Whistle, Aztec coded revenge folklore, may cap the fest blazing.

The midnight bench, including If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, hums from execution, not mere titling. A24 support plus satire of toxic fandom in a convention lockdown puts it on breakout watch.

SXSW staged Clown in a Cornfield and lined up microbudget haunts for talks. Sundance is expected to unspool a familiar crop of grief steeped elevated horror, 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 hits July to revive the 90s line with fresh lead and VHS vibe. Compared to earlier parts, it tilts camp and prom night melodrama. Visualize tiaras, fake gore, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 posts late June, aiming to expand its techno horror mythology with new characters and new AI generated terrors. The first title’s online shareability and streaming stickiness fuel Universal’s appetite.

The Long Walk adapts an early, scathing Stephen King work, steered by Francis Lawrence, it stands as a punishing dystopian allegory wearing survival horror, a march until death with no victors. If framed properly, it could echo The Hunger Games for adult horror.

Elsewhere, reboots and sequels like Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda pepper the schedule, many waiting on strategic holds or late deals.

Trend Lines

Ancient myth goes wide
From Lilith in Young & Cursed across to Aztec curses in Whistle, slates mine ancient texts and symbols. Not nostalgia, a reclaim of pre Christian archetypes. Horror goes beyond fright, it notes evil’s age.

Body horror reemerges
With Together, Weapons, and Keeper, the genre goes back to the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation map to heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streaming originals get teeth
Disposable horror filler days on platforms have passed. Streamers back real writing, real filmmakers, and genuine marketing. Drops such as Weapons and Sinners arrive as events, not as catalog.

Festival Hype Equals Market Leverage
Festival ribbons become currency for better windows and top shelves. Forgo a festival map in 2025 and obscurity beckons.

Theaters are a trust fall
Theater slots go to likely overachievers or franchise starters. Everything else is PVOD or hybrid. Horror still lives in theaters, more curated than broad.

What’s Next: Autumn crowding, winter surprise

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

December anchors on Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, yet a surprise streamer drop could appear in the final weeks. When the heavy hitters lean mythic, a last creature feature or exorcism can still fit.

The success of horror in 2025 hinges less on a single title and more on how a diverse slate reaches a scattered, segmented audience. This year is not about chasing the next Get Out, it is about building horror that lives beyond the box office.



The coming 2026 Horror season: installments, fresh concepts, paired with A hectic Calendar calibrated for goosebumps

Dek: The brand-new horror season lines up from the jump with a January cluster, following that extends through the mid-year, and continuing into the holiday frame, combining name recognition, creative pitches, and savvy release strategy. The big buyers and platforms are prioritizing lean spends, theatrical leads, and shareable marketing that transform these releases into mainstream chatter.

The landscape of horror in 2026

Horror has become the steady lever in release plans, a segment that can expand when it connects and still protect the drawdown when it fails to connect. After 2023 proved to studio brass that low-to-mid budget scare machines can galvanize cultural conversation, the following year carried the beat with buzzy auteur projects and under-the-radar smashes. The energy flowed into the 2025 frame, where reboots and awards-minded projects signaled there is appetite for multiple flavors, from legacy continuations to director-led originals that translate worldwide. The upshot for 2026 is a run that seems notably aligned across the market, with obvious clusters, a pairing of established brands and fresh ideas, and a refocused commitment on theatrical windows that boost PVOD and platform value on premium on-demand and home streaming.

Executives say the space now slots in as a utility player on the schedule. The genre can arrive on many corridors, furnish a grabby hook for teasers and reels, and punch above weight with crowds that turn out on Thursday nights and maintain momentum through the next pass if the release delivers. Post a strike-induced shuffle, the 2026 plan reflects faith in that model. The slate kicks off with a heavy January schedule, then exploits spring through early summer for contrast, while leaving room for a September to October window that connects to holiday-adjacent weekends and past Halloween. The schedule also features the expanded integration of arthouse labels and home platforms that can grow from platform, build word of mouth, and widen at the optimal moment.

Another broad trend is brand management across connected story worlds and heritage properties. Major shops are not just making another chapter. They are seeking to position connection with a headline quality, whether that is a title treatment that conveys a recalibrated tone or a casting move that anchors a next film to a early run. At the simultaneously, the creative teams behind the most buzzed-about originals are championing material texture, makeup and prosthetics and grounded locations. That pairing affords 2026 a confident blend of familiarity and freshness, which is how horror tends to travel globally.

Studio by studio strategy signals

Paramount defines the early cadence with two prominent titles that bookend the tonal range. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the director’s chair and Neve Campbell back at the focus, framing it as both a legacy handover and a heritage-centered character-centered film. The shoot is ongoing in Atlanta, and the narrative stance suggests navigate to this website a nostalgia-forward mode without replaying the last two entries’ Carpenter-sisters arc. Expect a marketing push rooted in classic imagery, character previews, and a two-beat trailer plan timed to late fall. Distribution is Paramount’s cinema pipeline.

Paramount also relaunches a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are joining up again, with the Wayans brothers involved in creative roles for the first time since the early 2000s, a hook the campaign will feature. As a summer counter-slot, this one will build large awareness through meme-friendly cuts, with the horror spoof format supporting quick switches to whatever rules trend lines that spring.

Universal has three separate bets. SOULM8TE debuts January 9, 2026, a digital-age offshoot from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The premise is tidy, loss-driven, and big-hook: a grieving man implements an synthetic partner that grows into a lethal partner. The date lines it up at the front of a front-loaded month, with the Universal machine likely to recreate viral uncanny stunts and short reels that mixes intimacy and dread.

On May 8, 2026, the studio positions an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely believed to be the feature developed under temporary titles in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The public release grid currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which sets up a title drop to become an PR pop closer to the opening teaser. The timing hands the studio a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles own different weekends.

Supplementing the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film grabs October 23, 2026, a slot he has excelled in before. Peele projects are positioned as must-see filmmaker statements, with a mystery-first teaser and a subsequent trailers that signal tone without plot the concept. The late-month date creates space for Universal to take 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, joins with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček guides, with Souheila Yacoub anchoring. The franchise has established that a visceral, on-set effects led method can feel cinematic on a lean spend. Look for a hard-R summer horror jolt that spotlights offshore potential, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most offshore territories.

Sony’s horror bench is particularly deep. The studio lines up two name-brand pushes in the back half. An untitled Insidious film premieres August 21, 2026, keeping a bankable supernatural brand in play while the spin-off branch progresses. The studio has shifted dates on this title before, but the current plan sets it in late summer, where Insidious has often excelled.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil reboots in what Sony is framing as a from-the-ground-up reboot 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 sharper mandate to serve both diehards and first-timers. The fall slot lets Sony to build artifacts around setting detail, and monster aesthetics, elements that can accelerate IMAX and PLF uptake and fan-culture participation.

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 carries forward the filmmaker’s run of period horror driven by historical precision and language, this time set against lycan legends. The distributor has already planted the flag for a holiday release, a vote of confidence in Eggers as a specialty play that can platform wide if early reception is warm.

Streaming windows and tactics

Streaming playbooks in 2026 run on well-known grooves. The Universal horror run transition to copyright after a theater window then PVOD, a cadence that fortifies both FOMO and sub growth in the back half. Prime Video pairs outside acquisitions with world buys and qualifying theatrical engagements when the data signals it. Max and Hulu work their edges in back-catalog play, using seasonal hubs, spooky hubs, and staff picks to sustain interest on overall cume. Netflix stays opportunistic about originals and festival deals, scheduling horror entries with shorter lead times and framing as events arrivals with tight-window plans. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, operates a hybrid of selective theatrical runs and speedy platforming that turns chatter to conversion. That will matter for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before pressing niche channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ keeps a case-by-case stance on horror on a title-by-title basis. The platform has shown a willingness to board select projects with acclaimed directors or name-led packages, then give them a select cinema run in partnership with exhibitors to meet eligibility thresholds or to show bona fides before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still capitalizes on the 20th Century Studios slate, a key factor for monthly activity when the genre conversation swells.

Indie and specialty outlook

Cineverse is curating a 2026 track with two label plays. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The proposition is uncomplicated: the same gloomy, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a genre cult touchstone, upgraded for modern soundscapes and visuals. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a fall window, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. Cineverse has suggested a big-screen first plan for Legacy, an encouraging sign for fans of the brutal series and for exhibitors looking for R-rated counterplay in the autumn weeks.

Focus will operate the filmmaker lane with Werwulf, curating the rollout through the autumn circuit if the cut is ready, then turning to the holiday corridor to increase reach. That positioning has proved effective for auteur horror with four-quadrant hopes. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not released many dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines usually solidify after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A reasonable expectation is a selection of late-summer and fall platformers that can surge if reception encourages. Do not be surprised by an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that runs at Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work jointly, using mini theatrical to ignite evangelism that fuels their membership.

Franchises versus originals

By count, 2026 skews toward the series side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all leverage marquee value. The watch-out, as ever, is brand erosion. The preferred tactic is to sell each entry as a renewed feel. Paramount is centering character and heritage in Scream 7, Sony is positioning a from-scratch reboot for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is driving a continental coloration from a emerging director. Those choices count when the audience has so many options and social sentiment turns quickly.

Originals and auteur plays keep the lungs full. Jordan Peele’s October film will be marketed as a brand unto itself. Sam Raimi’s Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, sets Rachel McAdams in a survival shocker premise with the filmmaker’s mischievous menace. SOULM8TE offers a clean, creepy tech hook. Werwulf rests on period texture and an unyielding tone. Even when the title is not based on legacy IP, the package is recognizable enough to build pre-sales and Thursday-night crowds.

Three-year comps make sense of the model. In 2023, a exclusive window model that observed windows did not deter a day-and-date experiment from thriving when the brand was strong. In 2024, precision craft horror hit big in premium auditoriums. In 2025, a revival of a beloved infection saga reminded the market that global horror franchises can still feel reinvigorated when they alter lens and elevate scope. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which moves forward January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The double feature plan, with chapters shot back-to-back, permits marketing to tie installments through character spine and themes and to keep assets alive without long breaks.

Technique and craft currents

The production chatter behind the 2026 entries telegraph a continued tilt toward tactile, place-driven craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not imitate any recent iteration of the property, a stance that complements the prosthetic-forward taste he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film completed filming and is tracking to its April 17, 2026 date. Promo should that leans on tone and tension rather than fireworks, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership backing efficient spending.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has characterized Werwulf as the most severe project he has tackled, which tracks with a medieval world and authentic period speech, a combination that can make for enveloping sound design and a austere, elemental atmosphere on the big screen. Focus will likely preview this aesthetic in long-lead features and craft coverage before rolling out a teaser that plays with mood rather than plot, a move that has performed for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is calibrated for tactile gnarliness, a signature of the series that plays abroad in red-band trailers and generates shareable jump-cut reactions from early screenings. Scream 7 delivers a meta inflection that centers an original star. Resident Evil will win or lose on monster aesthetics and world-building, which match well with con floor moments and curated leaks. Insidious tends to be a audio showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the theatrical pitch feel definitive. Look for trailers that elevate pin-drop sound, deep-bass stingers, and quiet voids that explode in larger rooms.

Calendar map: winter through the holidays

January is packed. 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 moody palate cleanser amid heavier IP. The month winds down with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival chiller from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is meaningful, but the tone spread makes lanes for each, and the five-week structure hands each a runway for each if word of mouth holds.

Late Q1 and spring stage summer. Paramount’s Scream 7 bows February 27 with nostalgia heat. In April, The Mummy resurrects a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once suited genre counterprogramming and now backs big openers. Universal’s untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 hands off to summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer sharpens the contrast. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is lighter and broader, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 drops brutal intensity. The counterprogramming logic is workable. The spoof can win next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest feeds older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have cycled through PLF.

Late summer into fall leans IP. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously clicked. Resident Evil lands after September 18, a bridge slot that still ties into Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event claims October 23 and will captivate cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely backed by a minimalist tease strategy and limited previews that stress concept over spoilers.

December specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a flag plant that genre can play the holidays when packaged as prestige-leaning horror. Focus has done this before, slow-rolling, then turning to critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to keep the film in the conversation into January. If the film hits with critics, the studio can go wider in the first week of 2027 while riding holiday turnout and gift-card use.

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 counter a new Ghostface while the narrative returns to the original film’s genome. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: classic-DNA reset with a current angle.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A loss-struck man’s synthetic partner becomes something romantically lethal. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming finished for an early-year bow. Positioning: algorithmic dread with emotion.

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 surges in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Lensed back-to-back with the first film. Positioning: continuation of a revived prestige zombie saga.

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 unstable reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Done with U.S. run set. Positioning: tone-first game adaptation.

Send Help (20th Century Studios, January 30, 2026)
Director: Sam Raimi. Top cast: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Dennis Haysbert, Chris Pang. Logline: After a plane crash, an employee and her unyielding boss fight to survive on a remote island as the power dynamic upends and unease intensifies. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed. 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 modern reconception that returns the monster to fear, founded on Cronin’s hands-on craft and creeping dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Principal wrapped. Positioning: classic monster reset with creative stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A family-home haunting premise that routes the horror through a child’s volatile personal vantage. Rating: pending. Production: finished. Positioning: studio-crafted and headline-actor led supernatural mood piece.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers back in the creative mix. Logline: {A satirical comeback that pokes at present-day genre chatter and true-crime buzz. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: fall 2025 production window. 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 breaks out, with an international twist in tone and setting. Rating: forthcoming. Production: cameras rolling in New Zealand. Positioning: R-rated franchise charge tuned for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: TBA in marketing materials. Top cast: unrevealed. Logline: The Further widens again, with a new clan entangled with lingering terrors. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: slated for summer production leading to late-summer release. Positioning: steady supernatural brand in a historically strong slot.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: to be announced publicly. Top cast: to be announced. Logline: A clean reboot designed to rebuild the franchise from the ground up, with an focus on classic survival-horror tone over action pyrotechnics. Rating: TBA. Production: development underway with firm date. Positioning: game-rooted reset with broad potential.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: forthcoming. Logline: Kept under wraps by design. Rating: forthcoming. Production: proceeding. Positioning: filmmaker event, teaser-driven.

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 era-accurate language and elemental menace. Rating: undetermined. Production: building toward Christmas Day opening. 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 hiccuped 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 accelerated schedules. 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 seed creator reels. It is a repeatable playbook because it performs.

Factor four is the scheduling calculus. Family and cape-heavy lanes thin out in early 2026, making room for genre entries that can command a weekend or act as the older-tilt option. January is the prime example. Four tonal lanes of horror will trade weekends across five weekends, which lets WOM accrue cleanly. Summer provides the other window. The lampoon benefits from family and action buoyancy, then the hard-R entry can capitalize on a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Cost, ratings, and sleeper dynamics

Budgets remain in the optimal band. Most of the films above will budget under the $40–$50 million tier, 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 value-budget genre can own weekends with minimal competition, and again in late summer, where horror often becomes the conversation when tentpoles tire. The 2026 slate is set up to leverage those opportunities. January could easily deliver the first sleeper overperformer 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. Expect a healthy PVOD phase across the board, since horror fans have shown a willingness to pay for convenience after an opening weekend, especially when word of mouth is strong.

Audience rhythm across the year

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers rhythm and variety. January is a array, February delivers a legacy slasher, April brings back a Universal monster, May and June provide a paranormal one-two for date nights and group outings, July gets gnarly, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a somber, 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 prep the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors like the spacing. Horror delivers predictable Thursday surges, disciplined 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 surface detail, soundcraft, 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 Promising 2026

Release dates move. Ratings change. Casts shuffle. 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 grasp the timing 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 late-arriving specialty entry join the party. For now, the job is simple, craft precise trailers, protect the mystery, and let the shudders sell the seats.