Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed reignites age-old dread, a pulse pounding shocker, streaming Oct 2025 across top streaming platforms

An haunting otherworldly horror tale from cinematographer / auteur Andrew Chiaramonte, triggering an age-old malevolence when guests become tokens in a malevolent conflict. Going live this October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon Prime Video, Google’s YouTube, Google Play Movies & TV, Apple iTunes, Apple TV Plus, and Fandango on-demand.

Hollywood, CA (August 8th, 2025) – Brace yourselves for *Young & Cursed*, a intense narrative of staying alive and timeless dread that will alter genre cinema this harvest season. Guided by rising new wave horror talent Andrew Chiaramonte, this harrowing and emotionally thick fearfest follows five strangers who regain consciousness stuck in a hidden dwelling under the ominous dominion of Kyra, a haunted figure claimed by a time-worn holy text monster. Anticipate to be captivated by a narrative outing that weaves together intense horror with arcane tradition, releasing on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Supernatural inhabitation has been a historical theme in genre filmmaking. In *Young & Cursed*, that norm is twisted when the entities no longer originate beyond the self, but rather from deep inside. This suggests the most terrifying shade of all involved. The result is a gripping mind game where the conflict becomes a unyielding fight between virtue and vice.


In a remote forest, five youths find themselves isolated under the malicious rule and overtake of a unidentified figure. As the team becomes unresisting to fight her power, left alone and pursued by unknowns mind-shattering, they are made to encounter their greatest panics while the hours ruthlessly ticks onward toward their final moment.


In *Young & Cursed*, dread rises and links erode, demanding each member to rethink their identity and the notion of autonomy itself. The intensity rise with every breath, delivering a frightening tale that harmonizes ghostly evil with raw emotion.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my intention was to tap into deep fear, an evil that predates humanity, manipulating inner turmoil, and navigating a evil that threatens selfhood when robbed of choice.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Stepping into Kyra was about accessing something rooted in terror. She is blind until the demon emerges, and that change is gut-wrenching because it is so emotional.”

Watch the Horror Unfold

*Young & Cursed* will be released for home viewing beginning October 2, 2025, on Amazon’s platform, Google’s video hub, Google Play, iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango at Home—offering subscribers no matter where they are can engage with this unholy film.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just broadcast a new second trailer for *Young & Cursed*, debuted to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a evolution to its initial teaser, which has attracted over 100K plays.


In addition to its regional launch, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has made public that *Young & Cursed* will also be released internationally, spreading the horror to scare fans abroad.


Join this haunted spiral into evil. Face *Young & Cursed* this All Hallows’ kickoff to see these chilling revelations about inner darkness.


For bonus footage, production insights, and announcements from the creators, follow @YoungCursedOfficial across social media and visit our spooky domain.





Horror’s inflection point: 2025 in focus U.S. calendar braids together ancient-possession motifs, signature indie scares, stacked beside legacy-brand quakes

Kicking off with survival horror grounded in legendary theology and including installment follow-ups in concert with acutely observed indies, 2025 appears poised to be the most textured as well as carefully orchestrated year in the past ten years.

It is crowded, and also meticulously arranged. leading studios stabilize the year through proven series, even as digital services stack the fall with new perspectives and archetypal fear. In parallel, independent banners is drafting behind the carry of a record-setting 2024 festival season. Given Halloween is the centerpiece, the other windows are mapped with care. A fat September–October lane is customary now, though in this cycle, bookings reach January, spring, and mid-summer. Horror fans are craving, studios are targeted, as a result 2025 may be recorded as the genre’s most deliberate campaign.

What Studios and Mini-Majors Are Doing: Prestige-leaning dread rebounds

The majors are not coasting. If 2024 set the base, 2025 accelerates.

Universal leads off the quarter with a confident swing: a reconceived Wolf Man, leaving behind the period European setting, but a crisp modern milieu. Shepherded by Leigh Whannell with Christopher Abbott opposite Julia Garner, this iteration anchors the lycanthropy in a domestic breakdown. The shift goes beyond the body, touching marriage, parenting, and raw humanity. Slated for mid January, it fits the new plan to claim winter’s soft window with prestige horror rather than castoffs.

Spring delivers Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher port tuned to austere horror. Guided by Eli Craig fronted by Katie Douglas with Kevin Durand, it plays as blood lacquered Americana with satire under the paint. Beneath the mask, it picks at rural paranoia, age cohort splits, and lynch mob logic. Advance murmurs say it draws blood.

At summer’s close, Warner’s schedule rolls out the capstone from its dependable horror line: The Conjuring: Last Rites. Farmiga and Wilson return as the Warrens, the installment promises emotional closure while taking on one of the duo’s most infamous real life cases. Though the formula is familiar, director Michael Chaves reportedly leans into a mournful, interior tone for the swan song. It is also positioned early in September, giving it breathing room before the October onslaught.

The Black Phone 2 steps in next. Originally slated for early summer, its move to an October release suggests confidence. Derrickson re engages, and the tone that worked before is intact: throwback unease, trauma foregrounded, along with eerie supernatural rules. This time, the stakes are raised, with more excavation of the “grabber” canon and family hauntings.

Rounding out the big ticket releases is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a picture that draws on name power. The sophomore entry expands the mythology, stretches the animatronic parade, reaching teens and game grownups. It opens in December, holding the cold season’s end.

Streamer Exclusives: Low budgets, big teeth

With cinemas leaning into known IP, streamers are taking risks, and it is paying off.

A flagship risky title is Weapons, a cold-case woven horror suite knitting three time bands around a mass vanishing. Under Zach Cregger pairing Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the release pairs unease with narrative heft. Arriving to cinemas late summer then to streamers in fall, it stands to prompt frame-by-frame breakdowns as with Barbarian.

Playing chamber scale is Together, an intimate body horror unraveling pairing Alison Brie with Dave Franco. Trapped in a far off rental as a holiday fractures, the movie follows love and envy and self denial into corporeal breakdown. It feels intimate, ghastly, and profoundly uneasy, a three part fall into codependent hell. Although a platform date is not yet posted, it is poised for a fall platform bow.

Also rising is Sinners, a 1930s period vampire folk story led by Michael B. Jordan. Framed in sepia richness with biblical metaphor, it evokes There Will Be Blood crossed with Let the Right One In. The film interrogates American religious trauma through supernatural allegory. First test passes flag it as highly discussable at debut.

Several other streaming indies are quietly waiting in the wings: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper each explores grief and disappearance and identity, opting allegory above bombast.

The Possession Runs Deep: Young & Cursed

Landing October 2 across key streamers, Young & Cursed arrives as a rare marriage, contained in staging yet mythic in effect. Penned and steered by Andrew Chiaramonte, the work follows five strangers rousing in a remote timber cabin, under Kyra’s control, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. When darkness comes, Kyra’s power swells, a penetrating force tapping their private fears, soft spots, and remorse.

The unease is psychological, fused to primal myth. Not another exorcism story reliant on Catholic rite and Latin phrase, this film taps something older, something darker. Lilith bypasses ritual, she awakens from trauma, repression, and human fragility. An inward possession, not an outward spell, turns the trope and sets Young & Cursed inside a widening trend, intimate character work housed in genre.

Platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home position the film as a Halloween counter to sequel heavy theatricals and monster revivals. It looks like sharp programming. No bloated canon. No franchise baggage. Just pure psychological dread, contained, tense, and tailor made for the binge and breathe rhythm of digital horror fans. In the noise, Young & Cursed could cut through by staying hushed, then erupting.

Festival Born and Buyer Ready

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF remain breeding grounds for what horror looks like six to twelve months later. They are more runway than museum.

This year, Fantastic Fest confirms a strong horror slate. Primate opens the fest with tropical body horror and critics cite Cronenberg and Herzog. Whistle, a revenge folktale steeped in Aztec myth, is tapped to close with fire.

Midnight fare like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You rides on craft as well as title. That one, an A24 backed satire on toxic fandom set during a horror convention lockdown, is poised for breakout status.

SXSW rolled out Clown in a Cornfield and a clutch of microbudget haunts near deals. Sundance likely lifts another batch of grief laced elevated horror, where Tribeca’s genre program draws urban, social, and surreal.

The festival game increasingly values branding over mere discovery. A Fantastic Fest or TIFF badge is phase one marketing, not a coda.

Franchise Horror: Reups, Reboots, and Rethinks

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. Versus earlier beats, it favors camp and prom night melodrama. Imagine tiaras, smeared red, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 arrives late June, aiming to expand its techno horror mythology with new characters and new AI generated terrors. The original’s social and streaming breakout emboldened Universal to double down.

The Long Walk arrives off an early Stephen King survival piece, under Francis Lawrence, it is a brutal dystopian allegory wrapped in survival horror, a kids walking until they die competition with no real winners. If framed properly, it could echo The Hunger Games for adult horror.

Also present, reboots and sequels including Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda, spread through the year, most watching for smart slots or quick buys.

Trends Worth Watching

Mythic currents go mainstream
From Lilith in Young & Cursed to Aztec curses in Whistle, horror is turning to ancient texts and symbols. This is less nostalgia, more reclamation of pre Christian archetypes. Horror does more than scare, it reminds that evil predates us.

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

Originals on platforms bite harder
The era of filler horror on streamers is ending. Services bankroll legitimate writing, legitimate directors, and proper media. Pieces like Weapons and Sinners receive event status, not feed stock.

Festival heat turns into leverage
Festival laurels are no longer ornamental, they are leverage for theatrical release, premium placement, and media cycles. In 2025, a horror film lacking festival plan may fade.

Big screen is a trust fall
The big screen goes to those expected to beat comps or build series. Everything else is PVOD or hybrid. Horror is not vanishing from theaters, it is getting curated.

Projection: Autumn crowding, winter surprise

Put Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons into September and October and you get saturation. Indies such as Bone Lake and Keeper must fight for oxygen. Anticipate possible date slides into early 2026 or platform moves.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 steadies December, yet a last minute streamer surprise is in play. Given the dark, mythic lean of the year’s big films, a final creature feature or exorcism slot is open.

The trick lies in diverse menus finding segmented crowds, not single title bets. The plan is not to clone Get Out, it is to craft horror that lives on beyond box office.



The upcoming genre calendar year ahead: entries, non-franchise titles, paired with A loaded Calendar calibrated for goosebumps

Dek: The emerging horror cycle lines up up front with a January bottleneck, then spreads through June and July, and straight through the December corridor, braiding series momentum, new concepts, and calculated counterweight. Distributors with platforms are betting on tight budgets, theatrical leads, and social-fueled campaigns that shape these releases into culture-wide discussion.

Where horror stands going into 2026

This category has turned into the most reliable play in annual schedules, a genre that can break out when it resonates and still limit the downside when it fails to connect. After the 2023 year showed studio brass that responsibly budgeted scare machines can steer the discourse, the following year continued the surge with filmmaker-forward plays and under-the-radar smashes. The momentum fed into 2025, where revived properties and premium-leaning entries demonstrated there is a lane for several lanes, from brand follow-ups to filmmaker-driven originals that scale internationally. The result for 2026 is a programming that presents tight coordination across the industry, with mapped-out bands, a spread of familiar brands and novel angles, and a reinvigorated emphasis on release windows that enhance post-theatrical value on premium video on demand and streaming.

Schedulers say the space now works like a utility player on the grid. The genre can arrive on numerous frames, create a tight logline for marketing and short-form placements, and lead with crowds that arrive on opening previews and keep coming through the second frame if the movie delivers. Emerging from a strike-bent pipeline, the 2026 configuration shows belief in that setup. The slate starts with a loaded January window, then uses spring and early summer for counterweight, while saving space for a September to October window that pushes into spooky season and into November. The grid also highlights the deeper integration of specialty arms and OTT outlets that can platform a title, grow buzz, and expand at the optimal moment.

A parallel macro theme is IP stewardship across shared universes and legacy franchises. Big banners are not just greenlighting another sequel. They are trying to present ongoing narrative with a headline quality, whether that is a logo package that suggests a refreshed voice or a lead change that threads a new installment to a classic era. At the meanwhile, the creative leads behind the eagerly awaited originals are championing material texture, in-camera effects and grounded locations. That mix provides 2026 a healthy mix of home base and freshness, which is why the genre exports well.

Studio by studio strategy signals

Paramount establishes early momentum with two centerpiece releases that bookend the tonal range. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with original architect Kevin Williamson in the top job and Neve Campbell back at the focus, setting it up as both a passing of the torch and a heritage-centered character-forward chapter. The film is shooting in Atlanta, and the creative stance announces a roots-evoking campaign without retreading the last two entries’ sisters storyline. Count on a promo wave centered on legacy iconography, character-first teases, and a teaser-to-trailer rhythm slated for late fall. Distribution is cinema-first via Paramount.

Paramount also revives a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are re-teaming, with the Wayans brothers involved in creative roles for the first time since the early 2000s, a angle the campaign will lean on. As a summer alternative, this one will drive general-audience talk through social-friendly gags, with the horror spoof format permitting quick shifts to whatever tops genre chatter that spring.

Universal has three separate strategies. SOULM8TE debuts January 9, 2026, a digital-age offshoot from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The foundation is elegant, tragic, and logline-clear: a grieving man sets up an virtual partner that mutates into a lethal partner. The date locates it at the front of a busy month, with the Universal machine likely to reprise uncanny-valley stunts and bite-size content that threads longing and dread.

On May 8, 2026, the studio schedules an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely taken to be the feature developed under internal titles in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The listed schedule currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which reserves space for a title reveal to become an marketing beat closer to the debut look. The timing secures a slot in early May while larger useful reference tentpoles cluster around other dates.

Finishing the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film books October 23, 2026, a slot he has owned before. Peele’s work are marketed as creative events, with a mystery-first teaser and a later creative that signal tone without plot the concept. The Halloween runway gives the studio room to saturate pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then press the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, partners with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček is at the helm of, with Souheila Yacoub leading. The franchise has repeatedly shown that a in-your-face, in-camera leaning style can feel premium on a efficient spend. Frame it as a blood-soaked summer horror jolt that spotlights international markets, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most international territories.

Sony’s horror bench is loaded. The studio places two name-brand pushes in the back half. An untitled Insidious film bows August 21, 2026, sustaining a trusty supernatural brand in the market while the spin-off branch continues to develop. Sony has reshuffled on this title before, but the current plan sticks it in late summer, where the brand has traditionally delivered.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil reboots in what Sony is presenting as a new take for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a primary part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a sharper mandate to serve both loyalists and casuals. The fall slot gives Sony time to build materials around environmental design, and creature builds, elements that can drive large-format demand and cosplayer momentum.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, plants a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Robert Eggers’ Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film advances the filmmaker’s run of period horror rooted in careful craft and dialect, this time engaging werewolf myth. The specialty arm has already locked the day for a holiday release, a public confidence in the auteur as a specialty play that can platform and widen if early reception is strong.

Streamers and platform exclusives

Streaming playbooks in 2026 run on established tracks. Universal’s horror titles transition to copyright after a exclusive run then PVOD, a ordering that amplifies both first-week urgency and subscription bumps in the later phase. Prime Video interleaves acquired titles with global acquisitions and short theatrical plays when the data warrants it. Max and Hulu optimize their lanes in deep cuts, using prominent placements, Halloween hubs, and collection rows to increase tail value on overall cume. Netflix remains opportunistic about own-slate titles and festival grabs, scheduling horror entries on shorter runways and eventizing arrivals with quick-run campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, uses a paired of selective theatrical runs and fast windowing that translates talk to trials. That will be material for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before relying on genre-fan funnels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ continues to evaluate horror on a case-by-case basis. The platform has shown appetite to take on select projects with recognized filmmakers or star-driven packages, then give them a limited theatrical run in partnership with exhibitors to meet guild rules or to build credibility before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney domestic still benefits from the 20th Century Studios slate, a key factor for retention when the genre conversation ramps.

Specialized lanes

Cineverse is quietly building a 2026 lane with two brand-forward moves. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The setup is no-nonsense: the same foggy, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult favorite, recalibrated for modern mix and image. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a fall window, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. The distributor has indicated a traditional cinema play for the title, an promising marker for fans of the hard-edged series and for exhibitors seeking adult skew in the back half.

Focus will favor the auteur track with Werwulf, stewarding the film through the autumn circuit if the cut is ready, then deploying the holiday slot to open out. That positioning has delivered for filmmaker-first horror with crossover ambitions. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not announced many 2026 dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines generally solidify after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A credible outlook is a selection of late-summer and fall platformers that can expand if reception justifies. Expect an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that surges from Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work jointly, using mini theatrical to ignite evangelism that fuels their user base.

Series vs standalone

By skew, the 2026 slate leans in favor of the series side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all draw on brand equity. The risk, as ever, is audience fatigue. The preferred tactic is to package each entry as a recast vibe. Paramount is foregrounding character-first legacy in Scream 7, Sony is floating a ground-zero restart for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is centering a European tilt from a hot helmer. Those choices count when the audience has so many options and social sentiment turns quickly.

Non-franchise titles and talent-first projects bring the oxygen. 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, casts Rachel McAdams in a survival-thriller premise with that teasing menace. SOULM8TE offers a clear, chilling tech hook. Werwulf grounds itself in period and an unsparing tone. Even when the title is not based on known IP, the team and cast is grounded enough to translate curiosity into advance sales and Thursday previews.

Past-three-year patterns outline the playbook. In 2023, a exclusive window model that preserved streaming windows did not hamper a dual release from delivering when the brand was compelling. In 2024, craft-first auteur horror hit big in PLF auditoriums. In 2025, a revived cycle of a beloved infection saga underlined that global horror franchises can still feel recharged when they reframe POV and grow scope. 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 double feature plan, with chapters produced back-to-back, enables marketing to cross-link entries through protagonists and motifs and to keep assets in-market without doldrums.

How the films are being made

The filmmaking conversations behind the year’s horror signal a continued lean toward practical, location-rooted craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not repeat any recent iteration of the property, a stance that reinforces the in-camera sensibility he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film completed principal and is tracking to its April 17, 2026 date. The push will likely that underscores aura and dread rather than CG roller-coasters, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership permitting cost management.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has spoken of Werwulf as the hardest-edged project he has tackled, which tracks with a medieval world and period-accurate language, a combination that can make for enveloping sound design and a chilly, elemental vibe on the big screen. Focus will likely seed this aesthetic in feature stories and technical spotlights before rolling out a atmospheric tease that keeps plot minimal, a move that has clicked for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is calibrated for tactile gnarliness, a signature of the series that performs globally in red-band trailers and drives shareable screening reactions from early screenings. Scream 7 hints at a meta refresh that centers an original star. Resident Evil will fly or stall on monster work and world-building, which fit with booth activations and staggered reveals. Insidious tends to be a soundstage showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the premium-screen pitch feel necessary. Look for trailers that emphasize surgical sound design, deep-bass stingers, and dead-air cuts that benefit on big speakers.

Month-by-month map

January is full. 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 tonal palate cleanser amid marquee brands. The month ends with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a stranded thriller from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is meaningful, but the tone spread affords lanes to each, and the five-week structure hands each a runway for each if word of mouth endures.

Q1 into Q2 stage summer. Paramount’s Scream 7 hits February 27 with legacy momentum. In April, New Line’s The Mummy reawakens a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once belonged to genre counterprogramming and now accommodates big openers. The untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 connects into summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer clarifies the lanes. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is comic-leaning and wide, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 unleashes severe intensity. The counterprogramming logic is smart. The spoof can win next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest scratches the itch for older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have cycled through PLF.

Shoulder season into fall leans recognizable. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously done well. Resident Evil arrives after September 18, a shoulder season window that still ties into Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event secures October 23 and will command cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely reinforced by a minimalist tease strategy and limited pre-release reveals that elevate concept over story.

Prestige-horror at year-end. Werwulf on December 25 is a position that genre can compete at Christmas when packaged as filmmaker-first prestige. Focus has done this before, staging carefully, then working critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to remain in discourse into January. If the film earns with critics, the studio can scale in the first week of 2027 while building on holiday impulse and card redemption.

Title-by-title briefings, embedded in the narrative

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting continuing to be revealed as production pushes forward. Logline: Sidney returns to counter a new Ghostface while the narrative reconnects to the original film’s essence. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: legacy-forward with modern snap.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A loss-struck man’s intelligent companion shifts into something deadly romantic. Rating: TBA. Production: Shoot completed for an early-year bow. Positioning: digital-age horror with pathos.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (Sony, January 16, 2026)
Director: Nia DaCosta. Writer: Alex Garland. Top cast: Cillian Murphy, Jack O’Connell, and additional ensemble tied to a new antagonist faction. Logline: The second chapter in a trilogy broadens the canvas beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult forms in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Shot back-to-back with the first film. Positioning: continuation of a revered infection cycle.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man travels back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to encounter a warped reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed production with U.S. distribution. Positioning: aura-driven 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 severe boss battle to survive on a cut-off island as the power balance of power turns and paranoia spreads. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed. Positioning: A-list survival chiller from a master.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles under wraps in official materials. Logline: A contemporary retelling that returns the monster to menace, shaped by Cronin’s tactile craft and slow-bloom dread. Rating: TBA. Production: In the can. Positioning: classic monster revival with auteur stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A residential haunting setup that interrogates the terror of a child’s uncertain point of view. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: picture-locked. Positioning: studio-crafted and headline-actor led spirit-world suspense.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers back in creative roles. Logline: {A parody reboot that riffs on modern genre fads and true-crime crazes. Rating: to be announced. Production: principal photography set for fall 2025. Positioning: mainstream summer comedy-horror.

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 global twist in tone and setting. Rating: undetermined. Production: principal photography in New Zealand. Positioning: ferocious R chapter primed for premium screens.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: TBD per campaign. Top cast: unrevealed. Logline: The Further widens again, with a unlucky family bound to ancient dread. Rating: not yet rated. Production: aiming to lens in summer ahead of late-summer bow. Positioning: stalwart franchise piece in a friendly frame.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: unrevealed publicly. Top cast: unrevealed. Logline: A new start designed to re-engineer the franchise from the ground up, with an lean toward survival-driven horror over action pyrotechnics. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: development underway with firm date. Positioning: IP-accurate revival with mainstream runway.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: awaiting confirmation. Logline: closely held. Rating: undetermined. Production: advancing. 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 period-specific language and elemental menace. Rating: to be announced. Production: prepping toward a December 25 launch. Positioning: auteur prestige horror aimed at holiday corridor with crafts prospects.

Wolf Creek: Legacy (Cineverse, TBA 2026)
Director: Greg McLean. Top cast: John Jarratt expected to return as Mick Taylor. Logline: The Australian outback slasher returns, with a standard theatrical approach before platforming. Status: window fluid, autumn forecast.

Why the calendar favors 2026

Three grounded forces structure this lineup. First, production that downshifted or migrated in 2024 needed calendar breathing room. Horror can slot in fast because scripts often use fewer locations, fewer large-scale effects sequences, and leaner schedules. Second, studios have become more orderly about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently surpassed straight-to-streaming premieres. Third, digital word of mouth converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will amplify shareable moments from test screenings, managed scare clips calibrated to Thursday preview timing, and experiential pop-ups that generate creator assets. It is a repeatable playbook because it converts.

Programming arithmetic plays a role. The first stretch of 2026 sees fewer family and superhero logjams, opening usable real estate for genre entries that can control a weekend or stand as the older-leaning counter. January is the prime example. Four separate horror flavors will line up across five weekends, which lets WOM accrue cleanly. Summer provides the other window. The parody aligns with early family and action waves, then the hard-R entry can take advantage of a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Business view: budgets, ratings, sleeper chase

Budgets remain in the sweet spot. Most of the films above will land under the $40–$50 million mark, with many far below. That allows for expanded PLF presence 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 surprise-hit pursuit continues in Q1, where modest-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 exploit those windows. January could easily deliver the first dark-horse hit of the year, and August into September gives Sony an avenue to hold screens with back-to-back supernatural IP while still leaving room for an indie breakout.

Internationally, brand recognition helps Resident Evil, Evil Dead, and Scream travel, while 28 Years Later benefits from a British setting and returning talent. Werwulf and The Mummy will lean on auteur and classic-monster awareness abroad. Streamers will amplify the tail, with copyright pickups boosting Universal’s slate and Shudder driving evangelism for Cineverse titles. Predict a resilient PVOD phase industry-wide, since horror fans have shown a willingness to pay for convenience after an opening weekend, especially when word of mouth is strong.

The moviegoer’s year in horror

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers pattern and spread. January is a sampler, February delivers a legacy slasher, April brings back a Universal monster, May and June provide a two-beat supernatural run for date nights and group outings, July leans brutal, 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 hold talk and turnout without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can gain momentum, using earlier releases to prime the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors welcome the spacing. Horror delivers frequent Thursday-night spikes, optimized footprints, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can deserve premium formats, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing detail, audio design, and picture 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 Is Well Positioned

Dates shift. Ratings change. Casts evolve. But the spine of 2026 horror is sturdy. There is recognizable IP where it plays, distinct vision where it matters, and a calendar that shows studios meet the timing for scares. The awards and festival pipeline into 2027 will come into focus once the fall festivals lock, and it would not be surprising to see at least one final-hour specialty addition join the party. For now, the job is simple, shape lean trailers, lock the reveals, and let the shudders sell the seats.