Antediluvian Terror rises: Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a hair raising horror feature, bowing October 2025 on major streaming services

One hair-raising supernatural horror tale from screenwriter / film architect Andrew Chiaramonte, setting free an timeless malevolence when drifters become vehicles in a diabolical ritual. Hitting screens on October 2, 2025, on Amazon’s Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play, Apple iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango on-demand.

Hollywood, CA (August 8th, 2025) – get ready for *Young & Cursed*, a traumatizing episode of resilience and mythic evil that will transform terror storytelling this Halloween season. Brought to life by rising cinematic craftsman Andrew Chiaramonte, this psychological and eerie cinema piece follows five teens who come to locked in a far-off hideaway under the dark influence of Kyra, a haunted figure inhabited by a timeless Old Testament spirit. Arm yourself to be gripped by a motion picture ride that melds instinctive fear with mystical narratives, streaming on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Supernatural inhabitation has been a well-established element in genre filmmaking. In *Young & Cursed*, that framework is twisted when the spirits no longer arise from a different plane, but rather from their psyche. This depicts the deepest shade of every character. The result is a intense emotional conflict where the plotline becomes a unforgiving battle between righteousness and malevolence.


In a wilderness-stricken landscape, five souls find themselves contained under the malevolent effect and infestation of a uncanny spirit. As the protagonists becomes helpless to escape her command, exiled and chased by creatures unfathomable, they are confronted to acknowledge their greatest panics while the time relentlessly runs out toward their destruction.


In *Young & Cursed*, unease amplifies and alliances erode, prompting each member to examine their core and the structure of independent thought itself. The cost magnify with every heartbeat, delivering a fear-soaked story that fuses mystical fear with mental instability.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my objective was to dig into primitive panic, an malevolence rooted in antiquity, feeding on our weaknesses, and wrestling with a presence that tests the soul when consciousness is fragmented.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Performing as Kyra asked for exploring something outside normal anguish. She is ignorant until the takeover begins, and that pivot is deeply unsettling because it is so emotional.”

Distribution & Access

*Young & Cursed* will be offered for viewing beginning October 2, 2025, on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google’s store, Apple iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home—guaranteeing watchers in all regions can watch this fearful revelation.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just uploaded a new official trailer #2 for *Young & Cursed*, available to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a response to its original promo, which has racked up over a huge fan reaction.


In addition to its initial rollout, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has revealed that *Young & Cursed* will also be launched globally, extending the thrill to international horror buffs.


Make sure to see this unforgettable exploration of dread. Stream *Young & Cursed* this October 2 to acknowledge these unholy truths about the mind.


For behind-the-scenes access, production insights, and updates from the cast and crew, follow @YoungCursedOfficial across social media and visit our spooky domain.





Today’s horror tipping point: 2025 in focus domestic schedule braids together primeval-possession lore, art-house nightmares, alongside franchise surges

Across grit-forward survival fare grounded in ancient scripture as well as series comebacks plus focused festival visions, 2025 is coalescing into the genre’s most multifaceted together with tactically planned year since the mid-2010s.

The 2025 horror calendar is not just busy, it is strategic. leading studios set cornerstones with established lines, while digital services load up the fall with discovery plays alongside legend-coded dread. At the same time, the art-house flank is propelled by the carry of a record-setting 2024 festival season. Because Halloween continues as the prize window, the rest of the calendar is filling out with surgical precision. A dense September through October runway is now a rite of passage, but this year, slates are opening January, spring, and mid-summer. Horror fans are craving, studios are exacting, thus 2025 may end up the most intentional cycle yet.

Major Studio Plans with Mini-Major Flex: Premium dread reemerges

Studios are not on the sidelines. If 2024 set the base, 2025 capitalizes.

Universal’s slate starts the year with a big gambit: a modernized Wolf Man, set not in some misty 19th-century European village, in an immediate now. Directed by Leigh Whannell and toplined by Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this chapter binds the lycanthropy to domestic unraveling. The metamorphosis extends past flesh, into marriage, parenthood, and human hurt. landing in mid January, it aligns with turning the winter slack into a premium lane, not a dumping lane.

Spring sees the arrival of Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher translation rendered as pared-down fear. Directed by Eli Craig including Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it moves like barn born dread with razor satire. Beneath the facade, it probes hometown suspicion, boomer to zoomer divides, and mob retribution. Festival whispers say it is sharp.

As summer winds down, Warner’s pipeline bows the concluding entry from its cornerstone horror IP: The Conjuring: Last Rites. With Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson returning as Ed and Lorraine Warren, the finale seeks an emotional close via a signature case. Even if the pattern is recognizable, director Michael Chaves reportedly leans into a mournful, interior tone for the swan song. It sits in early September, securing daylight before October saturation.

After that, The Black Phone 2. It was eyed for early summer, and shifting to October telegraphs confidence. Scott Derrickson returns, and so do the signature elements that made the first installment a sleeper hit: retrograde shiver, trauma centered writing, with ghostly inner logic. This time the stakes climb, by digging further into the “grabber” mythos and grief’s generational echo.

Rounding out the big ticket releases is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a property whose brand does the lifting. The next entry deepens the tale, expands its animatronic nightmare roster, while aiming for teen viewers and thirty something game loyalists. It hits in December, anchoring horror’s winter tail.

Streamer Exclusives: Lean budgets, heavy bite

As theatricals lean on brands and continuations, platforms are wagering boldly, and results are there.

One of the year’s most ambitious streaming titles is Weapons, a cold-case woven horror suite stitching three periods attached to a mass disappearance. Led by Zach Cregger and starring Josh Brolin with Julia Garner, the work combines fright with dramatic torque. With a late summer theatrical bow and fall streaming drop, it looks primed to seed post watch analysis akin to Barbarian.

On the minimalist axis arrives Together, an intimate body horror unraveling including Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Trapped in a far off rental as a holiday fractures, the film explores what happens when love, envy, and self hatred merge into physical decay. It reads tender, repulsive, and intensely uneasy, a three act churn into codependent hell. Before a platform date is locked, it is virtually assured for fall.

In the mix sits Sinners, a thirties set vampire folk saga starring Michael B. Jordan. Framed in sepia richness with biblical metaphor, it suggests There Will Be Blood blended with Let the Right One In. The movie studies American religious trauma through the supernatural lens. Advance tests paint it as a watercooler streamer.

Other streamer plays queue softly: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper all mine grief and vanishing and identity, running metaphor first.

Possession With Depth: Young & Cursed

Dropping October 2 across all major streaming platforms, Young & Cursed arrives as a rare marriage, contained in staging yet mythic in effect. Written and helmed 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 the night settles, her power spikes, an infiltrating force leveraging fears, breaks, and sorrow.

The dread here runs psychological, charged by primal myth. Avoiding the usual exorcism path with Catholic ritual and Latin spell, this film taps something older, something darker. Lilith does not answer ceremony, she climbs through trauma, hush, and human fracture. This inside out possession reframes expectation and groups Young & Cursed with a rising current, intimate character dramas within genre.

The film is positioned on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home as Halloween balance against sequel stacks and creature returns. It is canny scheduling. No overweight mythology. No franchise baggage. Bare psychological dread, trim and tense, designed for binge and breath patterns. Amid spectacle, Young & Cursed can distinguish itself by whispering, then howling.

Festival Born and Buyer Ready

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF remain the hothouse where next season’s horror grows. They serve less as display cases, more as runways.

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 folkloric revenge piece in Aztec lore, likely shuts the fest with heat.

Those midnight titles, including If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, buzz from delivery as much as naming. That film, an A24 backed satire of toxic fandom inside a horror convention lockdown, looks poised to break out.

SXSW premiered Clown in a Cornfield and introduced several microbudget hauntings currently circling deals. Sundance appears set for grief threaded elevated horror once more, while Tribeca’s genre yard leans urban, social, and surreal.

This cycle, festival strategy pivots from discovery toward branding. The laurel is campaign ignition, not epilogue.

Legacy Brands: Sequels, Reboots, Reinventions

The legacy lineup looks stronger and more deliberate than prior years.

Fear Street: Prom Queen brings back the 90s line in July with a new lead and throwback vibe. Unlike earlier entries, this leans camp and prom night melodrama. Visualize tiaras, fake gore, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 returns in late June, poised to elaborate techno horror lore through new players and AI nightmares. The initial entry’s meme life and streaming legs push Universal to scale up.

The Long Walk adapts an early, scathing Stephen King work, helmed by Francis Lawrence, it is a brutal dystopian allegory wrapped in survival horror, a kids walking until they die competition with no real winners. Marketed correctly, it could be The Hunger Games for horror adults.

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

Old myth goes broad
From Lilith in Young & Cursed, and with Aztec curses in Whistle, horror taps ancient texts and symbols. It is not nostalgia, it is re owning pre Christian archetypes. Horror surpasses shocks, it recalls evil’s antiquity.

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

Streaming exclusives sharpen their bite
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
Wreaths work as currency, buying release slots, placement, and press. A film minus festival planning in 2025 risks getting lost.

Theatrical becomes a trust fall
Studios hold theatrical for overperformers or future series seeds. Other titles pivot PVOD or hybrid. Horror is not vanishing from theaters, it is getting curated.

What’s Next: Fall stack and winter swing card

A cluster of Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons in September and October equals saturation. Indies such as Bone Lake and Keeper must fight for oxygen. Expect one or more to pivot into early 2026 or shift platforms.

December centers on Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, but a final weeks surprise stream could still hit. With mythic energy high, a late creature or exorcism entry could pop.

The key is connecting variety to fragmentation, not betting on one piece. The play is not Get Out replication, it is long life horror past theaters.



The next scare Year Ahead: entries, filmmaker-first projects, paired with A jammed Calendar designed for nightmares

Dek The emerging scare slate packs immediately with a January traffic jam, from there unfolds through the warm months, and carrying into the year-end corridor, weaving series momentum, original angles, and strategic release strategy. Major distributors and platforms are committing to smart costs, theatrical leads, and social-fueled campaigns that turn these films into mainstream chatter.

The genre’s posture for 2026

This category has solidified as the steady release in programming grids, a space that can break out when it resonates and still safeguard the risk when it stumbles. After 2023 signaled to leaders that responsibly budgeted pictures can lead mainstream conversation, 2024 extended the rally with director-led heat and sleeper breakouts. The carry pushed into the 2025 frame, where resurrections and premium-leaning entries highlighted there is space for diverse approaches, from sequel tracks to standalone ideas that perform internationally. The aggregate for the 2026 slate is a grid that shows rare alignment across companies, with obvious clusters, a combination of established brands and new pitches, and a renewed focus on theatrical windows that feed downstream value on PVOD and platforms.

Studio leaders note the space now performs as a flex slot on the rollout map. Horror can arrive on a wide range of weekends, deliver a quick sell for marketing and reels, and over-index with fans that come out on advance nights and sustain through the second weekend if the title fires. Coming out of a strike-impacted pipeline, the 2026 layout demonstrates assurance in that logic. The slate opens with a stacked January schedule, then exploits spring through early summer for balance, while reserving space for a autumn stretch that pushes into the Halloween corridor and afterwards. The calendar also shows the ongoing integration of indie arms and SVOD players that can platform and widen, spark evangelism, and widen at the right moment.

A notable top-line trend is legacy care across shared IP webs and storied titles. The players are not just greenlighting another continuation. They are moving to present story carry-over with a sense of event, whether that is a typeface approach that telegraphs a new vibe or a lead change that links a latest entry to a early run. At the meanwhile, the creative leads behind the marquee originals are doubling down on real-world builds, makeup and prosthetics and vivid settings. That interplay hands 2026 a lively combination of known notes and discovery, which is the formula for international play.

Major-player strategies for 2026

Paramount establishes early momentum with two marquee bets that span tone from serious to silly. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with original architect Kevin Williamson in the lead and Neve Campbell back at the center, positioning the film as both a passing of the torch and a return-to-roots relationship-driven entry. Filming is in progress in Atlanta, and the authorial approach points to a memory-charged strategy without looping the last two entries’ Carpenter sisters arc. Look for a marketing run driven by heritage visuals, character previews, and a tease cadence timed to late fall. Distribution is Paramount theatrical.

Paramount also dusts off a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are back on screen, with the Wayans brothers involved as creative contributors for the first time since the early 2000s, a centerpiece the campaign will play up. As a summer alternative, this one will pursue four-quadrant chatter through share-ready beats, with the horror spoof format making room for quick pivots to whatever defines genre chatter that spring.

Universal has three clear lanes. SOULM8TE arrives January 9, 2026, a tech-horror spinoff from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The setup is efficient, loss-driven, and big-hook: a grieving man sets up an artificial companion that mutates into a murderous partner. The date slots it at the front of a busy month, with Universal’s team likely to revisit eerie street stunts and quick hits that mixes intimacy and foreboding.

On May 8, 2026, the studio sets an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely interpreted as the feature developed under working names in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The public calendar currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which sets up a title reveal to become an headline beat closer to the debut look. The timing stakes a claim in early May while larger tentpoles occupy other frames.

Finishing the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film claims October 23, 2026, a slot he has defined before. Peele projects are set up as filmmaker events, with a teaser that reveals little and a second wave of trailers that establish tone without plot reveals the concept. The Halloween-adjacent date opens a lane to command pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then use 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 helms, with Souheila Yacoub anchoring. The franchise has established that a gnarly, in-camera leaning treatment can feel prestige on a mid-range budget. Look for a grime-caked summer horror shock that pushes international play, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most foreign territories.

Sony’s horror bench is impressively deep. The studio lines up two franchise maneuvers in the back half. An untitled Insidious film opens August 21, 2026, carrying a proven supernatural brand front and center while the spin-off branch advances. 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 re-emerges in what Sony is billing as a new take for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a strategic part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a clearer mandate to serve both fans and novices. The fall slot affords Sony time to build materials around lore, and creature design, elements that can accelerate premium screens and fandom activation.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, sets 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 shaped by minute detail and textual fidelity, this time engaging werewolf myth. Focus’s team has already reserved the holiday for a holiday release, a signal of faith in Eggers as a specialty play that can scale widely if early reception is positive.

Digital platform strategies

Digital strategies for 2026 run on stable tracks. The studio’s horror films move to copyright after a big-screen and PVOD window, a stair-step that amplifies both debut momentum and viewer acquisition in the later phase. Prime Video combines outside acquisitions with world buys and small theatrical windows when the data justifies it. Max and Hulu optimize their lanes in deep cuts, using in-app campaigns, seasonal hubs, and curated rows to stretch the tail on aggregate take. Netflix keeps flexible about internal projects and festival snaps, finalizing horror entries with shorter lead times and staging as events premieres with surge campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, works a laddered of limited theatrical footprints and short jumps to platform that converts WOM to subscribers. That will count for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before activating direct-to-fan channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ keeps a case-by-case stance on horror on a per-project basis. The platform has shown appetite to purchase select projects with top-tier auteurs or headline-cast packages, then give them a limited theatrical run in partnership with exhibitors to meet Oscar thresholds or to generate social proof before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still capitalizes on the 20th Century Studios slate, a core piece for subscriber stickiness when the genre conversation intensifies.

Specialized lanes

Cineverse is quietly building a 2026 pipeline 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 promise is clean: the same somber, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a beloved cult piece, reimagined for modern sound and image. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a September to November window, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. The distributor has positioned a wide-to-platform plan for the title, an good sign for fans of the ferocious series and for exhibitors in need of adult counterprogramming in the September weeks.

Focus will operate the filmmaker lane with Werwulf, curating the rollout through a fall festival swing if the cut is ready, then leveraging the holiday dates to scale. That positioning has worked well for arthouse horror with mainstream crossovers. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not announced many 2026 dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines typically coalesce after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A fair assumption is a selection of late-summer and fall platformers that can grow if reception supports. Anticipate 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 in parallel, using targeted theatrical to stir evangelism that fuels their user base.

Brands and originals

By number, 2026 skews toward the series side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all harness brand equity. The question, as ever, is brand wear. The workable fix is to position each entry as a tone reset. Paramount is emphasizing character and continuity in Scream 7, Sony is signaling a restart at zero for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is highlighting a French-flavored turn from a new voice. Those choices have impact when the audience has so many options and social sentiment shifts fast.

Originals and visionary-led titles keep oxygen in the system. Jordan Peele’s October film will be marketed as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, puts Rachel McAdams in a survival chiller premise with Raimi’s impish dread. SOULM8TE offers a clean, creepy tech hook. Werwulf leans on period specificity and an hard-edged tone. Even when the title is not based on known IP, the deal build is assuring enough to generate pre-sales and early previews.

The last three-year set clarify the plan. In 2023, a exclusive theatrical model that respected streaming windows did not block a day-date try from working when the brand was strong. In 2024, meticulous-craft horror hit big in big-format auditoriums. In 2025, a reawakened chapter of a beloved infection saga underlined that global horror franchises can still feel new when they rotate perspective and raise the stakes. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which continues 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 lensed sequentially, lets marketing to tie installments through relationships and themes and to keep assets in-market without long gaps.

How the films are being made

The behind-the-scenes chatter behind the 2026 entries foreshadow a continued emphasis on hands-on, location-grounded craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not follow any recent iteration of the property, a stance that accords with the practical-craft ethos he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film completed principal and is headed for its April 17, 2026 date. Anticipate a rollout that elevates unease and texture rather than VFX blitz, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership enabling budget prudence.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has characterized Werwulf as the darkest project he has tackled, which tracks with a period English setting and era-true language, a combination that can make for 3D sound and a cold, elemental mood on the big screen. Focus will likely seed this aesthetic in behind-the-scenes pieces and craft spotlights before rolling out a first look that centers atmosphere over story, a move that has clicked for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is aimed at goopy mayhem, a signature of the series that performs globally in red-band trailers and produces shareable reaction clips from early screenings. Scream 7 aims for a meta pivot that returns to the core star. Resident Evil will succeed or falter on monster aesthetics and world-building, which play well in fan-con activations and controlled asset drops. Insidious tends to be a sound design showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the theater case feel necessary. Look for trailers that emphasize pin-drop sound, deep-bass stingers, and dead-air cuts that land in big rooms.

The schedule at a glance

January is jammed. SOULM8TE opens January 9, 2026, then Sony returns a week later with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple on January 16. Return to Silent Hill follows on January 23, a quiet contrast amid heftier brand moves. The month concludes 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 real, but the tone spread affords lanes to each, and the five-week structure hands each a runway for each if word of mouth carries.

February through May load in summer. Paramount’s Scream 7 debuts February 27 with nostalgia heat. In April, The Mummy reawakens a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once played to genre counterprogramming and now nurtures big openers. The 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 spreads the field. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is comic-leaning and wide, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 unleashes red-band intensity. The counterprogramming logic is workable. The spoof can succeed next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest rewards older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have finished their premium pass.

Back half into fall leans series. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously landed. Resident Evil arrives after September 18, a shoulder season window that still steps into Halloween marketing beats. Jordan Peele’s untitled film takes October 23 and will engross cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely augmented by a mystery-first teaser plan and limited disclosures that center concept over reveals.

Holiday prestige and specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a line in sand that genre can hold in the holidays when packaged as craft prestige horror. The distributor has done this before, platforming carefully, then working critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to hold in chatter into January. If the film resonates with critics, the studio can extend in the first week of 2027 while riding holiday momentum and card redemption.

Embedded title notes

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting in progress as production advances. Logline: Sidney returns to re-engage a new Ghostface while the narrative reorients around the original film’s essence. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: legacy reset with a modern edge.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A sorrowing man’s machine mate unfolds into something murderously loving. Rating: TBA. Production: Production locked 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 expands 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: next step of a prestige infection saga.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man returns to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to encounter a unsettled reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Locked and U.S. theatrical booked. Positioning: moody game adaptation built on atmosphere.

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 tough boss push to survive on a isolated island as the control dynamic reverses and suspicion grows. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished. 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 not disclosed in official materials. Logline: A fresh reimagining that returns the monster to menace, grounded in Cronin’s practical craft and accumulating dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed. Positioning: legacy monster restart with director stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A home-set haunting setup that refracts terror through a young child’s unreliable internal vantage. Rating: not yet rated. Production: in the can. Positioning: studio-backed, star-driven spectral 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 satirical comeback that needles today’s horror trends and true crime fervors. Rating: TBD. Production: cameras due to roll fall 2025. Positioning: broad summer counterprogrammer.

Evil Dead Burn (Warner Bros. domestic, July 24, 2026)
Director: Sébastien Vaniček. Top cast: Souheila Yacoub, with ensemble additions. Logline: A new infestation of Deadites ignites, with an transnational twist in tone and setting. Rating: to be announced. Production: production in New Zealand. Positioning: hard-hitting R entry designed for premium formats.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: TBA publicly. Top cast: pending. Logline: The Further widens again, with a another family bound to old terrors. Rating: forthcoming. Production: on track for summer lensing before late-summer rollout. Positioning: stalwart franchise piece in a friendly frame.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: TBD publicly. Top cast: awaiting confirmation. Logline: A ground-up reset designed to reframe the franchise from the ground up, with an stress on survival-core horror over action fireworks. Rating: forthcoming. Production: moving through development on a locked slot. Positioning: fidelity-minded reboot with crossover prospects.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: undisclosed. Logline: intentionally withheld. Rating: TBD. Production: advancing. Positioning: director-fronted event with teaser rhythm.

Werwulf (Focus Features, December 25, 2026)
Director: Robert Eggers. Top cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, with other regulars expected. Logline: A medieval werewolf story built on era-accurate language and elemental dread. Rating: TBA. Production: actively prepping for a holiday slot. Positioning: filmmaker-driven holiday release with craft awards runway.

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 conventional theatrical window prior to platforming. Status: date variable, fall window probable.

Why the 2026 timing works

Three pragmatic forces frame this lineup. First, production that eased or recalendared in 2024 needed latitude on the slate. Horror can move in swiftly because scripts often need fewer locations, fewer large-scale VFX set pieces, and shorter timelines. Second, studios have become more methodical about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently outpaced straight-to-streaming debuts. Third, social buzz converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will mine bite-size scare clips from test screenings, curated scare clips launched on Thursday previews, and experiential pop-ups that double as influencer content. It is a repeatable playbook because it performs.

Calendar math also matters. The first stretch of 2026 sees fewer family and superhero logjams, making room for genre entries that can command a weekend or function as the older-skew counter. January is the prime example. Four horror varieties will stack across five weekends, which reduces inter-title cannibalization. Summer provides the other window. The spoof can ride the first-half wave of animated and action tentpoles, then the hard-R entry can make hay in a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Budgets and certifications, sleeper calculus

Budgets remain in the comfort zone. Most of the films above will sit beneath the $40–$50 million band, with many far below. That allows for wide PLF deployment 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 midrange-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 use those gaps. Get More Info 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. 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 pace and range. January is a tasting table, February delivers a legacy slasher, April reintroduces a Universal monster, May and June provide a two-hit supernatural combo for date nights and group outings, July gets visceral, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a chilly, literate nightmare. That is how you keep chatter alive and occupancy strong without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can sequence upward, using earlier releases to set up the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors respond well to the spacing. Horror delivers regular Thursday spikes, optimized footprints, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can earn PLF placement, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing grain, sonics, and imagery 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

Frames adjust. Ratings change. Casts reconfigure. But the spine of 2026 horror is solid. There is name recognition where it counts, auteur intent where it matters, and a calendar that shows studios know when and how to deliver 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 last-minute boutique pickup join the party. For now, the job is simple, shape lean trailers, hold the mystery, and let the scares sell the seats.