Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed summons primeval malevolence, a spine tingling feature, launching October 2025 across top streaming platforms

A chilling ghostly thriller from writer / cinema craftsman Andrew Chiaramonte, setting free an forgotten fear when guests become victims in a satanic maze. Available October 2, 2025, on Amazon Prime, YouTube streaming, Google Play Movies & TV, Apple’s iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango at Home.

Hollywood, CA (August 8, 2025) – Prepare yourselves for *Young & Cursed*, a nerve-wracking episode of perseverance and age-old darkness that will transform terror storytelling this ghoul season. Brought to life by rising creative mind Andrew Chiaramonte, this nerve-racking and moody screenplay follows five figures who find themselves stranded in a wilderness-bound dwelling under the sinister command of Kyra, a possessed female occupied by a 2,000-year-old sacred-era entity. Brace yourself to be enthralled by a cinematic spectacle that fuses intense horror with folklore, streaming on Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Possession by evil has been a historical foundation in film. In *Young & Cursed*, that pattern is flipped when the fiends no longer form externally, but rather from within. This represents the deepest version of the players. The result is a enthralling emotional conflict where the story becomes a intense struggle between moral forces.


In a bleak wild, five teens find themselves sealed under the unholy aura and inhabitation of a unidentified entity. As the ensemble becomes powerless to combat her manipulation, severed and stalked by entities beyond comprehension, they are made to reckon with their soulful dreads while the hours without pause ticks onward toward their death.


In *Young & Cursed*, anxiety surges and teams splinter, demanding each soul to reflect on their being and the principle of autonomy itself. The tension grow with every passing moment, delivering a chilling narrative that connects paranormal dread with raw emotion.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my focus was to evoke pure dread, an spirit from prehistory, influencing psychological breaks, and exposing a being that erodes the self when consciousness is fragmented.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Living Kyra meant channeling something rooted in terror. She is clueless until the spirit seizes her, and that transition is eerie because it is so unshielded.”

Rollout & Launch

*Young & Cursed* will be unleashed for viewing beginning on October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon Prime, Google’s video hub, Google’s store, Apple iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango on-demand—offering viewers from coast to coast can enjoy this demonic journey.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just released a new trailer two for *Young & Cursed*, published to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a evolution to its intro video, which has racked up over 100K plays.


In addition to its regional launch, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has made public that *Young & Cursed* will also be launched globally, giving access to the movie to fans of fear everywhere.


Avoid skipping this bone-rattling trip into the unknown. Face *Young & Cursed* this spooky debut to confront these dark realities about human nature.


For featurettes, production insights, and alerts from the cast and crew, follow @YoungCursedOfficial across Instagram and Twitter and visit our horror hub.





Horror’s inflection point: calendar year 2025 stateside slate integrates biblical-possession ideas, microbudget gut-punches, stacked beside Franchise Rumbles

From last-stand terror rooted in mythic scripture through to returning series set beside incisive indie visions, 2025 looks like the most variegated paired with carefully orchestrated year in a decade.

It is crowded, and also meticulously arranged. leading studios are anchoring the year by way of signature titles, even as digital services stack the fall with discovery plays paired with old-world menace. In the indie lane, indie storytellers is catching the backdraft of a peak 2024 circuit. Because Halloween continues as the prize window, the other windows are mapped with care. The fall stretch is the proving field, distinctly in 2025, strategies include January, spring, and mid-summer. Viewers are hungry, studios are precise, therefore 2025 might go down as horror’s most intentional year yet.

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

The studios are not sitting idle. If 2024 planted the seeds, 2025 compounds the move.

the Universal camp starts the year with an audacious swing: a refashioned Wolf Man, not returning to the Gothic European hamlet, in a modern-day environment. With Leigh Whannell at the helm featuring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this telling braids lycanthropy with a family meltdown. The transformation is not just physical, it is marital, parental, and painfully human. Booked into mid January, it advances a tactic to control the winter valley through premium horror, not dumps.

Spring ushers in Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher page-to-screen distilled into spare horror. Steered by Eli Craig including Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it comes as grit laced American nightmare with sardonic edge. Under the guise, it interrogates township panic, generational breaks, and mob rule. Early festival buzz suggests it has teeth.

As summer wanes, Warner Bros. drops the final chapter of its steadiest horror franchise: The Conjuring: Last Rites. With Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson back as Ed and Lorraine Warren, the movie targets a resonant finish through an infamous case. Despite a known recipe, Chaves is guiding toward a solemn, meditative finish. It arrives early September, buying space before the October wave.

Then comes The Black Phone 2. From early summer to October, a strong signal. Scott Derrickson again directs, and so do the signature elements that made the first installment a sleeper hit: throwback unease, trauma foregrounded, paired with unsettling supernatural order. Here the stakes rise, with more excavation of the “grabber” canon and family hauntings.

Completing the calendar is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a franchise that brings its own crowd. The new chapter enriches the lore, expands its animatronic nightmare roster, courting teens and the thirty something base. It posts in December, locking down the winter tail.

Platform Originals: Small budgets, sharp fangs

While the big screen favors titles you know, platforms are embracing risk, and engagement climbs.

A flagship risky title is Weapons, a cold-case woven horror suite lacing three time frames tied to a mass vanishing. Led by Zach Cregger with turns by Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the project unites horror with dramatic charge. Arriving to cinemas late summer then to streamers in fall, it should ignite online discourse and post viewing breakdowns, much like Barbarian.

At the smaller scale sits Together, an intimate body horror unraveling fronted 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 is romantic, grotesque, and deeply uncomfortable, a three act spiral into codependent hell. Though no platform has officially staked a release date, it is tracking toward an autumn slot.

One more platform talker is Sinners, a pre war vampire folk narrative headlined by Michael B. Jordan. Shot in rich sepia tones and drenched in biblical metaphor, it channels There Will Be Blood against Let the Right One In. The narrative analyzes American religious trauma through a ghostly 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 lean on grief, loss, and identity, favoring allegory over fireworks.

Possession Runs Deep: Young & Cursed

Posting October 2 across the big platforms, Young & Cursed stands as a rare hybrid, both intimate in scope and mythic in reach. Scripted and led by Andrew Chiaramonte, the piece tracks five strangers awakening in a remote wilds cabin, under Kyra’s sway, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. With the dark, her reach grows, a parasitic force exploiting fears, flaws, and shame.

The dread here runs psychological, charged by primal myth. Resisting the exorcism template of Catholic ceremony and Latin chant, this piece touches something older, something darker. Lilith bypasses ritual, she awakens from trauma, repression, and human fragility. Turning possession inward syncs Young & Cursed to the trend of character led dramas draped in 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 a clever angle. No swollen lore. No legacy baggage. Bare psychological dread, trim and tense, designed for binge and breath patterns. With a spectacle heavy year, Young & Cursed may pop by going quiet, then screaming.

Festival Origins, Market Outcomes

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF continue to incubate the next six to twelve months of horror. They are more runway than museum.

Fantastic Fest fields a robust horror set this year. Primate opens the fest with tropical body horror and critics cite Cronenberg and Herzog. Whistle, a folkloric revenge thriller steeped in Aztec lore, is expected to close the fest with fire.

Midnight entries like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You are getting buzz not just for their titles but for their execution. With A24 behind it, the satire of toxic fandom under a convention lockdown seems breakout bound.

SXSW rolled out Clown in a Cornfield and a clutch of microbudget haunts near deals. Sundance is on track for grief tuned elevated horror, where Tribeca’s genre program draws urban, social, and surreal.

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

Legacy Lines: Sequels, Reboots, and Reinvention

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

Fear Street: Prom Queen hits July to revive the 90s line with fresh lead and VHS vibe. Rather than prior modes, it goes camp and prom night melodrama. Expect tiaras, corn syrup blood, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 opens late June, set to enlarge techno horror mythology with fresh faces and AI bred menaces. The opener’s social chatter and SVOD hours justify Universal’s deeper play.

Then there is The Long Walk, an adaptation of one of Stephen King’s earliest and most harrowing works, helmed by Francis Lawrence, it functions as a harsh dystopian fable encased in survival horror, a children’s march that ends in death. Marketed correctly, it could be The Hunger Games for horror adults.

Other reboots and sequels, Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda, are scattered across the calendar, most waiting for strategic windows or last minute acquisitions.

Emerging Currents

Mythic horror goes mainstream
From Lilith in Young & Cursed across to Aztec curses in Whistle, slates mine ancient texts and symbols. This is not nostalgia, it is a reclamation of pre Christian archetypes. Horror exceeds jolts, it insists evil is ancient.

Body horror reemerges
The likes of Together, Weapons, and Keeper reshift toward flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation now read as metaphors for heartbreak, grief, and regret.

SVOD originals harden up
Junk fill horror on platforms is receding. Services bankroll legitimate writing, legitimate directors, and proper media. Works such as Weapons and Sinners are positioned as events, not filler.

Festival momentum becomes 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
Studios release horror theatrically only when they believe in overperformance or sequel trees. Everything else heads to PVOD or hybrid drops. Horror is not shrinking in theaters, but it is becoming more curated.

Season Ahead: Fall saturation and a winter joker

A cluster of Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons in September and October equals saturation. Indies like Bone Lake and Keeper will grind for attention. Look for a pivot by one or more into early 2026 or to new platforms.

December anchors on Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, yet a surprise streamer drop could appear in the final weeks. Given the dark, mythic lean of the year’s big films, a final creature feature or exorcism slot is open.

What matters is slate breadth meeting fractured audiences, not one crown jewel. The brief is not the next Get Out, it is horror with afterlife beyond receipts.



The coming 2026 fear cycle: returning titles, original films, paired with A brimming Calendar Built For jolts

Dek: The new scare season loads up front with a January logjam, then flows through the warm months, and straight through the holiday frame, blending brand heft, novel approaches, and smart release strategy. Studio marketers and platforms are committing to cost discipline, theatrical exclusivity first, and influencer-ready assets that position these offerings into mainstream chatter.

The state of horror, heading into 2026

This category has established itself as the most reliable tool in studio calendars, a vertical that can surge when it resonates and still protect the risk when it falls short. After 2023 reminded studio brass that low-to-mid budget shockers can lead the national conversation, 2024 maintained heat with high-profile filmmaker pieces and unexpected risers. The trend translated to 2025, where revivals and premium-leaning entries confirmed there is space for multiple flavors, from returning installments to original features that perform internationally. The sum for the 2026 slate is a run that shows rare alignment across the major shops, with purposeful groupings, a mix of established brands and new pitches, and a re-energized attention on box-office windows that drive downstream revenue on premium digital rental and home streaming.

Insiders argue the horror lane now works like a fill-in ace on the schedule. The genre can roll out on nearly any frame, deliver a tight logline for creative and shorts, and outpace with fans that come out on previews Thursday and continue through the follow-up frame if the release lands. Emerging from a production delay era, the 2026 mapping underscores comfort in that engine. The year launches with a front-loaded January run, then plants flags in spring and early summer for counterweight, while reserving space for a fall cadence that extends to Halloween and past the holiday. The calendar also highlights the continuing integration of boutique distributors and streamers that can build gradually, build word of mouth, and broaden at the inflection point.

A second macro trend is franchise tending across interlocking continuities and legacy franchises. The studios are not just greenlighting another chapter. They are looking to package threaded continuity with a heightened moment, whether that is a brandmark that flags a re-angled tone or a casting move that reconnects a latest entry to a initial period. At the meanwhile, the auteurs behind the high-profile originals are celebrating real-world builds, physical gags and distinct locales. That combination offers the 2026 slate a strong blend of comfort and freshness, which is how horror tends to travel globally.

How the majors and mini-majors are programming

Paramount leads early with two spotlight titles that bracket the tone map. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with original architect Kevin Williamson in the director seat and Neve Campbell back at the center, setting it up as both a baton pass and a DNA-forward navigate here character piece. Principal photography is underway in Atlanta, and the story approach announces a heritage-honoring strategy without recycling the last two entries’ sisters storyline. Watch for a push leaning on classic imagery, character previews, and a tiered teaser plan arriving in late fall. Distribution is big-screen via Paramount.

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 paired again, with the Wayans brothers involved as creative contributors for the first time since the early 2000s, a headline the campaign will feature. As a summer relief option, this one will generate mass reach through remixable clips, with the horror spoof format making room for quick turns to whatever rules pop-cultural buzz that spring.

Universal has three separate releases. SOULM8TE hits January 9, 2026, a tech-forward branch from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The core idea is crisp, heartbroken, and high-concept: a grieving man sets up an virtual partner that shifts into a deadly partner. The date positions it at the front of a thick month, with the studio’s marketing likely to recreate odd public stunts and brief clips that hybridizes love and terror.

On May 8, 2026, the studio books an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely read as the feature developed under internal titles in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The dated slate currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which leaves room for a title drop to become an earned moment closer to the initial tease. The timing stakes a claim in early May while larger tentpoles concentrate elsewhere.

Closing out the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film secures October 23, 2026, a slot he has thrived in before. His projects are framed as must-see filmmaker statements, with a minimalist tease and a second trailer wave that tee up tone without spoiling the concept. The spooky-season slot offers Universal room to lead pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then capitalize on the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, links with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček helms, with Souheila Yacoub headlining. The franchise has established that a tactile, makeup-driven mix can feel premium on a controlled budget. Position this as a blood-and-grime summer horror jolt that leans into offshore potential, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most offshore territories.

Sony’s horror bench is particularly deep. The studio sets two name-brand pushes in the back half. An untitled Insidious film premieres August 21, 2026, sustaining a proven supernatural brand on the board while the spin-off branch advances. The studio has repositioned on this title before, but the current plan plants it in late summer, where the brand has shown strength.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil returns in what Sony is marketing as a reimagined restart for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a foundational part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a explicit mandate to serve both longtime followers and first-timers. The fall slot gives Sony time to build artifacts around world-building, and monster craft, elements that can accelerate large-format demand and fan events.

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 sustains Eggers’ run of period horror shaped by immersive craft and period language, this time driven by werewolf stories. Focus has already claimed the date for a holiday release, a public confidence in Eggers as a specialty play that can platform wide if early reception is strong.

How the platforms plan to play it

Platform tactics for 2026 run on predictable routes. Universal titles window into copyright after a cinema-first plus PVOD, a tiered useful reference path that enhances both FOMO and subscription bumps in the tail. Prime Video interleaves licensed films with worldwide entries and select theatrical runs when the data warrants it. Max and Hulu work their advantages in library curation, using timely promos, fright rows, and editorial rows to increase tail value on 2026 genre cume. Netflix stays nimble about originals and festival acquisitions, slotting horror entries on shorter runways and framing as events launches with short runway campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, works a laddered of limited theatrical footprints and swift platform pivots that drives paid trials from buzz. That will be material for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before working direct-to-fan channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ continues to evaluate horror on a bespoke basis. The platform has demonstrated openness to board select projects with top-tier auteurs or star-driven packages, then give them a art-house footprint in partnership with exhibitors to meet awards-qualifying thresholds or to create word of mouth before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still capitalizes on the 20th Century Studios slate, a critical input for retention when the genre conversation swells.

Specialty and indie breakouts

Cineverse is engineering a 2026 arc with two brand extensions. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The pitch navigate to this website is no-nonsense: the same haunting, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a beloved cult piece, retooled for modern sound and image. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a autumn slot, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. The distributor has signaled a cinema-first plan for Legacy, an positive signal for fans of the ferocious series and for exhibitors seeking adult skew in the late stretch.

Focus will operate the filmmaker lane with Werwulf, guiding the film through autumn festivals if the cut is ready, then using the holiday dates to increase reach. That positioning has shown results for prestige horror with mainstream crossovers. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not dated many 2026 horror titles in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines tend to converge after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A solid projection is a handful of late-summer and fall platformers that can go wider if reception supports. Be ready for an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that launches at Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work in parallel, using select theatrical to stir evangelism that fuels their subs.

Franchise entries versus originals

By count, the 2026 slate favors the franchise column. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all tap fan equity. The watch-out, as ever, is staleness. The practical approach is to sell each entry as a recast vibe. Paramount is underscoring character and roots in Scream 7, Sony is positioning a clean-slate build for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is driving a French-flavored turn from a ascendant talent. Those choices count when the audience has so many options and social sentiment spins fast.

Non-franchise titles and filmmaker-centric entries supply the oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be marketed as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, anchors on Rachel McAdams in a island-set survival premise with Raimi’s playful menace. SOULM8TE offers a clear, chilling tech hook. Werwulf leans on period specificity and an severe tone. Even when the title is not based on familiar IP, the package is assuring enough to turn curiosity into pre-sales and early previews.

Recent comps help explain the strategy. In 2023, a theatrical-first plan that preserved streaming windows did not foreclose a dual release from paying off when the brand was strong. In 2024, craft-forward auteur horror exceeded expectations in large-format rooms. In 2025, a resurgence of a beloved infection saga showed the market that global horror franchises can still feel novel when they shift POV and grow scope. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which presses on January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The two-film strategy, with chapters shot back-to-back, allows marketing to interlace chapters through character spine and themes and to hold creative in the market without lulls.

Technique and craft currents

The craft conversations behind this year’s genre forecast a continued lean toward tactile, location-specific craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not follow any recent iteration of the property, a stance that aligns with the in-camera lean he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film closed principal and is tracking toward its April 17, 2026 date. Watch for a drive that underscores mood and dread rather than bombast, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership permitting smart budget discipline.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has described Werwulf as the bleakest project he has tackled, which tracks with a 13th-century milieu and archaic dialect, a combination that can make for deep sound design and a icy, primal tone on the big screen. Focus will likely tease this aesthetic in long-lead features and artisan spotlights before rolling out a teaser that leans on mood over plot, a move that has resonated for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is engineered for gross-out texture, a signature of the series that plays abroad in red-band trailers and generates shareable reaction videos from early screenings. Scream 7 delivers a meta recalibration that centers an original star. Resident Evil will rise or fall on monster aesthetics and world-building, which play well in convention activations and planned releases. Insidious tends to be a sound-mix showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the cinema argument feel necessary. Look for trailers that highlight precise sound design, deep-bass stingers, and dropouts that explode in larger rooms.

Calendar cadence

January is jammed. Universal’s SOULM8TE opens January 9, 2026, then Sony returns a week later with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple on January 16. Return to Silent Hill follows on January 23, a tonal palate cleanser amid marquee brands. The month closes with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival-and-paranoia piece from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is thick, but the menu of tones ensures lanes for each, and the five-week structure creates breathing room for each if word of mouth persists.

Post-January through spring build the summer base. Paramount’s Scream 7 debuts February 27 with nostalgia heat. In April, New Line’s The Mummy reintroduces a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once favored genre counterprogramming and now sustains 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 sharpens the contrast. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is comic-leaning and wide, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 supplies gnarly intensity. The counterprogramming logic is sound. The spoof can play next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest serves older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have cycled through PLF.

Late-season stretch leans brand. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously thrived. Resident Evil lines up after September 18, a transitional slot that still builds toward Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event occupies October 23 and will absorb cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely reinforced by a minimalist tease strategy and limited advance reveals that favor idea over plot.

Awards-adjacent specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a declaration that genre can thrive over the holidays when packaged as craft prestige horror. Focus has done this before, staging carefully, then working critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to extend talk into January. If the film clicks critically, the studio can scale in the first week of 2027 while riding holiday momentum and gift-card redemption.

Title briefs within the narrative

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting TBA in phases as production proceeds. Logline: Sidney returns to meet a new Ghostface while the narrative re-keys to the original film’s core. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: roots-first with a today edge.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A devastated man’s virtual companion unfolds into something perilously amorous. Rating: TBA. Production: Shoot completed for an early-year bow. Positioning: tech-horror with an emotional core.

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 scales the story beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult rises in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Twin-shot 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 travels back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to confront a shimmering reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Locked and U.S. theatrical booked. Positioning: fog-and-fear 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 prickly boss push to survive on a isolated island as the hierarchy shifts and fear crawls. Rating: TBA. Production: Done. Positioning: star-forward survival chiller from a master.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles in the vault in official materials. Logline: A contemporary retelling that returns the monster to chill, based on Cronin’s physical craft and oozing dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Principal wrapped. Positioning: classic monster relaunch with a filmmaker’s stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A closed-door haunting piece that mediates the fear via a preteen’s volatile perspective. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: post-ready. 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 send-up revival that satirizes contemporary horror memes and true-crime buzz. Rating: TBD. Production: cameras due to roll fall 2025. Positioning: four-quadrant summer counterplay.

Evil Dead Burn (Warner Bros. domestic, July 24, 2026)
Director: Sébastien Vaniček. Top cast: Souheila Yacoub, with ensemble additions. Logline: A new infestation of Deadites bursts, with an globe-spanning twist in tone and setting. Rating: TBD. Production: on location in New Zealand. Positioning: R-rated franchise charge tuned for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: TBD per campaign. Top cast: TBD. Logline: The Further reopens, with a different family bound to older hauntings. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: planning summer shoot for late-summer date. Positioning: trusted supernatural label in a supportive window.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: forthcoming. Top cast: undisclosed. Logline: A new start designed to reconstruct the franchise from the ground up, with an lean toward true survival horror over action-centric bombast. Rating: TBD. Production: on a development track with locked window. Positioning: game-grounded refresh with wider appeal.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: awaiting confirmation. Logline: deliberately concealed. Rating: pending. Production: moving forward. 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-faithful speech and ancient menace. Rating: forthcoming. 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 theaters-first plan ahead of platforming. Status: slot unsettled, fall projected.

Why the calendar favors 2026

Three pragmatic forces inform this lineup. First, production that downshifted or shifted in 2024 required schedule breathing room. Horror can backfill quickly because scripts often require limited locations, fewer large-scale digital sequences, and pared-down 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 overdelivered vs. straight-to-streaming debuts. Third, platform buzz converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will work reaction-worthy moments from test screenings, precision scare clips dropping on Thursday previews, and experiential pop-ups that feed creator content. It is a repeatable playbook because it works.

A fourth factor is programming math. Early 2026 is less crowded with family and superhero corridors, offering breathing room for genre entries that can command a weekend or play as the older-leaning alternative. January is the prime example. Four horror varieties will coexist across five weekends, which lets WOM accrue cleanly. Summer provides the other window. The send-up tracks alongside early family and action traffic, then the hard-R entry can benefit from a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Money matters, ratings, and surprise hits

Budgets remain in the Goldilocks zone. Most of the films above will live under the $40–$50 million ceiling, with many far below. That allows for heavy premium placement 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 lean-budget genre can own weekends with minimal competition, and again in late summer, where horror often becomes the conversation when tentpoles tire. The 2026 slate is set up to harvest those lanes. January could easily deliver the first unexpected breakout 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.

The moviegoer’s year in horror

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers rhythm and variety. January is a spread, February delivers a legacy slasher, April reanimates a Universal monster, May and June provide a back-to-back spirit play 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 cold, literate nightmare. That is how you sustain heat and footfall without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can stack through the year, using earlier releases to set up the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors favor the spacing. Horror delivers reliable Thursday lifts, efficient placements, 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 detail, acoustics, and image-making 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, Ready To Roar

Release dates move. Ratings change. Casts shuffle. But the spine of 2026 horror is firm. There is franchise muscle where it helps, filmmaker vision where it matters, and a calendar that shows studios track how and when scares land. The awards and festival pipeline into 2027 will come into focus once the fall festivals lock, and it would not be surprising to see at least one 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.