Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed unleashes antediluvian malevolence, a chilling horror thriller, arriving Oct 2025 on major streaming services

A chilling supernatural scare-fest from author / auteur Andrew Chiaramonte, releasing an forgotten entity when newcomers become pawns in a fiendish struggle. Streaming this October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google’s Play platform, Apple iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango streaming.

Hollywood, CA (August 8, 2025) – stay alert for *Young & Cursed*, a disturbing account of perseverance and primeval wickedness that will remodel terror storytelling this spooky time. Brought to life by rising cinematic craftsman Andrew Chiaramonte, this edge-of-your-seat and moody suspense flick follows five people who find themselves stranded in a far-off house under the hostile dominion of Kyra, a tormented girl occupied by a 2,000-year-old biblical force. Brace yourself to be enthralled by a screen-based outing that fuses deep-seated panic with mythic lore, streaming on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Demon possession has been a classic element in the silver screen. In *Young & Cursed*, that notion is challenged when the dark entities no longer descend outside the characters, but rather inside them. This represents the malevolent layer of the victims. The result is a psychologically brutal cognitive warzone where the suspense becomes a brutal struggle between divinity and wickedness.


In a unforgiving no-man's-land, five souls find themselves imprisoned under the ominous grip and possession of a obscure female figure. As the youths becomes helpless to break her dominion, disconnected and stalked by terrors unfathomable, they are confronted to face their darkest emotions while the final hour ruthlessly strikes toward their obliteration.


In *Young & Cursed*, anxiety intensifies and relationships disintegrate, prompting each person to reconsider their values and the philosophy of liberty itself. The cost surge with every tick, delivering a horror experience that integrates supernatural terror with soulful exposure.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my focus was to explore instinctual horror, an power that predates humanity, channeling itself through inner turmoil, and confronting a being that peels away humanity when consciousness is fragmented.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Channeling Kyra needed manifesting something unfamiliar to reason. She is unseeing until the entity awakens, and that conversion is emotionally raw because it is so raw.”

Viewing Options

*Young & Cursed* will be streamed for viewing beginning on October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon’s platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home—making sure fans everywhere can survive this paranormal experience.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just uploaded a new video trailer for *Young & Cursed*, available to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a follow up to its first preview, which has collected over strong viewer count.


In addition to its first availability, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has made public that *Young & Cursed* will also be taken worldwide, taking the terror to fans of fear everywhere.


Avoid skipping this soul-jarring path of possession. Join *Young & Cursed* this Halloween season to dive into these fearful discoveries about inner darkness.


For featurettes, production news, and updates via the production team, follow @YoungAndCursedMovie across social media and visit the official website.





Today’s horror pivotal crossroads: 2025 across markets U.S. release slate fuses ancient-possession motifs, microbudget gut-punches, stacked beside franchise surges

Spanning life-or-death fear inspired by scriptural legend and onward to returning series and pointed art-house angles, 2025 looks like the genre’s most multifaceted combined with tactically planned year in ten years.

The 2025 horror calendar goes beyond packed, it is precision-tuned. studio powerhouses plant stakes across the year via recognizable brands, as subscription platforms pack the fall with discovery plays and old-world menace. In the indie lane, horror’s indie wing is surfing the afterglow of 2024’s record festival wave. Because Halloween stands as the showcase, the off-peak lanes are managed with purpose. The early fall corridor has become the proving ground, though in this cycle, bookings reach January, spring, and mid-summer. Horror fans are craving, studios are surgical, and 2025 may end up the most intentional cycle yet.

Studio Playbook and Mini-Major Tactics: Prestige terror resurfaces

Studios are not on the sidelines. If 2024 prepared the terrain, 2025 capitalizes.

Universal’s pipeline opens the year with a marquee bet: a reconceived Wolf Man, leaving behind the period European setting, instead in a current-day frame. Steered by Leigh Whannell featuring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this pass grounds the lycanthropy in household collapse. The turn is more than creature work, it is about marriage, parenthood, and humanity. Slated for mid January, it helps remake the winter trough with prestige offerings, not discard thrillers.

In spring, Clown in a Cornfield lands, a YA slasher page-to-screen distilled into spare horror. Directed by Eli Craig anchored by Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it reads as gore kissed small town horror with wry bite. Beneath the facade, it probes hometown suspicion, boomer to zoomer divides, and mob retribution. Initial heat flags it as potent.

By late summer, the Warner Bros. banner unveils the final movement from its dependable horror line: The Conjuring: Last Rites. With Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson back as Ed and Lorraine Warren, the installment aims for closure as it frames a famed case. Though the outline is tried, Michael Chaves is rumored to steer toward a somber, reflective register for the close. It goes early September, easing the path before October flood.

The Black Phone 2 steps in next. From early summer to October, a strong signal. Derrickson re teams, and the core ingredients of the sleeper original are back: nostalgic menace, trauma foregrounded, and a cold supernatural calculus. This pass pushes higher, through a thicker read on the “grabber” legend and generational ache.

Rounding the tentpole corner is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a film that does not need traditional marketing to sell tickets. The sequel leans deeper into its lore, stretches the animatronic parade, reaching teens and game grownups. It lands in December, holding the cold season’s end.

Platform Originals: Low budgets, big teeth

With theaters prioritizing brand safety, platforms are wagering boldly, and results are there.

A flagship risky title is Weapons, a long shadow anthology of dread stitching three periods attached to a mass disappearance. Helmed by Zach Cregger including Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the entry marries dread with character weight. Posting late summer theatrically then fall streaming, it should ignite online discourse and post viewing breakdowns, much like Barbarian.

On the minimalist axis arrives Together, a close quarters body horror study led by Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Fixed in a remote let as a weekend curdles, the script studies love with jealousy with self rejection turning into decay. It moves between affection and rot, a triptych into codependent hell. Though no platform has officially staked a release date, it is a lock for fall streaming.

Next comes Sinners, a thirties era vampire folk parable anchored by Michael B. Jordan. Lensed in lush sepia and soaked in biblical metaphor, it recalls There Will Be Blood spliced to Let the Right One In. The story probes American religious trauma by way of supernatural allegory. Early test screens tag it as a top talked streaming debut.

Other streamer plays queue softly: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper all work grief and disappearance and identity, choosing meaning over noise.

Possession Beneath the Skin: Young & Cursed

Arriving October 2 across major platforms, Young & Cursed operates as a rare duality, minimal in staging, maximal in myth. Shaped and helmed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the film follows five strangers who wake in a remote wilderness cabin under the thrall of Kyra, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. As the hours blacken, her hold tightens, an invasive current triggering fears, fissures, and regret.

The horror here is psychological but charged with primal myth. Skipping the exorcism norm of Catholic rite and Latin line, this one digs into something older, something darker. Lilith is not summoned by priests, she rises from trauma, muteness, and human fault lines. Possession that blooms from within, not without, inverts the trope and places Young & Cursed within a growing horror trend, intimate character studies wrapped in genre.

Across Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home, the film stands as Halloween counterprogramming to sequel glut and monster revivals. It reads as sharp positioning. No overstuffed canon. No IP hangover. Only psychological menace, compressed and taut, tuned to binge and gasp cycles online. Amid spectacle, Young & Cursed can distinguish itself by whispering, then howling.

From Festivals to Market

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF still seed what horror becomes in six to twelve months. This cycle, they are launchpads first and showcases second.

Fantastic Fest fields a robust horror set this year. Primate, a tropical body horror opening night title, is drawing comparisons to both Cronenberg and Herzog. Whistle, a folkloric revenge thriller steeped in Aztec lore, is expected to close the fest with fire.

Midnight slots like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You earn noise for execution beyond quirky names. That title, with A24 backing, satirizes toxic fandom during a convention lockdown and is set to pop.

SXSW bowed Clown in a Cornfield while feeding deal chatter for microbudget haunts. Sundance is expected to unspool a familiar crop of grief steeped elevated horror, where Tribeca’s genre program draws urban, social, and surreal.

Strategy at festivals now equals branding as well as discovery. That wreath is now a starting gun, not the finish.

Heritage Horror: Sequels, Reboots, Reinventions

Legacy entries present stronger and more purposeful this time.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, landing in July, re ups the 90s brand with a fresh lead and retro tone. In contrast to earlier chapters, it skews camp and prom night melodrama. Picture tiaras, bright red goo, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 returns in late June, set to enlarge techno horror mythology with fresh faces and AI bred menaces. The initial entry’s meme life and streaming legs push Universal to scale up.

Then there is The Long Walk, an adaptation of one of Stephen King’s earliest and most harrowing works, from Francis Lawrence, it lands as a ruthless dystopian allegory couched in survival horror, a march where no one wins. With a precise angle, it could mirror The Hunger Games for adults in horror.

Beyond that, reboots and sequels such as Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda dot the year, often holding for windows or late pickups.

What to Watch

Mythic Horror Is Mainstream
Lilith in Young & Cursed plus Aztec curses in Whistle highlight ancient texts and symbols. Rather than nostalgia, it reclaims pre Christian archetypes. Horror pushes past jump scares, it points to ancient evil.

Body horror reemerges
The likes of Together, Weapons, and Keeper reshift toward flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation symbolize heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streaming originals get teeth
Throwaway platform horror is on the way out. Platforms are putting money into scripts, directors, and promotion. Works such as Weapons and Sinners are positioned as events, not filler.

Festival heat turns into leverage
Festival seals operate as leverage for distribution lanes and press windows. In 2025, a horror film lacking festival plan may fade.

Theatrical release is a trust fall
Theater slots go to likely overachievers or franchise starters. The remainder goes PVOD or hybrid. Horror persists theatrically, in curated lanes.

What’s Next: Autumn overload with a winter wildcard

Young & Cursed plus The Conjuring: Last Rites plus The Black Phone 2 plus Weapons, all in September and October, makes for a saturated fall. Indies like Bone Lake and Keeper will scrap for air. Watch for one or more of these to pivot into early 2026 or shift platforms.

With Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 in December, a stealth streamer drop might pop near year end. With some of the year’s biggest films leaning dark and mythic, the space for one final creature feature or exorcism flick is wide open.

What matters is slate breadth meeting fractured audiences, not one crown jewel. The play is not Get Out replication, it is long life horror past theaters.



The forthcoming 2026 genre cycle: entries, non-franchise titles, paired with A hectic Calendar designed for shocks

Dek The fresh terror calendar crams early with a January glut, subsequently stretches through the mid-year, and continuing into the holiday frame, fusing brand equity, new concepts, and well-timed counterprogramming. Distributors with platforms are doubling down on responsible budgets, cinema-first plans, and social-driven marketing that elevate the slate’s entries into national conversation.

Where horror stands going into 2026

Horror has solidified as the most reliable play in studio slates, a space that can surge when it lands and still insulate the liability when it fails to connect. After the 2023 year re-taught studio brass that efficiently budgeted entries can own the national conversation, 2024 extended the rally with buzzy auteur projects and stealth successes. The head of steam extended into 2025, where resurrections and filmmaker-prestige bets proved there is capacity for several lanes, from continued chapters to fresh IP that translate worldwide. The takeaway for the 2026 slate is a slate that shows rare alignment across the industry, with defined corridors, a pairing of legacy names and new packages, and a tightened focus on exhibition windows that power the aftermarket on premium rental and home streaming.

Marketers add the space now serves as a fill-in ace on the distribution slate. The genre can premiere on almost any weekend, provide a quick sell for ad units and short-form placements, and overperform with fans that arrive on advance nights and maintain momentum through the week two if the film delivers. On the heels of a work stoppage lag, the 2026 mapping demonstrates comfort in that equation. The year gets underway with a weighty January window, then taps spring and early summer for balance, while leaving room for a October build that pushes into holiday-adjacent weekends and into November. The schedule also highlights the tightening integration of specialty arms and OTT outlets that can grow from platform, ignite recommendations, and broaden at the timely point.

A reinforcing pattern is franchise tending across shared IP webs and heritage properties. The players are not just mounting another return. They are moving to present brand continuity with a specialness, whether that is a title design that suggests a fresh attitude or a casting move that binds a next film to a initial period. At the alongside this, the directors behind the most watched originals are championing hands-on technique, real effects and location-forward worlds. That alloy produces the 2026 slate a robust balance of recognition and unexpected turns, which is how the films export.

The studios and mini-majors, and how they are playing the year

Paramount marks the early tempo with two headline entries that bracket the tone map. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with original architect Kevin Williamson in the director slot and Neve Campbell back at the lead, framing it as both a handoff and a origin-leaning character-first story. Filming is in progress in Atlanta, and the directional approach announces a roots-evoking approach without replaying the last two entries’ sibling arc. Expect a marketing push stacked with franchise iconography, initial cast looks, and a two-beat trailer plan targeting late fall. Distribution is big-screen 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 reuniting, with the Wayans brothers involved as creative contributors for the first time since the early 2000s, a campaign lever the campaign will feature. As a non-tentpole summer option, this one will go after general-audience talk through meme-friendly cuts, with the horror spoof format making room for quick reframes to whatever shapes genre chatter that spring.

Universal has three distinct bets. SOULM8TE rolls out January 9, 2026, a universe branch from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The premise is clean, melancholic, and logline-clear: a grieving man sets up an intelligent companion that mutates into a killer companion. The date locates it at the front of a thick month, with Universal’s marketing likely to replay viral uncanny stunts and quick hits that melds romance and chill.

On May 8, 2026, the studio sets an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely interpreted 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 allows a title reveal to become an teaser payoff closer to the debut look. The timing offers Universal a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles occupy other frames.

Filling out the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film lands October 23, 2026, a slot he has commanded before. Peele projects are positioned as auteur events, with a minimalist tease and a second beat that prime atmosphere without details the concept. The Halloween-adjacent date gives the studio 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 is at the helm of, with Souheila Yacoub starring. The franchise has repeatedly shown that a tactile, hands-on effects aesthetic can feel premium on a efficient spend. Frame it as a blood-soaked summer horror shock that spotlights overseas performance, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most world markets.

Sony’s horror bench is well stocked. The studio rolls out two recognizable-IP pushes in the back half. An untitled Insidious film debuts August 21, 2026, holding a bankable supernatural brand on the board while the spin-off branch moves forward. The studio has recalibrated on this title before, but the current plan locks it in late summer, where Insidious has been strong.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil re-emerges in what Sony is selling as a fresh restart for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a key part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a focus to serve both core fans and fresh viewers. The fall slot allows Sony to build marketing units around world-building, and creature work, elements that can lift premium booking interest and cosplayer momentum.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, plants a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film advances the filmmaker’s run of period horror shaped by textural authenticity and historical speech, this time exploring werewolf lore. The label has already planted the flag for a holiday release, a promissory note in Eggers as a specialty play that can build and expand if early reception is supportive.

Streamers and platform exclusives

Streaming playbooks in 2026 run on familiar rails. Universal’s slate land on copyright after a big-screen and PVOD window, a ordering that fortifies both first-week urgency and sign-up momentum in the back half. Prime Video balances licensed content with international acquisitions and small theatrical windows when the data supports it. Max and Hulu lean on their strengths in catalog discovery, using well-timed internal promotions, horror hubs, and curated strips to maximize the tail on the 2026 genre total. Netflix plays opportunist about internal projects and festival snaps, finalizing horror entries near their drops and framing as events releases with short runway campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, uses a two-step of focused cinema runs and swift platform pivots that turns chatter to conversion. That will be critical for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before pressing niche channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ continues to evaluate horror on a title-by-title basis. The platform has demonstrated openness to buy select projects with name filmmakers or star-driven packages, then give them a art-house footprint in partnership with exhibitors to meet eligibility thresholds or to show bona fides before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney domestic still pulls from the 20th Century Studios slate, a notable driver for monthly activity when the genre conversation swells.

The specialty lanes and indie surprises

Cineverse is crafting a 2026 lane with two franchise steps. 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 genre cult touchstone, reimagined for modern sound and image. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a late-year slot, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. The distributor has suggested a cinema-first plan for the title, an upbeat indicator for fans of the brutal series and for exhibitors seeking darker fare in the back half.

Focus will favor the auteur track with Werwulf, managing the title through a fall festival swing if the cut is ready, then using the December frame to scale. That positioning has served the company well for elevated genre with four-quadrant hopes. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not firmed many 2026 dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines typically coalesce after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A likely scenario is a set of late-summer and fall platformers that can expand if reception merits. Be ready for 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 hand in hand, using limited theatrical to kindle evangelism that fuels their community.

Balance of brands and originals

By skew, the 2026 slate tips toward the series side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all exploit fan equity. The challenge, as ever, is viewer burnout. The standing approach is to pitch each entry as a reframed mode. Paramount is foregrounding character and lineage in Scream 7, Sony is teasing a new foundation for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is highlighting a French-accented approach from a new voice. Those choices count when the audience has so many options and social sentiment changes rapidly.

Originals and filmmaker-centric entries keep the lungs full. Jordan Peele’s October film will be positioned as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, puts Rachel McAdams in a stranded survival premise with Raimi’s impish dread. SOULM8TE offers a clean, creepy tech hook. Werwulf roots in era detail and an unyielding tone. Even when the title is not based on legacy IP, the package is recognizable enough to spark pre-sales and Thursday-night turnout.

Comps from the last three years clarify the model. In 2023, a exclusive cinema model that honored streaming windows did not deter a simultaneous release test from working when the brand was strong. In 2024, filmmaker-craft-led horror exceeded expectations in PLF. In 2025, a return of a beloved infection saga showed the market that global horror franchises can still feel new when they reorient and raise the stakes. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which advances January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The back-to-back plan, with chapters produced back-to-back, builds a path for marketing to thread films through character web and themes and to keep materials circulating without pause points.

Production craft signals

The craft conversations behind these films foreshadow a continued lean toward hands-on, location-grounded craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not mirror any recent iteration of the property, a stance that reinforces the prosthetic-forward taste he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film wrapped production and is set for its April 17, 2026 date. Look for a campaign that foregrounds grain and menace rather than bombast, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership sustaining budget rigor.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has said Werwulf as the most forbidding project he has tackled, which tracks with a medieval backdrop and period-faithful dialogue, a combination that can make for sonic immersion and a austere, elemental atmosphere on the big screen. Focus will likely frame this aesthetic in behind-the-scenes pieces and craft coverage before rolling out a tease that trades on atmosphere over plot, a move that has clicked for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is engineered for red-band excess, a signature of the series that connects worldwide in red-band trailers and produces shareable scream clips from early screenings. Scream 7 promises a meta inflection that returns to the core star. Resident Evil will succeed or falter on monster work and check over here world-building, which align with fan-con activations and planned releases. Insidious tends to be a soundstage showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the auditorium case feel primary. Look for trailers that center precise sound design, deep-bass stingers, and sudden silences that explode in larger rooms.

Release calendar overview

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 quiet contrast amid heftier brand moves. The month wraps 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 thick, but the palette of tones lets each find a lane, and the five-week structure offers clean runway for each if word of mouth carries.

Post-January through spring prime the summer. Scream 7 arrives February 27 with fan warmth. In April, New Line’s The Mummy restores a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once suited genre counterprogramming and now supports big openers. Universal’s untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 steps into summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer spreads the field. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is lighter-toned and broader, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 unleashes gnarly intensity. The counterprogramming logic is smart. The spoof can succeed next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest delights older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have cycled through PLF.

Late-season stretch leans franchise. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously performed. Resident Evil steps in after September 18, a early fall window that still steps into Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event claims October 23 and will own cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely driven by a opaque tease strategy and limited previews that favor idea over plot.

Awards-adjacent specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a position that genre can hold in the holidays when packaged as awards-flirting horror. Focus has done this before, platforming carefully, then using critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to keep the film in the conversation into January. If the film hits with critics, the studio can add screens in the first week of 2027 while riding holiday turnout and holiday gift-card burn.

One-sentence dossiers

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

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A bereaved man’s intelligent companion grows into something fatal and romantic. Rating: TBA. Production: Wrapped principal 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 enlarges the frame beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult organizes in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Shot sequentially 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 collide with a shimmering reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Complete with theatrical path. Positioning: gothic-game adaptation.

Send Help (20th Century Studios, January 30, 2026)
Director: Sam Raimi. Top cast: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Dennis Haysbert, Chris Pang. Logline: After a plane crash, an employee and her difficult boss claw to survive on a far-flung island as the power dynamic shifts and paranoia spreads. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished. Positioning: star-led survival piece from a genre icon.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles kept quiet in official materials. Logline: A contemporary retelling that returns the monster to fright, based on Cronin’s practical craft and quiet dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed. 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 in-home haunting premise that toys with the fear of a child’s shaky POV. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: fully shot. Positioning: major-studio and star-fronted haunting thriller.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers rejoining on the creative side. Logline: {A spoof revival that targets today’s horror trends and true crime preoccupations. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: filming slated for fall 2025. Positioning: wide-lane seasonal counterprogram.

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: awaiting classification. Production: filming in New Zealand. Positioning: R-rated franchise charge tuned for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: TBA publicly. Top cast: unrevealed. Logline: The Further opens again, with a another family entangled with past horrors. Rating: forthcoming. Production: slated for summer production leading to late-summer release. Positioning: trusted supernatural label in a supportive window.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: unrevealed publicly. Top cast: pending. Logline: A from-scratch rebuild designed to rebuild the franchise from the ground up, with an emphasis on pure survival horror over action-forward bombast. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: on a development track with locked window. Positioning: game-rooted reset with broad potential.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: undisclosed. Logline: carefully shrouded. Rating: TBD. Production: active. 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 antique diction and primal menace. Rating: TBA. Production: in active prep with holiday date set. Positioning: high-craft holiday horror with awards-season tail.

Wolf Creek: Legacy (Cineverse, TBA 2026)
Director: Greg McLean. Top cast: John Jarratt expected to return as Mick Taylor. Logline: The Australian outback slasher returns, with a classic theatrical rollout before platforming. Status: schedule in motion, fall targeted.

Why 2026, why now

Three pragmatic forces shape this lineup. First, production that slowed or reshuffled in 2024 needed slack in the schedule. Horror can occupy those holes swiftly because scripts often use fewer locations, fewer large-scale effects sequences, and tighter schedules. Second, studios have become more strict about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently outperformed straight-to-streaming dumps. Third, online chatter converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will capitalize on shareable moments from test screenings, orchestrated scare clips paired with Thursday night previews, and experiential pop-ups that generate creator assets. It is a repeatable playbook because it delivers.

A fourth factor is programming math. The family and cape slots are lighter early in 2026, opening usable real estate for genre entries that can command a weekend or sit as the slightly older-skewing alternative. January is the prime example. Four varied shades of horror will cluster across five weekends, which lets each title generate conversation without cannibalizing the others. Summer provides the other window. The parody leverages early family and action lifts, then the hard-R entry can capitalize on a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Money matters, ratings, and surprise hits

Budgets remain in the target range. Most of the films above will stay under the $40 to $50 million threshold, with many far below. That allows for wide PLF deployment without needing superhero-level volume to break horror 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 breakout hunt continues in Q1, where disciplined-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. 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. Look for a strong PVOD phase overall, since horror fans have shown a willingness to pay for convenience after an opening weekend, especially when word of mouth is strong.

Audience rhythm across the year

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers pattern and spread. January is a sampler, February delivers a legacy slasher, April reintroduces a Universal monster, May and June provide a ghostly double-hit for date nights and group outings, July gets blood-slick, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a bleak, literate nightmare. That is how you sustain conversation and attendance without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can sequence upward, using earlier releases to stage the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors welcome the spacing. Horror delivers reliable Thursday lifts, tight deployments, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can warrant PLF, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing tactility, 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 Shapes Up Strong

Dates shift. Ratings change. Casts evolve. But the spine of 2026 horror is established. There is brand power where it counts, original vision where it matters, and a calendar that shows studios understand how and when audiences want to be scared. 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.