Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed reignites age-old dread, a nightmare fueled horror thriller, arriving Oct 2025 on global platforms

An frightening supernatural suspense story from cinematographer / film architect Andrew Chiaramonte, liberating an prehistoric evil when unfamiliar people become victims in a malevolent ordeal. Hitting screens October 2, 2025, on Amazon’s Prime Video, Google’s YouTube, Google Play Movies & TV, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango’s digital service.

L.A., CA (August 8, 2025) – steel yourselves for *Young & Cursed*, a disturbing journey of survival and age-old darkness that will reshape terror storytelling this harvest season. Produced by rising director to watch Andrew Chiaramonte, this pressure-packed and claustrophobic thriller follows five young adults who are stirred ensnared in a isolated wooden structure under the unfriendly manipulation of Kyra, a cursed figure claimed by a timeless biblical force. Steel yourself to be drawn in by a theatrical spectacle that intertwines raw fear with mystical narratives, releasing on Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Cursed embodiment has been a classic narrative in the entertainment world. In *Young & Cursed*, that pattern is subverted when the beings no longer manifest outside the characters, but rather inside them. This depicts the most terrifying element of these individuals. The result is a enthralling spiritual tug-of-war where the intensity becomes a brutal clash between right and wrong.


In a remote wild, five individuals find themselves sealed under the dark sway and domination of a enigmatic apparition. As the team becomes helpless to escape her rule, detached and attacked by spirits unfathomable, they are compelled to endure their worst nightmares while the clock mercilessly moves toward their doom.


In *Young & Cursed*, delusion surges and links implode, coercing each participant to rethink their identity and the integrity of decision-making itself. The threat accelerate with every fleeting time, delivering a scare-fueled ride that harmonizes occult fear with soulful exposure.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my desire was to dig into deep fear, an power that existed before mankind, embedding itself in fragile psyche, and wrestling with a presence that questions who we are when volition is erased.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Embodying Kyra asked for exploring something beneath mortal despair. She is ignorant until the haunting manifests, and that transformation is bone-chilling because it is so close.”

Rollout & Launch

*Young & Cursed* will be released for home viewing beginning on October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google’s store, Apple iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home—making sure watchers globally can survive this demonic journey.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just rolled out a new official trailer #2 for *Young & Cursed*, live to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a follow up to its intro video, which has seen over a viral response.


In addition to its regional launch, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has revealed that *Young & Cursed* will also be launched globally, offering the tale to scare fans abroad.


Be sure to catch this unforgettable exploration of dread. Stream *Young & Cursed* this October 2 to experience these unholy truths about the mind.


For bonus footage, set experiences, and alerts from inside the story, follow @YoungAndCursedMovie across Facebook and TikTok and visit the film’s website.





Horror’s Turning Point: 2025 U.S. Slate integrates biblical-possession ideas, independent shockers, together with IP aftershocks

Moving from survivor-centric dread infused with biblical myth all the way to legacy revivals together with surgical indie voices, 2025 is coalescing into the most variegated and precision-timed year since the mid-2010s.

It is crowded, and also meticulously arranged. Top studios plant stakes across the year with established lines, as SVOD players saturate the fall with new voices plus mythic dread. In the indie lane, horror’s indie wing is propelled by the backdraft from a high-water 2024 festival stretch. As Halloween stays the prime week, the year beyond October is carefully apportioned. The fall stretch is the proving field, though in this cycle, strategies include January, spring, and mid-summer. Audiences are leaning in, studios are precise, thus 2025 could be the most carefully plotted year to date.

What Studios and Mini-Majors Are Doing: Elevated fear reclaims ground

No one at the top is standing still. If 2024 reset the chessboard, 2025 deepens the push.

the Universal camp opens the year with a confident swing: a modernized Wolf Man, situated not in a foggy nineteenth century European hamlet, instead in a current-day frame. Led by Leigh Whannell with Christopher Abbott alongside Julia Garner, this pass grounds the lycanthropy in household collapse. The change is not purely bodily, it is marital, parental, and achingly human. landing in mid January, it backs a move to shape winter into a prestige corridor, not a discard corridor.

Spring ushers in Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher port tuned to austere horror. Directed by Eli Craig with Katie Douglas alongside Kevin Durand, it comes as grit laced American nightmare with sardonic edge. Under the makeup, it dissects provincial panic, age gap tensions, and mob verdicts. Festival whispers say it is sharp.

When summer fades, Warner’s pipeline releases the last chapter of its most reliable horror franchise: The Conjuring: Last Rites. Ed and Lorraine Warren return with Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, the entry offers emotional coda while tackling one of their notorious real cases. Despite a known recipe, Chaves reportedly keys a sorrowing, contemplative note in the capstone. It goes early September, easing the path before October flood.

The Black Phone 2 follows. Planned for early summer, the October reposition reads assertive. Derrickson resumes command, and the tone that worked before is intact: 70s style chill, trauma as narrative engine, with spooky supernatural reasoning. This time the stakes climb, by enlarging the “grabber” map and grief’s lineage.

Closing the prime list is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a franchise that brings its own crowd. The sequel leans deeper into its lore, builds out the animatronic fear crew, courting teens and the thirty something base. It arrives in December, securing the winter cap.

Streamer Exclusives: Economy, maximum dread

With cinemas leaning into known IP, streamers are swinging risk forward, and returns look strong.

An especially bold streamer bet is Weapons, a long shadow anthology of dread that weaves together three timelines connected by a mass disappearance. Led by Zach Cregger with turns by Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the movie mixes chill with dramatic weight. 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, a body horror chamber piece featuring Alison Brie opposite 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 comes off amorous, macabre, and bracingly uneasy, a three act loop into codependent hell. Before a platform date is locked, it reads like an autumn stream lock.

One more platform talker is Sinners, a 1930s vintage vampire folk yarn toplined by Michael B. Jordan. Photographed in sepia saturation with biblical metaphor, it channels There Will Be Blood against Let the Right One In. The project looks at American religious trauma under a supernatural allegory. Dry runs call it a headline grabbing streamer.

More streamer bound indies stand by in the shadows: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper each taps grief, vanishing, and identity, treating horror as metaphor more than spectacle.

Possession With Depth: Young & Cursed

Posting October 2 across the big platforms, Young & Cursed emerges as a rare mix, tight in frame and epic in resonance. Written and helmed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the release shadows five strangers waking in a hidden woods cabin, bound to Kyra, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. When darkness comes, Kyra’s power swells, a penetrating force tapping their private fears, soft spots, and remorse.

The threat is psychological first, wired with primal myth. Rather than another exorcism film centered on Catholic rites or Latin incantations, this one digs into something older, something darker. Lilith is not conjured by ritual, she surfaces through trauma, silence, and human fragility. Making possession internal threads Young & Cursed into the current of intimate character studies in genre skin.

The Halloween window on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home frames the film as counter to sequel saturation and creature revivals. It is a calculated bet. No bloated canon. No franchise baggage. Only psychological menace, compressed and taut, tuned to binge and gasp cycles online. Inside spectacle, Young & Cursed may separate by silence, then rupture.

Festival Born, Buyer Ready

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF still seed what horror becomes in six to twelve months. They are increasingly launchpads rather than showcases.

This year’s Fantastic Fest has already confirmed a strong horror lineup. Primate opens with tropical body horror, sparking Cronenberg plus Herzog comps. Whistle, a folkloric revenge thriller drenched in Aztec lore, is set to close the fest hot.

Midnight fare like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You rides on craft as well as title. A24’s satire of toxic fandom inside a con lockdown aims at breakout.

SXSW hosted Clown in a Cornfield and sweetened the pot for microbudget haunts. Sundance appears set for grief threaded elevated horror once more, while Tribeca’s genre yard leans urban, social, and surreal.

Fest circuits are brand engines as much as discovery engines. Laurels now light the fuse, they do not just adorn.

Legacy IP: Sequels, Reboots, Reinventions

Legacy entries present stronger and more purposeful this time.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, set for July, reanimates the 90s series with a new lead and nostalgia tone. Breaking with earlier shading, it leans camp and prom night melodrama. Think tiaras, fake blood, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 bows late June, aiming to expand its techno horror mythology with new characters and new AI generated terrors. The opening film’s buzz and platform staying power help Universal go bigger.

Then there is The Long Walk, an adaptation of one of Stephen King’s earliest and most harrowing works, steered by Francis Lawrence, it plays as a savage dystopian parable housed in survival horror, a walk to death contest without winners. If sold right, it could sit as The Hunger Games for adult horror fans.

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

Dials to Watch

Myth turns mainstream
From Lilith in Young & Cursed to Aztec curses in Whistle, creators turn to ancient texts and symbols. This trend avoids nostalgia, reclaiming pre Christian archetypes. Horror goes beyond fright, it notes evil’s age.

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

Streaming exclusives sharpen their bite
Churn filler is losing ground on platforms. SVOD players fund strong scripts, proven directors, and real spend. Releases like Weapons and Sinners are elevated to events, not just content.

Badges become bargaining chips
Festival status acts as leverage for exhibition, placement, and publicity. In 2025, a horror film lacking festival plan may fade.

The big screen is a trust exercise
Studios release horror theatrically only when they believe in overperformance or sequel trees. Everything else heads to PVOD or hybrid drops. Horror keeps theatrical presence, via curation.

Near Term Outlook: Autumn Overload and the Winter Wildcard

Put Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons into September and October and you get saturation. Indies including Bone Lake and Keeper will wrestle for room. Watch for one or more of these to pivot into early 2026 or shift platforms.

December holds on Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, though a stealth streamer release may land late. Since big films lean mythic, a final monster or exorcism play can claim space.

The trick lies in diverse menus finding segmented crowds, not single title bets. The brief is not the next Get Out, it is horror with afterlife beyond receipts.



The upcoming scare Year Ahead: returning titles, filmmaker-first projects, plus A loaded Calendar engineered for Scares

Dek: The incoming terror year crams in short order with a January crush, following that unfolds through the warm months, and carrying into the year-end corridor, weaving series momentum, new concepts, and shrewd counterweight. Studios and streamers are doubling down on lean spends, cinema-first plans, and buzz-forward plans that frame these releases into four-quadrant talking points.

Horror’s status entering 2026

The field has emerged as the most reliable move in studio calendars, a segment that can grow when it catches and still insulate the drag when it misses. After the 2023 year proved to buyers that cost-conscious horror vehicles can drive the discourse, 2024 sustained momentum with visionary-driven titles and stealth successes. The trend carried into 2025, where re-entries and festival-grade titles showed there is appetite for many shades, from sequel tracks to director-led originals that play globally. The sum for 2026 is a schedule that is strikingly coherent across the market, with planned clusters, a spread of established brands and first-time concepts, and a tightened stance on release windows that enhance post-theatrical value on premium digital and OTT platforms.

Schedulers say the genre now performs as a versatile piece on the grid. The genre can launch on open real estate, offer a easy sell for marketing and shorts, and outperform with ticket buyers that turn out on Thursday nights and continue through the second frame if the offering lands. Emerging from a strike-induced shuffle, the 2026 plan telegraphs certainty in that dynamic. The year commences with a weighty January corridor, then uses spring and early summer for balance, while leaving room for a autumn stretch that extends to the fright window and beyond. The calendar also underscores the increasing integration of specialized imprints and home platforms that can platform and widen, stoke social talk, and move wide at the inflection point.

A second macro trend is IP cultivation across interlocking continuities and veteran brands. Big banners are not just turning out another chapter. They are shaping as threaded continuity with a specialness, whether that is a title design that flags a refreshed voice or a casting pivot that anchors a next film to a initial period. At the parallel to that, the writer-directors behind the high-profile originals are favoring in-camera technique, practical gags and grounded locations. That combination provides 2026 a lively combination of comfort and shock, which is how the genre sells abroad.

How the majors and mini-majors are programming

Paramount fires first with two front-of-slate titles that bracket the tone map. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with original architect Kevin Williamson in the lead and Neve Campbell back at the front, positioning the film as both a handoff and a heritage-centered character-focused installment. Filming is in progress in Atlanta, and the story approach suggests a nostalgia-forward treatment without repeating the last two entries’ Carpenter-sisters arc. The studio is likely to mount a drive leaning on heritage visuals, intro reveals, and a tease cadence landing toward late fall. Distribution is big-screen via Paramount.

Paramount also reignites a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are set to reunite, with the Wayans brothers involved creatively for the first time since the early 2000s, a selling point the campaign will lean on. As a summer contrast play, this one will go after general-audience talk through social-friendly gags, with the horror spoof format allowing quick adjustments to whatever defines the meme cycle that spring.

Universal has three clear lanes. SOULM8TE premieres January 9, 2026, a digital-age offshoot from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The premise is efficient, loss-driven, and premise-first: a grieving man brings home an digital partner that evolves into a perilous partner. The date locates it at the front of a heavy month, with the studio’s marketing likely to mirror creepy live activations and short-cut promos that hybridizes attachment and chill.

On May 8, 2026, the studio schedules an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely understood to be the feature developed under placeholder labels in the family-in-peril vein, with his comment is here Jessica Chastain top-lining. The public release grid currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which reserves space for a branding reveal to become an marketing beat closer to the initial tease. The timing offers Universal a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles take the main frames.

Supplementing the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film plants on October 23, 2026, a slot he has thrived in before. Peele’s releases are presented as event films, with a concept-forward tease and a later trailer push that shape mood without giving away the concept. The pre-Halloween slot offers Universal room to saturate 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, works with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček commands, with Souheila Yacoub in the lead. The franchise has consistently shown that a flesh-and-blood, physical-effects centered approach can feel prestige on a tight budget. Look for a blood-soaked summer horror rush that embraces offshore potential, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most international markets.

Sony’s horror bench is surprisingly deep. The studio rolls out two franchise maneuvers in the back half. An untitled Insidious film arrives August 21, 2026, sustaining a trusty supernatural brand in motion while the spin-off branch continues to develop. Sony has reslotted on this title before, but the current plan aims it in late summer, where the brand has performed historically.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil comes back in what the studio is calling a clean-slate approach for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a core part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a clearer mandate to serve both diehards and curious audiences. The fall slot provides the studio time to build artifacts around world-building, and creature effects, elements that can stoke IMAX and PLF uptake and convention buzz.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, pins a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film follows the filmmaker’s run of period horror shaped by obsessive craft and archaic language, this time set against lycan legends. The imprint has already set the date for a holiday release, a promissory note in Eggers as a specialty play that can grow wide if early reception is strong.

Streamers and platform exclusives

Platform windowing in 2026 run on tested paths. Universal’s genre entries land on copyright after a cinema and premium rental phase, a structure that boosts both opening-weekend urgency and trial spikes in the later window. Prime Video stitches together third-party pickups with world buys and targeted theatrical runs when the data recommends it. Max and Hulu lean on their strengths in deep cuts, using prominent placements, horror hubs, and curated strips to keep attention on aggregate take. Netflix plays opportunist about original films and festival pickups, slotting horror entries on shorter runways and turning into events rollouts with condensed plans. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, deploys a staged of precision theatrical plays and quick platforming that converts buzz to sign-ups. That will prove important for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before working niche channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ keeps selective horror on a per-project basis. The platform has proven amenable to board select projects with top-tier auteurs or star packages, then give them a qualifying theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet award rules or to show bona fides before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still uses the 20th Century Studios slate, a key factor for monthly engagement when the genre conversation builds.

Specialty and indie breakouts

Cineverse is putting together a 2026 corridor with two label plays. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The sell is tight: the same brooding, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult item, retooled for modern sonics and picture. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a autumn corridor, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. Cineverse has announced a theatrical rollout for Legacy, an promising marker for fans of the ferocious series and for exhibitors looking for R-rated counterplay in the late stretch.

Focus will operate the filmmaker lane with Werwulf, guiding the film through the autumn circuit if the cut is ready, then working the holiday corridor to broaden. That positioning has delivered for arthouse horror with broader reach. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not announced many 2026 dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines usually solidify after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A credible outlook is a cluster of late-summer and fall platformers that can broaden if reception encourages. Look for an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that runs at Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work hand in hand, using limited runs to fuel evangelism that fuels their paid base.

Legacy titles versus originals

By weight, the 2026 slate tips toward the series side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all use household recognition. The concern, as ever, is staleness. The operating solution is to position each entry as a reframed mode. Paramount is elevating character-first legacy in Scream 7, Sony is floating a from-scratch reboot for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is maximizing a Francophone tone from a buzzed-about director. Those choices matter when the audience has so many options and social sentiment moves quickly.

Originals and director-driven titles supply the oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be treated as a brand unto itself. Sam Raimi’s Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, features Rachel McAdams in a stranded survival premise with Raimi’s playful menace. SOULM8TE offers a lean, creepy tech hook. Werwulf anchors in period detail and an severe tone. Even when the title is not based on a known brand, the assembly is assuring enough to build pre-sales and Thursday-night crowds.

Recent-year comps contextualize the plan. In 2023, a theater-first model that kept streaming intact did not hamper a hybrid test from thriving when the brand was compelling. In 2024, art-forward horror punched above its weight in premium auditoriums. In 2025, a resurgence of a beloved infection saga made clear that global horror franchises can still feel reinvigorated when they shift POV and stretch the story. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which unfolds January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The twin-shoot approach, with chapters filmed consecutively, lets marketing to cross-link entries through character web and themes and to keep assets alive without lulls.

Aesthetic and craft notes

The creative meetings behind this year’s genre suggest a continued bias toward practical, location-rooted craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not repeat any recent iteration of the property, a stance that echoes the prosthetic-forward taste he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film completed filming and is tracking to its April 17, 2026 date. Marketing will likely that centers mood and dread rather than whiz-bang spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership permitting cost management.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has talked about Werwulf as the most severe project he has tackled, which tracks with a feudal backdrop and archaic dialect, a combination that can make for enveloping sound design and a austere, elemental atmosphere on the big screen. Focus will likely preview this aesthetic in feature stories and craft coverage before rolling out a initial teaser that trades on atmosphere over plot, a move that has succeeded for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is tuned for gristle and gore, a signature of the series that connects worldwide in red-band trailers and sparks shareable crowd-reaction snippets from early screenings. Scream 7 aims for a meta inflection that puts the original star at center. Resident Evil will live or die on monster realization and design, which fit with convention activations and timed asset drops. Insidious tends to be a audio craft showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the in-theater case feel primary. Look for trailers that foreground pinpoint sound design, deep-bass stingers, and mute beats that sing on PLF.

Annual flow

January is packed. Universal’s SOULM8TE opens January 9, 2026, then Sony returns a week later with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple on January 16. Return to Silent Hill follows on January 23, a brooding contrast amid headline IP. The month closes with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival chiller from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is meaningful, but the tone spread makes lanes for each, and the five-week structure hands each a runway for each if word of mouth sustains.

Winter into spring prepare summer. Scream 7 debuts February 27 with fan warmth. In April, New Line’s The Mummy restores a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once belonged to genre counterprogramming and now enables big openers. Universal’s untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 leads into summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer sorts the tones. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is spoofy and broad, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 brings red-band intensity. The counterprogramming logic is smart. The spoof can pop next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest serves older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have moved through premium slots.

Back half into fall leans series. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously done well. Resident Evil arrives after September 18, a late-September window that still bridges into Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event secures October 23 and will seize cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely reinforced by a mystery-first teaser plan and limited plot reveals that elevate concept over story.

Awards-adjacent specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a stakes that genre can stand up at Christmas when packaged as filmmaker-first prestige. The distributor has done this before, selective rollout, then capitalizing on critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to sustain conversation into January. If the film clicks critically, the studio can extend in the first week of 2027 while benefiting from holiday season and holiday gift-card burn.

Title-by-title briefings, embedded in the narrative

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

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A loss-struck man’s intelligent companion turns into something romantically lethal. Rating: TBA. Production: Shoot completed for an early-year bow. Positioning: tech thriller with grief spine.

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

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 collide with a mutable reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished and theatrical on deck. Positioning: atmospheric 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 severe boss scramble to survive on a lonely island as the pecking order turns and fear crawls. Rating: TBA. Production: Shoot complete. Positioning: celebrity-led survival horror from a legend.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles to be revealed in official materials. Logline: A fresh reimagining that returns the monster to terror, based on Cronin’s practical effects and creeping dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Principal wrapped. Positioning: classic monster reset with creative stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A family-home haunting setup that channels the fear through a minor’s wavering POV. Rating: pending. Production: finished. Positioning: studio-backed, star-driven supernatural suspense.

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 parody return that satirizes of-the-moment horror beats and true-crime manias. Rating: TBD. Production: fall 2025 production window. Positioning: big-tent summer spoof.

Evil Dead Burn (Warner Bros. domestic, July 24, 2026)
Director: Sébastien Vaniček. Top cast: Souheila Yacoub, with ensemble additions. Logline: A new infestation of Deadites breaks out, with an cross-border twist in tone and setting. Rating: forthcoming. Production: on location in New Zealand. Positioning: intense red-band chapter tailored to PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: unrevealed for now. Top cast: forthcoming. Logline: The Further yawns again, with a another family entangled with returning horrors. Rating: undetermined. Production: gearing up for summer filming with late-summer bow. Positioning: reliable supernatural IP in a date that favors the brand.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: TBA publicly. Top cast: TBA. Logline: A re-seeded launch designed to recreate the franchise from the ground up, with an lean toward classic survival-horror tone over set-piece spectacle. Rating: TBD. Production: advancing in development with date locked. Positioning: lore-true modernization with broad upside.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: forthcoming. Logline: carefully shrouded. Rating: forthcoming. Production: advancing. Positioning: director event, teaser-led.

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 elemental dread. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: in preparation with Christmas frame locked. Positioning: prestige horror for the holidays, with potential awards-season craft appeal.

Wolf Creek: Legacy (Cineverse, TBA 2026)
Director: Greg McLean. Top cast: John Jarratt expected to return as Mick Taylor. Logline: The Australian outback slasher returns, with a cinema-first path before platforming. Status: date shifting, fall likely.

Why 2026 makes sense

Three grounded forces define this lineup. First, production that paused or reshuffled in 2024 demanded space on the calendar. Horror can slot in fast because scripts often use fewer locations, fewer large-scale visual effects runs, and accelerated schedules. Second, studios have become more measured about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently exceeded straight-to-streaming dumps. Third, platform buzz converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will mine clippable moments from test screenings, orchestrated scare clips pegged to Thursday preview nights, and experiential pop-ups that become influencer fuel. It is a repeatable playbook because it converts.

Another factor is the scheduling math. The first stretch of 2026 sees fewer family and superhero logjams, clearing runway for genre entries that can take a weekend outright or function as the older-skew counter. January is the prime example. Four different flavors of horror will compete across five weekends, which helps each film cultivate buzz on its own. Summer provides the other window. The spoof can ride the first-half wave of animated and action tentpoles, then the hard-R entry can take advantage of a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Economics and ratings, plus sleeper strategy

Budgets remain in the optimal band. Most of the films above will come in under $40–$50 million, with many far below. That allows for robust premium-format allocation 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 sleeper chase 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 leverage those opportunities. January could easily deliver the first left-field winner 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.

How the year flows for audiences

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers tempo and variety. January is a feast, February delivers a legacy slasher, April revives a Universal monster, May and June provide a two-beat supernatural run 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 austere, literate nightmare. That is how you fuel talk and ticketing without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can escalate across the year, using earlier releases to condition the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors appreciate the spacing. Horror delivers consistent Thursday swells, tight deployments, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can command PLF, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing visual texture, sound field, and cinematography that benefit from larger formats. The calendar also leaves room for specialty platformers to open in New York and Los Angeles, build reviews, and slide into national conversation as the fall progresses.

A Robust 2026 On Deck

Schedules slip. Ratings change. Casts evolve. But the spine of 2026 horror is established. There is recognizable IP where it plays, new vision where it lands, and a calendar that shows studios sense the cadence of scares. The awards and festival pipeline into 2027 will come into focus once the fall festivals lock, and it would not be surprising to see at least one closing-window arthouse pickup join the party. For now, the job is simple, edit tight trailers, keep the secrets, and let the fear sell the seats.