Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed confronts ancient terror, a hair raising feature, rolling out October 2025 across premium platforms

This haunting otherworldly thriller from screenwriter / film architect Andrew Chiaramonte, liberating an timeless entity when foreigners become instruments in a malevolent game. Debuting October 2, 2025, on Amazon’s streaming platform, Google’s YouTube, Google’s Play platform, iTunes Movies, Apple’s TV+ service, and Fandango’s digital service.

L.A., CA (August 8, 2025) – stay alert for *Young & Cursed*, a gut-wrenching journey of endurance and forgotten curse that will reconstruct fear-driven cinema this October. Visualized by rising horror auteur Andrew Chiaramonte, this tense and cinematic cinema piece follows five unacquainted souls who wake up caught in a remote house under the hostile influence of Kyra, a troubled woman overtaken by a biblical-era sacrosanct terror. Prepare to be captivated by a narrative ride that unites instinctive fear with legendary tales, streaming on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Malevolent takeover has been a well-established foundation in screenwriting. In *Young & Cursed*, that framework is challenged when the spirits no longer descend externally, but rather internally. This depicts the most primal part of each of them. The result is a enthralling internal warfare where the plotline becomes a soul-crushing tug-of-war between righteousness and malevolence.


In a wilderness-stricken landscape, five campers find themselves isolated under the malicious presence and haunting of a shadowy apparition. As the protagonists becomes powerless to oppose her command, severed and attacked by creatures beyond comprehension, they are thrust to encounter their core terrors while the time brutally winds toward their expiration.


In *Young & Cursed*, mistrust grows and ties erode, compelling each soul to examine their being and the nature of free will itself. The stakes accelerate with every short lapse, delivering a frightening tale that merges supernatural terror with human fear.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my objective was to explore ancestral fear, an spirit that existed before mankind, manifesting in fragile psyche, and challenging a curse that peels away humanity when will is shattered.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Stepping into Kyra needed manifesting something unfamiliar to reason. She is clueless until the spirit seizes her, and that flip is gut-wrenching because it is so intimate.”

Platform Access

*Young & Cursed* will be distributed for audience access beginning October 2, 2025, on Prime Video, Google’s video hub, Google’s store, Apple iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango on-demand—delivering fans from coast to coast can experience this haunted release.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just rolled out a new trailer two for *Young & Cursed*, up to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a response to its first trailer, which has gathered over notable views.


In addition to its initial rollout, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has broadcast that *Young & Cursed* will also be launched globally, making the film to viewers around the world.


Mark your calendar for this unforgettable descent into hell. Experience *Young & Cursed* this day of reckoning to uncover these unholy truths about existence.


For cast commentary, on-set glimpses, and updates from the story's source, follow @YoungAndCursed across your socials and visit the movie’s homepage.





Modern horror’s tipping point: the year 2025 stateside slate weaves Mythic Possession, signature indie scares, set against tentpole growls

From pressure-cooker survival tales infused with biblical myth as well as series comebacks as well as focused festival visions, 2025 is emerging as the most dimensioned combined with deliberate year for the modern era.

The 2025 horror calendar reads less like chaos, more like a plan. the big studios lay down anchors via recognizable brands, as platform operators prime the fall with emerging auteurs paired with mythic dread. In parallel, the art-house flank is surfing the carry of a record-setting 2024 festival season. Because Halloween continues as the prize window, the non-October slots are tuned with exactness. The September, October gauntlet has become standard, and now, horror is also claiming January, spring, and even mid-summer. Horror fans are craving, studios are precise, and 2025 could register as the most purpose-built year yet.

Major Studio Plans with Mini-Major Flex: Prestige-leaning dread rebounds

The top end is active. If 2024 primed the reset, 2025 doubles down.

Universal’s schedule fires the first shot with a risk-forward move: a newly envisioned Wolf Man, leaving behind the period European setting, within a sleek contemporary canvas. Guided by Leigh Whannell featuring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this cut welds lycanthropy to home turmoil. The metamorphosis extends past flesh, into marriage, parenthood, and human hurt. set for mid January, it supports the push to convert the winter lull using prestige plays, not leftovers.

Spring ushers in Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher port tuned to austere horror. From director Eli Craig fronted by Katie Douglas with Kevin Durand, it functions as blood smeared American gothic with snark. Under the makeup, it dissects provincial panic, age gap tensions, and mob verdicts. Advance murmurs say it draws blood.

At summer’s close, Warner’s pipeline unveils the final movement inside its trusty horror universe: The Conjuring: Last Rites. Farmiga and Wilson return as the Warrens, the chapter points to emotional capstone while addressing a headline case. Even if the pattern is recognizable, Michael Chaves is rumored to steer toward a somber, reflective register for the close. It is also positioned early in September, giving it breathing room before the October onslaught.

The Black Phone 2 follows. Initially pegged for early summer, an October berth implies conviction. Derrickson re boards, and the DNA that clicked last time remains: vintage toned fear, trauma explicitly handled, along with eerie supernatural rules. Here the stakes rise, with added layers to the “grabber” frame and long memory of loss.

Rounding the tentpole corner is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a property whose brand does the lifting. The continuation widens the legend, builds out the animatronic fear crew, with a bullseye on teens and thirty something nostalgics. It opens in December, securing the winter cap.

Platform Plays: Modest spend, serious shock

With theaters prioritizing brand safety, streamers are swinging risk forward, and returns look strong.

One of the year’s most ambitious streaming titles is Weapons, a cold-case woven horror suite interlacing three eras linked by a mass vanishing. With Zach Cregger directing fronted by Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the release pairs unease with narrative heft. Arriving to cinemas late summer then to streamers in fall, it should ignite online discourse and post viewing breakdowns, much like Barbarian.

Playing chamber scale is Together, a body horror duet with Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Set at a remote rental during a getaway that sours, 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. Even without a formal platform date, it is poised for a fall platform bow.

On the docket is Sinners, a 1930s rooted vampire folk legend fronted by Michael B. Jordan. Photographed in sepia saturation with biblical metaphor, it recalls There Will Be Blood spliced to Let the Right One In. The work dissects American religious trauma using supernatural allegory. Pre release tests anoint it a conversation starter on streaming.

Several other streaming indies are quietly waiting in the wings: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper all mine grief and vanishing and identity, running metaphor first.

Possession From Within: Young & Cursed

Arriving October 2 across major platforms, Young & Cursed stands as a rare hybrid, both intimate in scope and mythic in reach. Written and directed 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. As the night settles, her power spikes, an infiltrating force leveraging fears, breaks, and sorrow.

The dread here runs psychological, charged by primal myth. Skipping the exorcism norm of Catholic rite and Latin line, this one burrows toward something older, something darker. Lilith ignores rite, she wells up from trauma, quietude, and human weakness. 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.

Platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home position the film as a Halloween counter to sequel heavy theatricals and monster revivals. It is canny scheduling. No bloated mythology. No IP hangover. Straight psychological chill, boxed and tight, aimed at the binge, pause, and pulse habits of streamers. Amid spectacle, Young & Cursed can distinguish itself by whispering, then howling.

Festival Born, Buyer Ready

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF remain the hothouse where next season’s horror grows. In 2025, they behave more like launchpads than showcases.

This year’s Fantastic Fest has already confirmed a strong horror lineup. Primate, an opening night tropical body-horror, invites Cronenberg meets Herzog talk. Whistle, a folkloric revenge piece in Aztec lore, likely shuts the fest with heat.

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 rolled out Clown in a Cornfield and a clutch of microbudget haunts near deals. Sundance is expected to unspool a familiar crop of grief steeped elevated horror, as Tribeca’s genre wing angles urban, social, and surreal.

Festivals in 2025 double as branding machines. Festival laurels are opening moves, not closing notes.

Franchise Horror: Returns, Restarts, and Fresh Angles

This year’s legacy entries carry strength and deliberation.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, due in July, revives the ’90s horror franchise with a new lead and a throwback tone. Unlike earlier entries, this leans camp and prom night melodrama. Expect tiaras, corn syrup blood, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 posts late June, with a plan to deepen its techno horror mythos via new characters and AI terrors. That first run’s social and SVOD traction lets Universal push further.

Next comes The Long Walk, adapting one of Stephen King’s earliest, most harrowing works, led by Francis Lawrence, it plays as a savage dystopian parable housed in survival horror, a walk to death contest without winners. If packaged well, it could track like The Hunger Games for horror adults.

Other reboots and sequels, including Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda, scatter across the calendar, many awaiting strategic windows or late acquisitions.

Emerging Currents

Old myth goes broad
Lilith in Young & Cursed plus Aztec curses in Whistle highlight ancient texts and symbols. It is not nostalgia, it is re owning pre Christian archetypes. Horror is not just scaring us, it is reminding us that evil is older than we are.

Body horror retakes ground
Projects including Together, Weapons, and Keeper re center the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation map to heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Platform originals gain bite
The filler era wanes for platform horror. Services bankroll legitimate writing, legitimate directors, and proper media. Debuts like Weapons and Sinners carry event framing, not content bins.

Festival glow translates to leverage
Badges are functional, they buy theatrical access, prime placement, and cycles. Without a festival strategy in 2025, a horror film risks vanishing.

Theatrical lanes are trust falls
Studios hold theatrical for overperformers or future series seeds. The rest moves to PVOD or hybrid patterns. Horror remains on big screens, selectively curated.

Forward View: Autumn crowding, winter surprise

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, including Bone Lake and Keeper, will battle for oxygen. Keep an eye on possible slips into early 2026 or platform flips.

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

The hinge is broad reach to atomized viewers, not single tentpoles. The brief is not the next Get Out, it is horror with afterlife beyond receipts.



The forthcoming 2026 Horror calendar year ahead: brand plays, standalone ideas, paired with A busy Calendar aimed at jolts

Dek: The brand-new terror year packs from day one with a January logjam, after that runs through the mid-year, and pushing into the winter holidays, balancing marquee clout, untold stories, and smart counterprogramming. The big buyers and platforms are committing to smart costs, theatrical leads, and social-fueled campaigns that turn genre titles into four-quadrant talking points.

Horror’s status entering 2026

The field has turned into the most reliable release in release strategies, a corner that can spike when it lands and still mitigate the losses when it falls short. After the 2023 year showed strategy teams that mid-range scare machines can command the zeitgeist, the following year sustained momentum with filmmaker-forward plays and stealth successes. The run moved into 2025, where reawakened brands and prestige plays underscored there is an opening for multiple flavors, from brand follow-ups to original one-offs that carry overseas. The end result for the 2026 slate is a roster that feels more orchestrated than usual across players, with intentional bunching, a equilibrium of household franchises and first-time concepts, and a renewed strategy on release windows that feed downstream value on premium digital and digital services.

Distribution heads claim the horror lane now serves as a swing piece on the schedule. The genre can debut on most weekends, provide a sharp concept for creative and short-form placements, and outpace with moviegoers that appear on advance nights and keep coming through the next pass if the film satisfies. Emerging from a strike-induced shuffle, the 2026 pattern reflects comfort in that playbook. The year starts with a crowded January lineup, then exploits spring through early summer for audience offsets, while saving space for a October build that flows toward Halloween and beyond. The schedule also reflects the deeper integration of indie arms and SVOD players that can platform and widen, spark evangelism, and widen at the sweet spot.

A notable top-line trend is series management across ongoing universes and long-running brands. Studios are not just rolling another installment. They are trying to present threaded continuity with a must-see charge, whether that is a brandmark that announces a re-angled tone or a ensemble decision that reconnects a new installment to a initial period. At the very same time, the auteurs behind the most watched originals are favoring on-set craft, in-camera effects and grounded locations. That convergence produces the 2026 slate a healthy mix of familiarity and discovery, which is a pattern that scales internationally.

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

Paramount defines the early cadence with two prominent titles that live at opposite ends of the tone spectrum. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the director position and Neve Campbell back at the center, positioning the film as both a lineage transfer and a classic-mode character-focused installment. Production is underway in Atlanta, and the story approach telegraphs a fan-service aware bent without retreading the last two entries’ family thread. Count on a promo wave fueled by iconic art, first-look character reveals, and a staggered trailer plan aimed at late fall. Distribution is Paramount’s theatrical route.

Paramount also reboots a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are back on screen, with the Wayans brothers involved creatively for the first time since the early 2000s, a selling point the campaign will foreground. As a off-tentpole summer play, this one will generate broad awareness through viral-minded bites, with the horror spoof format inviting quick switches to whatever tops the conversation that spring.

Universal has three distinct lanes. SOULM8TE debuts January 9, 2026, a technology-driven offshoot from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The story engine is straightforward, heartbroken, and elevator-pitch-ready: a grieving man adopts an artificial companion that shifts into a perilous partner. The date locates it at the front of a heavy month, with Universal’s promo team likely to iterate on creepy live activations and bite-size content that interweaves longing and anxiety.

On May 8, 2026, the studio dates an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely taken to be the feature developed under development titles in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The official slate currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which permits a title reveal to become an PR pop closer to the early tease. The timing hands the studio a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles cluster around other dates.

Supplementing the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film takes October 23, 2026, a slot he has dominated before. Peele’s releases are sold as signature events, with a teaser that holds back and a second trailer wave that signal tone without plot the concept. The Halloween runway gives 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, aligns with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček is at the helm of, with Souheila Yacoub leading. The franchise has made clear that a gritty, on-set effects led mix can feel cinematic on a mid-range budget. Position this as a blood-and-grime summer horror shock that leans into offshore potential, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most foreign territories.

Sony’s horror bench is unusually deep. The studio rolls out two marquee IP entries in the back half. An untitled Insidious film arrives August 21, 2026, continuing a dependable supernatural brand front and center while the spin-off branch progresses. Sony has reslotted on this title before, but the current plan aims it in late summer, where the brand has done well historically.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil reboots in what Sony is describing as a reset 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 sharper mandate to serve both loyalists and casuals. The fall slot offers Sony space to build assets around lore, and creature work, elements that can increase premium booking interest and cosplayer momentum.

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 continues the filmmaker’s run of period horror shaped by historical precision and dialect, this time steeped in lycan lore. The specialty arm has already set the date for a holiday release, a vote of confidence in Eggers as a specialty play that can broaden if early reception is enthusiastic.

Platform lanes and windowing

Platform windowing in 2026 run on stable tracks. Universal’s slate land on copyright after a box-office phase then PVOD, a ladder that enhances both initial urgency and platform bumps in the later phase. Prime Video pairs licensed content with global acquisitions and limited cinema engagements when the data backs it. Max and Hulu lean on their strengths in catalog engagement, using curated hubs, horror hubs, and collection rows to stretch the tail on lifetime take. Netflix retains agility about first-party entries and festival grabs, finalizing horror entries with shorter lead times and framing as events drops with quick-run campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, leverages a hybrid of targeted theatrical exposure and fast windowing that translates talk to trials. That will prove important for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before using direct-to-fan channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ continues to evaluate horror on a per-project basis. The platform has demonstrated openness to buy select projects with award winners or name-led packages, then give them a boutique theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet qualification bars or to gather buzz before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney domestic still benefits from the 20th Century Studios slate, a major factor for platform stickiness when the genre conversation intensifies.

Art-house genre prospects

Cineverse is mapping a 2026 track with two name-brand moves. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The pitch is no-nonsense: the same gloomy, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a beloved cult piece, recalibrated for modern mix and image. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a fall frame, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. The distributor has announced a cinema-first plan for the title, an constructive signal for fans of the ferocious series and for exhibitors hungry for R material in the autumn stretch.

Focus will cultivate the auteur lane with Werwulf, curating the rollout through festivals in the fall if the cut is ready, then working the December frame to increase reach. That positioning has paid off for arthouse horror with broader reach. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not publicly set many dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines tend to firm up after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A fair assumption is a selection of late-summer and fall platformers that can break out if reception justifies. Look for an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that bows at Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work together, using select theatrical to stir evangelism that fuels their audience.

Franchise entries versus originals

By count, the 2026 slate bends toward the legacy column. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all use legacy awareness. The question, as ever, is fatigue. The standing approach is to sell each entry as a new angle. Paramount is bringing forward character and continuity in Scream 7, Sony is floating a fresh ground-up build for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is leaning into a European tilt from a emerging director. Those choices prove meaningful when the audience has so many options and social sentiment whipsaws.

Non-franchise titles and auteur plays keep oxygen in the system. Jordan Peele’s October film will be branded as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, casts Rachel McAdams in a stranded survival premise with signature mischievous dread. SOULM8TE offers a precise, unnerving tech hook. Werwulf emphasizes period craft and an uncompromising tone. Even when the title is not based on existing IP, the cast-creatives package is anchored enough to generate pre-sales and early previews.

Comps from the last three years help explain the template. In 2023, a theater-first model that honored streaming windows did not stop a simultaneous release test from hitting when the brand was robust. In 2024, craft-forward auteur horror surged in big-format auditoriums. In 2025, a reanimation of a beloved infection saga showed the market that global horror franchises can still feel reinvigorated when they reframe POV and expand the canvas. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which moves forward 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 filmed consecutively, provides the means for marketing to connect the chapters through relationships and themes and to keep assets alive without doldrums.

Craft and creative trends

The shop talk behind the 2026 entries signal a continued lean toward physical, site-specific craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not track with any recent iteration of the property, a stance that fits with the prosthetic-forward taste he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film finished principal and is headed for its April 17, 2026 date. Expect a campaign that elevates aura and dread rather than whiz-bang spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership permitting efficient spending.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has outlined Werwulf as the grimmest project he has tackled, which tracks with a Middle Ages setting and period-faithful dialogue, a combination that can make for deep sound design and a raw, elemental vibe on the big screen. Focus will likely highlight this aesthetic in feature stories and craft spotlights before rolling out a atmospheric tease that leans on mood over plot, a move that has clicked for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is calibrated for practical nastiness, a signature of the series that travels well in red-band trailers and spurs shareable crowd-reaction snippets from early screenings. Scream 7 promises a self-aware reset that refocuses on the original lead. Resident Evil will win or lose on creature craft and set design, which align with expo activations and controlled asset drops. Insidious tends to be a audio craft showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the big-screen case feel necessary. Look for trailers that foreground pinpoint sound design, deep-bass stingers, and dropouts that work in PLF.

How the year maps out

January is stacked. 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 macro-brand pushes. The month finishes with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival-horror from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is legit, but the tonal variety makes lanes for each, and the five-week structure permits a clean run for each if word of mouth spreads.

Late Q1 and spring load in summer. Scream 7 lands February 27 with brand energy. In April, The Mummy reintroduces a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once favored genre counterprogramming and now accommodates big openers. The untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 feeds summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer underlines contrasts. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is jokier and broader, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 delivers severe intensity. The counterprogramming logic is sensible. The spoof can pop next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest scratches the itch for older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have finished their premium pass.

Late summer into fall leans recognizable. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously connected. Resident Evil comes after September 18, a late-September window that still steps into Halloween marketing beats. Jordan Peele’s untitled film takes October 23 and will dominate cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely reinforced by a opaque tease strategy and limited pre-release reveals that prioritize concept over plot.

Year-end prestige and specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a declaration that genre can play the holidays when packaged as filmmaker prestige. Focus has done this before, measured platforming, then using critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to ride the cycle into January. If the film scores with critics, the studio can extend in the first week of 2027 while enjoying holiday hold and gift-card redemption.

Film-by-film briefs

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

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A sorrowing man’s machine mate escalates into something deadly romantic. Rating: TBA. Production: Production locked for an early-year bow. Positioning: silicon scare with soul.

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: Lensed back-to-back with the first film. Positioning: revived prestige horror saga’s second leg.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man finds his way back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to face a shimmering reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed with U.S. theatrical distribution secured. 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 prickly boss claw to survive on a isolated island as the hierarchy shifts and dread encroaches. Rating: TBA. Production: In the can. Positioning: star-front survival film from a master.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles TBA in official materials. Logline: A contemporary re-envisioning that returns the monster to fright, founded on Cronin’s on-set craft and suffocating 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 household haunting scenario that twists the fear of a child’s wobbly read. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: locked. Positioning: studio-backed, star-driven paranormal 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 genre lampoon that targets in-vogue horror tropes and true-crime crazes. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: shoot planned for fall 2025. Positioning: broad-lane summer entry.

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 worldly twist in tone and setting. Rating: not yet rated. Production: currently in New Zealand. Positioning: R-forward continuation crafted for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: to be confirmed in marketing. Top cast: pending. Logline: The Further reopens, with a fresh family tethered to ancient dread. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: targeting a summer lensing window for late-summer release. Positioning: durable spectral IP in a late-summer sweet spot.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: to be disclosed. Top cast: TBD. Logline: A new start designed to recalibrate the franchise from the ground up, with an stress on survival horror over pyrotechnic spectacle. Rating: TBA. Production: advancing in development with date locked. Positioning: game-faithful modern reboot with crossover potential.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: pending. Logline: purposely secretive. Rating: forthcoming. Production: ongoing. Positioning: auteur event powered by teasers.

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 fear. Rating: undetermined. Production: actively prepping for a holiday slot. 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: timing fluid, autumn anticipated.

Why the 2026 timing works

Three operational forces drive this lineup. First, production that slowed or recalendared in 2024 needed calendar breathing room. Horror can fill those gaps quickly because scripts often are set in fewer locales, fewer large-scale digital sequences, and shorter timelines. Second, studios have become more disciplined 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 launches. Third, social buzz converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will amplify meme-ready beats from test screenings, managed scare clips launched on Thursday previews, and experiential pop-ups that serve as influencer content. 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, providing runway for genre entries that can dominate a weekend or serve as the mature-skew alternative. January is the prime example. Four genre tones will cluster across five weekends, which keeps buzz lanes tidy. Summer provides the other window. The send-up tracks alongside early family and action traffic, then the hard-R entry can leverage a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Budgets and certifications, sleeper calculus

Budgets remain in the target range. Most of the films above will track under the $40–$50 million range, with many far below. That allows for expanded PLF presence without needing superhero-level volume to break even. The most likely R ratings include Evil Dead Burn, Werwulf, and possibly Resident Evil depending on the final cut. Scream 7, Insidious, and SOULM8TE can plausibly land PG-13 to maximize reach, though each franchise has toggled between ratings in the past. Specialty plays tend to lean R to preserve tone and intensity.

The dark-horse hunt continues in Q1, where low-to-mid 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 maximize those pockets. 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. Anticipate a robust PVOD phase across the board, since horror fans have shown a willingness to pay for convenience after an opening weekend, especially when word of mouth is strong.

From viewer POV, the year

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers pace and range. January is a sampler, February delivers a legacy slasher, April returns a Universal monster, May and June provide a back-to-back supernatural punch for date nights and group outings, July goes for the throat, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a somber, literate nightmare. That is how you sustain conversation and attendance without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can stack through the year, using earlier releases to seed the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors appreciate the spacing. Horror delivers reliable Thursday lifts, disciplined footprints, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can win premium screens, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing materiality, audio design, and picture that benefit from larger formats. The calendar also leaves room for specialty platformers to open in New York and Los Angeles, build reviews, and slide into national conversation as the fall progresses.

2026 Looks Exciting

Frames adjust. Ratings change. Casts rotate. But the spine of 2026 horror is intact. There is franchise muscle where it helps, fresh vision where it counts, 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 near-deadline boutique buy join the party. For now, the job is simple, edit tight trailers, keep the secrets, and let the scares sell the seats.