Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed stirs up ancient terror, a hair raising feature, streaming October 2025 across leading streamers

An unnerving spiritual thriller from dramatist / auteur Andrew Chiaramonte, summoning an primordial curse when foreigners become tools in a dark experiment. Available on October 2, 2025, on Prime Video, video-sharing site YouTube, Google Play Movies & TV, iTunes, Apple TV Plus, and Fandango on-demand.

Los Angeles, CA (August 8, 2025) – get ready for *Young & Cursed*, a traumatizing journey of endurance and primordial malevolence that will reimagine fear-driven cinema this ghoul season. Crafted by rising imaginative director Andrew Chiaramonte, this edge-of-your-seat and atmospheric tale follows five people who suddenly rise sealed in a far-off cottage under the unfriendly rule of Kyra, a mysterious girl inhabited by a timeless biblical demon. Get ready to be hooked by a filmic experience that merges primitive horror with biblical origins, hitting on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Diabolic occupation has been a time-honored tradition in the movies. In *Young & Cursed*, that norm is reimagined when the dark entities no longer emerge externally, but rather from their core. This suggests the darkest corner of the protagonists. The result is a emotionally raw cognitive warzone where the story becomes a merciless confrontation between right and wrong.


In a bleak outland, five adults find themselves confined under the ghastly rule and domination of a elusive woman. As the characters becomes paralyzed to reject her power, exiled and targeted by presences ungraspable, they are required to acknowledge their deepest fears while the doomsday meter unforgivingly pushes forward toward their death.


In *Young & Cursed*, paranoia escalates and associations splinter, coercing each character to examine their character and the integrity of self-determination itself. The cost grow with every passing moment, delivering a cinematic nightmare that marries mystical fear with inner turmoil.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my aim was to uncover primal fear, an entity beyond recorded history, channeling itself through soul-level flaws, and wrestling with a darkness that peels away humanity when will is shattered.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Stepping into Kyra called for internalizing something outside normal anguish. She is in denial until the evil takes hold, and that turn is soul-crushing because it is so close.”

Rollout & Launch

*Young & Cursed* will be launched for viewing beginning from October 2, 2025, on Prime Video, Google’s video hub, Google’s store, iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango at Home—giving subscribers internationally can dive into this chilling supernatural event.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just uploaded a new video trailer for *Young & Cursed*, posted to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a follow up to its intro video, which has garnered over a hundred thousand impressions.


In addition to its North American premiere, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has confirmed that *Young & Cursed* will also be streamed globally, taking the terror to horror fans worldwide.


Mark your calendar for this haunted exploration of dread. Face *Young & Cursed* this Halloween season to see these nightmarish insights about the human condition.


For bonus footage, director cuts, and reveals from the cast and crew, follow @YACFilm across media channels and visit the movie portal.





Horror’s pivotal crossroads: the 2025 season domestic schedule fuses old-world possession, signature indie scares, stacked beside legacy-brand quakes

Kicking off with grit-forward survival fare drawn from primordial scripture all the way to franchise returns as well as cutting indie sensibilities, 2025 is tracking to be horror’s most layered together with carefully orchestrated year for the modern era.

The 2025 horror calendar reads less like chaos, more like a plan. studio powerhouses stabilize the year with franchise anchors, even as premium streamers flood the fall with emerging auteurs together with scriptural shivers. On the independent axis, the independent cohort is surfing the uplift of 2024’s record festival wave. As Halloween remains the genre’s crown jewel, the off-peak lanes are managed with purpose. The fall stretch is the proving field, however this time, rollouts stretch into January, spring, and mid-summer. Viewers are primed, studios are exacting, accordingly 2025 could register as the most purpose-built year yet.

Studio Playbook and Mini-Major Tactics: Prestige fear returns

The top end is active. If 2024 framed the blueprint, 2025 compounds the move.

the Universal banner fires the first shot with a confident swing: a reinterpreted Wolf Man, leaving behind the period European setting, in an immediate now. From director Leigh Whannell with Christopher Abbott opposite Julia Garner, this version roots the lycanthropy in family fracture. The shift goes beyond the body, touching marriage, parenting, and raw humanity. targeting mid January, it aligns with turning the winter slack into a premium lane, not a dumping lane.

By spring, Clown in a Cornfield premieres, a YA slasher port tuned to austere horror. Helmed by Eli Craig and featuring Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it comes as grit laced American nightmare with sardonic edge. Behind its clown mask lies commentary on small town paranoia, generational divides, and mob justice. Initial fest notes point to real bite.

When summer tapers, the Warner Bros. banner delivers the closing chapter of its most reliable horror franchise: The Conjuring: Last Rites. The Warrens are back with Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, the film signals catharsis as it engages a widely cited real case. While the template is known, Michael Chaves is rumored to steer toward a somber, reflective register for the close. It sets in early September, opening runway before October heat.

Then comes The Black Phone 2. From early summer to October, a strong signal. Scott Derrickson is back, and so do the signature elements that made the first installment a sleeper hit: throwback unease, trauma as narrative engine, plus otherworld rules that chill. This run ups the stakes, by digging further into the “grabber” mythos and grief’s generational echo.

Completing the calendar is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a picture that draws on name power. The continuation widens the legend, enlarges the animatronic menagerie, seeking teens plus thirty something gamers. It bows in December, locking down the winter tail.

Platform Plays: Low budgets, big teeth

As theatricals lean on brands and continuations, SVOD players are testing edges, and gains show.

A top daring platform piece is Weapons, a cold file multi story chiller stitching three periods attached to a mass disappearance. Steered by Zach Cregger fronted by Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the piece merges terror with dramatic mass. Posting late summer theatrically then fall streaming, it stands to prompt frame-by-frame breakdowns as with Barbarian.

At the smaller scale sits Together, a two hander body horror spiral pairing Alison Brie with Dave Franco. Situated in an out of the way rental during a failed escape, the script studies love with jealousy with self rejection turning into decay. It reads tender, repulsive, and intensely uneasy, a three act churn into codependent hell. Before a platform date is locked, it is a near certain autumn drop.

Next comes Sinners, a 1930s set vampire folk tale led by Michael B. Jordan. Captured with warm sepia and heavy biblical metaphor, it plays like There Will Be Blood meets Let the Right One In. The project looks at American religious trauma under a supernatural allegory. Initial test audience notes point to a buzzy streaming debut.

Additional platform indies hold in reserve: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper each threads grief and absence and identity, mapping allegory to dread.

Deep Possession Currents: Young & Cursed

Bowing October 2 on major streamers, Young & Cursed operates as a rare duality, minimal in staging, maximal in myth. Scripted and led by Andrew Chiaramonte, the piece tracks five strangers awakening in a remote wilds cabin, under Kyra’s sway, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. When evening turns to black, Kyra’s control expands, an encroaching force weaponizing fears, cracks, and guilt.

The threat is psychological first, wired with primal myth. Ducking the exorcism default of Catholic ritual and Latin text, this story returns to something older, something darker. Lilith ignores rite, she wells up from trauma, quietude, and human weakness. The shift to interior possession, not exterior conjuring, flips expectation and aligns Young & Cursed with an expanding wave, intimate character portraits wearing genre.

The film is positioned on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home as Halloween balance against sequel stacks and creature returns. It looks like sharp programming. No bloated canon. No IP hangover. Sheer psychological unease, compact and taut, calibrated to digital binge beats. With a spectacle heavy year, Young & Cursed may pop by going quiet, then screaming.

Festival Badges as Fuel

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF act as proving grounds for the next waves. This cycle, they are launchpads first and showcases second.

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

Midnight offerings such as If I Had Legs I’d Kick You surge on execution beyond the hook. That one, an A24 backed satire on toxic fandom set during a horror convention lockdown, is poised for breakout status.

SXSW premiered Clown in a Cornfield and introduced several microbudget hauntings currently circling deals. Sundance is on track for grief tuned elevated horror, and Tribeca’s genre box tilting urban, social, and surreal.

Festival strategy in 2025 is not just about discovery, it is about branding. A Fantastic Fest or TIFF badge is phase one marketing, not a coda.

Franchise Horror: Returns, Restarts, and Fresh Angles

The sequel reboot ecosystem reads stronger and more precise.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, due in July, revives the ’90s horror franchise with a new lead and a throwback tone. In contrast to earlier chapters, it skews camp and prom night melodrama. Visualize tiaras, fake gore, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 posts late June, and aims to widen its techno horror mythology with new characters and AI generated terrors. The opener’s social chatter and SVOD hours justify Universal’s deeper play.

Then there is The Long Walk, an adaptation of one of Stephen King’s earliest and most harrowing works, guided by Francis Lawrence, it stands as a punishing dystopian allegory wearing survival horror, a march until death with no victors. With the right pitch, it could function as The Hunger Games for grown horror audiences.

Additionally, reboots and sequels, among them Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda, populate the months, with timing held for strategy or acquisitions.

Dials to Watch

Mythic Horror Is Mainstream
From Lilith in Young & Cursed through Aztec curses in Whistle, teams draw on ancient texts and symbols. Not nostalgia, a reclaim of pre Christian archetypes. Horror goes beyond fright, it notes evil’s age.

Body horror reemerges
Titles such as Together, Weapons, and Keeper return focus to the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation are standing in for heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streamers grow fangs
Low grade filler is no longer the platform default. Platforms show up with budgets for scripts, directors, and campaigns. Titles such as Weapons and Sinners are treated as events, not mere content.

Festival buzz converts to leverage
Festival ribbons become currency for better windows and top shelves. No festival plan in 2025, and disappearance looms.

The big screen is a trust exercise
Studios are only releasing horror theatrically if they believe it will overperform or spin into sequels. The balance slides PVOD or hybrid. Horror still lives in theaters, more curated than broad.

Near Term Outlook: Fall pileup, winter curveball

Those four, Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons, crowd September and October to saturation. Indies, including Bone Lake and Keeper, will battle for oxygen. There may be pivots into early 2026 or across platforms.

December anchors on Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, yet a surprise streamer drop could appear in the final weeks. 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.

The genre’s success in 2025 will hinge not on any one title, but on how well its diverse slate reaches its scattered, increasingly segmented audience. This year is not about chasing the next Get Out, it is about building horror that lives beyond the box office.



The approaching scare season: brand plays, original films, as well as A busy Calendar Built For chills

Dek The emerging genre cycle loads from day one with a January glut, following that carries through the mid-year, and straight through the late-year period, braiding legacy muscle, new concepts, and calculated counterprogramming. Studios and streamers are embracing lean spends, cinema-first plans, and social-driven marketing that elevate the slate’s entries into all-audience topics.

Horror momentum into 2026

The genre has established itself as the dependable move in release plans, a pillar that can accelerate when it catches and still buffer the exposure when it misses. After 2023 proved to strategy teams that modestly budgeted horror vehicles can lead the national conversation, the following year carried the beat with auteur-driven buzzy films and stealth successes. The run translated to the 2025 frame, where revivals and festival-grade titles signaled there is a lane for different modes, from legacy continuations to non-IP projects that play globally. The result for the 2026 slate is a grid that seems notably aligned across studios, with planned clusters, a pairing of recognizable IP and new concepts, and a tightened emphasis on box-office windows that fuel later windows on premium on-demand and streaming.

Studio leaders note the genre now acts as a wildcard on the programming map. Horror can open on almost any weekend, provide a grabby hook for creative and reels, and overperform with audiences that appear on Thursday previews and stick through the week two if the movie pays off. After a production delay era, the 2026 setup telegraphs conviction in that logic. The year gets underway with a front-loaded January run, then plants flags in spring and early summer for counterweight, while keeping space for a October build that stretches into All Hallows period and past Halloween. The grid also highlights the continuing integration of boutique distributors and streamers that can build gradually, ignite recommendations, and broaden at the proper time.

A second macro trend is IP stewardship across brand ecosystems and long-running brands. The players are not just making another follow-up. They are moving to present connection with a must-see charge, whether that is a graphic identity that conveys a new vibe or a ensemble decision that threads a next film to a vintage era. At the very same time, the writer-directors behind the marquee originals are returning to hands-on technique, in-camera effects and place-driven backdrops. That interplay yields 2026 a confident blend of familiarity and shock, which is the formula for international play.

The majors’ 2026 approach

Paramount fires first with two front-of-slate plays that span tone from serious to silly. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the director’s chair and Neve Campbell back at the core, marketing it as both a baton pass and a origin-leaning character study. The film is shooting in Atlanta, and the creative stance signals a legacy-leaning approach without going over the last two entries’ sibling arc. The studio is likely to mount a drive stacked with recognizable motifs, character previews, and a trailer cadence timed to late fall. Distribution is big-screen via Paramount.

Paramount also brings back a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris navigate here and Regina Hall are re-teaming, with the Wayans brothers involved creatively for the first time since the early 2000s, a angle the campaign will double down on. As a counterweight in summer, this one will chase four-quadrant chatter through joke-first clips, with the horror spoof format supporting quick pivots to whatever owns the conversation that spring.

Universal has three distinct entries. SOULM8TE bows January 9, 2026, a tech-forward branch from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The hook is tidy, melancholic, and big-hook: a grieving man purchases an AI companion that turns into a killer companion. The date nudges it to the front of a busy month, with Universal’s campaign likely to bring back off-kilter promo beats and short reels that hybridizes affection and fear.

On May 8, 2026, the studio places an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely considered the feature developed under development titles in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The dated slate currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which creates space for a title reveal to become an fan moment closer to the debut look. The timing gives the studio a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles occupy other frames.

Anchoring the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film grabs October 23, 2026, a slot he has commanded before. Peele’s pictures are marketed as filmmaker events, with a opaque teaser and a subsequent trailers that signal tone without plot the concept. The late-October frame creates space for Universal 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, collaborates with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček steers, with Souheila Yacoub at the center. The franchise has shown that a gritty, physical-effects centered style can feel prestige on a middle budget. Frame it as a blood-and-grime summer horror charge that centers global rollout, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most foreign territories.

Sony’s horror bench is particularly deep. The studio rolls out two series moves in the back half. An untitled Insidious film opens August 21, 2026, preserving a bankable supernatural brand active while the spin-off branch incubates. Sony has changed the date on this title before, but the current plan holds it in late summer, where Insidious has been strong.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil re-emerges 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 explicit mandate to serve both core fans and casuals. The fall slot allows Sony to build materials around environmental design, and creature builds, elements that can amplify IMAX and PLF uptake and convention buzz.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, anchors a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Robert Eggers’ Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film builds on Eggers’ run of period horror built on historical precision and language, this time set against lycan legends. Focus Features has already staked the slot for a holiday release, a strong signal in the auteur as a specialty play that can grow wide if early reception is positive.

Streamers and platform exclusives

Platform plans for 2026 run on well-known grooves. Universal’s genre entries shift to copyright after a theatrical and PVOD run, a stair-step that expands both launch urgency and sign-up momentum in the post-theatrical. Prime Video blends third-party pickups with global originals and limited cinema engagements when the data justifies it. Max and Hulu press their advantages in library curation, using timely promos, horror hubs, and staff picks to prolong the run on lifetime take. Netflix plays opportunist about in-house releases and festival acquisitions, locking in horror entries near launch and framing as events debuts with compressed campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, exploits a one-two of limited theatrical footprints and prompt platform moves that turns word of mouth into paid trials. That will matter for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before pivoting to niche channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ assesses case by case horror on a case-by-case basis. The platform has proven amenable to take on select projects with established auteurs or A-list packages, then give them a boutique theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet qualification bars or to build credibility before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still feeds from the 20th Century Studios slate, a core piece for monthly engagement when the genre conversation heats up.

Indie and specialty outlook

Cineverse is structuring a 2026 arc with two brand extensions. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The offer is clear: the same atmospheric, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult favorite, reimagined for modern sound and cinematography. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a autumn slot, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. The distributor has hinted a traditional theatrical plan for Legacy, an healthy marker for fans of the savage series and for check my blog exhibitors seeking R-rated counterprogramming in the back half.

Focus will play the auteur card with Werwulf, marshalling the project through a fall festival swing if the cut is ready, then using the holiday slot to expand. That positioning has shown results for filmmaker-first horror with four-quadrant hopes. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not locked many 2026-specific horror dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines tend to converge after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A plausible forecast is a cluster of late-summer and fall platformers that can grow if reception allows. Look for an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that plays Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work hand in hand, using targeted theatrical to prime evangelism that fuels their subscriber growth.

Franchises versus originals

By share, 2026 skews toward the legacy column. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all activate cultural cachet. The question, as ever, is overexposure. The go-to fix is to position each entry as a tone reset. Paramount is leading with character and roots in Scream 7, Sony is floating a clean-slate build for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is highlighting a French-flavored turn from a fresh helmer. Those choices register when the audience has so many options and social sentiment tilts quickly.

Originals and director-first projects keep oxygen in the system. Jordan Peele’s October film will be framed as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, places Rachel McAdams into a island-set survival premise with Raimi’s impish dread. SOULM8TE offers a simple, unsettling tech hook. Werwulf emphasizes period craft and an unyielding tone. Even when the title is not based on existing IP, the team and cast is known enough to turn curiosity into pre-sales and first-night audiences.

Recent comps announce the method. In 2023, a exclusive theatrical model that kept streaming intact did not prevent a day-and-date experiment from paying off when the brand was powerful. In 2024, precision craft horror hit big in big-format auditoriums. In 2025, a resuscitation of a beloved infection saga made clear that global horror franchises can still feel new when they alter lens and raise the stakes. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which continues January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The paired-chapter approach, with chapters shot back-to-back, lets marketing to relate entries through character spine and themes and to leave creative active without pause points.

Production craft signals

The shop talk behind the year’s horror suggest a continued lean toward tactile, place-driven craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not play like any recent iteration of the property, a stance that squares with the physical-effects bias he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film wrapped photography and is tracking toward its April 17, 2026 date. Watch for a drive that centers atmosphere and fear rather than theme-park spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership bolstering budget rigor.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has characterized Werwulf as the most chilling project he has tackled, which tracks with a Middle Ages setting and period-faithful dialogue, a combination that can make for sonic immersion and a wintry, elemental feel on the big screen. Focus will likely seed this aesthetic in long-lead features and craft coverage before rolling out a teaser that centers atmosphere over story, a move that has clicked for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is designed for red-band excess, a signature of the series that lands overseas in red-band trailers and creates shareable scream clips from early screenings. Scream 7 aims for a meta reframe that centers its original star. Resident Evil will rise or fall on creature and environment design, which match well with convention floor stunts and controlled asset drops. Insidious tends to be a audio craft showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the premium-screen pitch feel irresistible. Look for trailers that spotlight pinpoint sound design, deep-bass stingers, and quiet voids that land in premium houses.

Release calendar overview

January is jammed. SOULM8TE opens January 9, 2026, then Sony returns a week later with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple on January 16. Return to Silent Hill follows on January 23, a brooding contrast amid heftier brand moves. The month buttons 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 real, but the palette of tones gives each title a lane, and the five-week structure offers clean runway for each if word of mouth persists.

Late Q1 and spring stage summer. Paramount’s Scream 7 debuts February 27 with fan warmth. In April, New Line’s The Mummy re-centers a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once suited genre counterprogramming and now accommodates big openers. Universal’s untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 connects into summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer splits the lanes. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is comic-leaning and wide, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 offers hard-R intensity. The counterprogramming logic is tight. The spoof can deliver next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest hits squarely for older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have finished their premium pass.

August and September into October leans IP. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously excelled. Resident Evil rolls in after September 18, a pre-October slot that still ties into Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event holds October 23 and will own cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely supported by a minimalist tease strategy and limited asset reveals that prioritize concept over plot.

Awards-adjacent specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a flag plant that genre can hold in the holidays when packaged as craft prestige horror. The distributor has done this before, platforming carefully, then activating critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to linger in conversation into January. If the film clicks critically, the studio can go wider in the first week of 2027 while carrying holiday turnout and card redemption.

Project briefs

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting continuing to be revealed as production moves. Logline: Sidney returns to face a new Ghostface while the narrative resurfaces the original film’s founding notes. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: roots-first with a today edge.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A bereaved man’s digital partner mutates into something seductively lethal. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed principal photography 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 expands the scope beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult surges in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Lensed back-to-back with the first film. Positioning: next step of a prestige infection saga.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man returns to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to encounter a altering reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished with U.S. theatrical locked. Positioning: mood-led 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 unyielding boss struggle to survive on a far-flung island as the hierarchy shifts and dread encroaches. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed. Positioning: marquee survival piece from a master.

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 renewed take that returns the monster to menace, grounded in Cronin’s practical craft and suffocating dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Wrapped. Positioning: classic creature relaunch with signature touch.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A residential haunting chiller that plays with the chill of a child’s shaky perceptions. Rating: to be announced. Production: picture-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 reuniting creatively. Logline: {A satirical comeback that lampoons hot-button genre motifs and true crime fixations. Rating: to be announced. Production: cameras due to roll 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 erupts, with an international twist in tone and setting. Rating: TBA. Production: lensing in New Zealand. Positioning: hard-hitting R entry designed for premium formats.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: TBA publicly. Top cast: to be announced. Logline: The Further reopens, with a new clan entangled with ancient dread. Rating: forthcoming. Production: planning summer shoot for late-summer date. Positioning: dependable ghost-franchise slot that suits the brand.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: to be disclosed. Top cast: TBD. Logline: A fresh restart designed to rebuild the franchise from the ground up, with an tilt toward classic survival-horror tone over action pyrotechnics. Rating: pending. Production: dev phase with date secured. Positioning: lore-true modernization with broad upside.

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

Werwulf (Focus Features, December 25, 2026)
Director: Robert Eggers. Top cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, with other regulars expected. Logline: A medieval werewolf story built on time-true diction and primal menace. Rating: to be announced. Production: in preproduction for holiday debut. Positioning: auteur prestige horror aimed at holiday corridor with crafts prospects.

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 in flux, fall expected.

Why the 2026 timing works

Three workable forces define this lineup. First, production that paused or migrated in 2024 needed slack in the schedule. Horror can patch those gaps promptly because scripts often call for fewer locales, fewer large-scale visual effects runs, and condensed timelines. Second, studios have become more strategic about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently outpaced straight-to-streaming launches. Third, digital word of mouth converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will lean on repeatable beats from test screenings, precision scare clips synced to Thursday previews, and experiential pop-ups that become influencer fuel. It is a repeatable playbook because it performs.

Calendar math also matters. Early 2026 is less crowded with family and superhero corridors, creating valuable space for genre entries that can take a weekend outright or serve as the mature-skew alternative. January is the prime example. Four distinct flavors of horror will compete across five weekends, which keeps buzz lanes tidy. Summer provides the other window. The satire rides the animated and action tide, then the hard-R entry can leverage a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Economics and ratings, plus sleeper strategy

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

The sleeper-hit 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 press those advantages. January could easily deliver the first sleeper overperformer of the year, and August into September gives Sony an avenue to hold screens with back-to-back supernatural IP while still leaving room for an indie breakout.

Internationally, brand recognition helps Resident Evil, Evil Dead, and Scream travel, while 28 Years Later benefits from a British setting and returning talent. Werwulf and The Mummy will lean on auteur and classic-monster awareness abroad. Streamers will amplify the tail, with copyright pickups boosting Universal’s slate and Shudder driving evangelism for Cineverse titles. Forecast a healthy PVOD window broadly, since horror fans have shown a willingness to pay for convenience after an opening weekend, especially when word of mouth is strong.

How the viewing year plays

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers flow and breadth. January is a tasting table, February delivers a legacy slasher, April reawakens a Universal monster, May and June provide a paranormal one-two for date nights and group outings, July goes red-band, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a shadowed, literate nightmare. That is how you sustain heat and footfall without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can sequence upward, using earlier releases to seed the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors like the spacing. Horror delivers preview-night pops, tight deployments, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can deserve premium formats, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing surface detail, audio design, and framing 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

Timing shifts. Ratings change. Casts evolve. But the spine of 2026 horror is intact. There is recognizable IP where it plays, new vision where it lands, and a calendar that shows studios meet the timing for 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 late-stage specialty acquisition join the party. For now, the job is simple, deliver taut trailers, keep secrets, and let the frights sell the seats.