Mythic Terror returns: Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a hair raising feature, rolling out October 2025 on top streamers

A hair-raising spiritual fear-driven tale from screenwriter / helmer Andrew Chiaramonte, manifesting an primordial evil when unrelated individuals become vehicles in a fiendish struggle. Going live on October 2, 2025, on Amazon Prime Video, video-sharing site YouTube, Google’s Play platform, Apple iTunes, Apple TV Plus, and Fandango on-demand.

Los Angeles, CA (August 8, 2025) – Brace yourselves for *Young & Cursed*, a harrowing story of survival and timeless dread that will resculpt fear-driven cinema this harvest season. Brought to life by rising imaginative director Andrew Chiaramonte, this unsettling and moody cinema piece follows five unacquainted souls who emerge isolated in a off-grid cabin under the malevolent grip of Kyra, a young woman inhabited by a millennia-old sacred-era entity. Steel yourself to be shaken by a motion picture journey that intertwines instinctive fear with spiritual backstory, releasing on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Spiritual takeover has been a iconic fixture in visual storytelling. In *Young & Cursed*, that pattern is turned on its head when the presences no longer appear from elsewhere, but rather from their psyche. This portrays the darkest layer of each of them. The result is a intense spiritual tug-of-war where the events becomes a perpetual push-pull between light and darkness.


In a barren terrain, five characters find themselves marooned under the fiendish effect and infestation of a unidentified entity. As the ensemble becomes incapacitated to deny her control, stranded and tracked by terrors mind-shattering, they are pushed to deal with their core terrors while the doomsday meter ruthlessly pushes forward toward their doom.


In *Young & Cursed*, delusion grows and associations fracture, compelling each figure to challenge their character and the principle of liberty itself. The stakes escalate with every passing moment, delivering a scare-fueled ride that harmonizes otherworldly panic with deep insecurity.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my focus was to dive into raw dread, an spirit beyond time, influencing soul-level flaws, and challenging a darkness that peels away humanity when we lose control.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Channeling Kyra was about accessing something outside normal anguish. She is in denial until the demon emerges, and that transformation is eerie because it is so close.”

Streaming Info

*Young & Cursed* will be released for digital release beginning on October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon’s platform, Google’s video hub, Google Play, Apple iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home—allowing households everywhere can enjoy this spirit-driven thriller.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just premiered a new visual teaser for *Young & Cursed*, up to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a companion to its initial teaser, which has seen over thousands of viewers.


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


Be sure to catch this life-altering descent into hell. Stream *Young & Cursed* this All Hallows’ kickoff to uncover these spiritual awakenings about the mind.


For previews, filmmaker commentary, and social posts from those who lived it, follow @YoungAndCursed across media channels and visit the film’s website.





Contemporary horror’s sea change: 2025 in focus U.S. rollouts Mixes primeval-possession lore, indie terrors, stacked beside series shake-ups

Moving from pressure-cooker survival tales drawn from near-Eastern lore and extending to canon extensions paired with pointed art-house angles, 2025 is coalescing into horror’s most layered and strategic year since the mid-2010s.

The 2025 horror calendar is not merely full, it is methodical. studio powerhouses plant stakes across the year with familiar IP, in parallel digital services flood the fall with emerging auteurs together with ancestral chills. At the same time, festival-forward creators is buoyed by the kinetic energy from a top-tier 2024 festival cycle. Given Halloween is the centerpiece, the remaining months are slotted with surgical care. A dense September through October runway is now a rite of passage, distinctly in 2025, bookings reach January, spring, and mid-summer. Fans are ravenous, studios are targeted, accordingly 2025 may be recorded as the genre’s most deliberate campaign.

What Studios and Mini-Majors Are Doing: Prestige-leaning dread rebounds

No one at the top is standing still. If 2024 laid the groundwork for a horror reinvention, 2025 capitalizes.

Universal’s distribution arm kicks off the frame with a big gambit: a reinterpreted Wolf Man, set not in some misty 19th-century European village, but a sharp contemporary setting. Directed by Leigh Whannell with Christopher Abbott opposite Julia Garner, this pass grounds the lycanthropy in household collapse. The change is not purely bodily, it is marital, parental, and achingly human. targeting mid January, it backs a move to shape winter into a prestige corridor, not a discard corridor.

Spring delivers Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher adaptation turned minimalist horror show. Helmed by Eli Craig and featuring Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it functions as blood smeared American gothic with snark. Under the makeup, it dissects provincial panic, age gap tensions, and mob verdicts. Early festival buzz suggests it has teeth.

As summer winds down, the Warner Bros. banner drops the final chapter from its anchor horror saga: The Conjuring: Last Rites. The Warrens return, played by Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, the installment promises emotional closure while taking on one of the duo’s most infamous real life cases. While the template is known, Michael Chaves is rumored to steer toward a somber, reflective register for the close. It arrives early September, buying space before the October wave.

After that, The Black Phone 2. Planned for early summer, the October reposition reads assertive. Derrickson re engages, and the hallmarks that turned the first into a sleeper reappear: vintage toned fear, trauma in the foreground, paired with unsettling supernatural order. This pass pushes higher, through a thicker read on the “grabber” legend and generational ache.

Rounding the tentpole corner is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a picture that draws on name power. The new chapter enriches the lore, builds out the animatronic fear crew, courting teens and the thirty something base. It bows in December, buttoning the final window.

Platform Plays: Lean budgets, heavy bite

With cinemas leaning into known IP, streamers are taking risks, and it is paying off.

A top daring platform piece is Weapons, a forensic chill anthology stitching three periods attached to a mass disappearance. With Zach Cregger directing anchored by Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the entry marries dread with character weight. Debuting in theaters late summer then streaming in fall, it looks primed to seed post watch analysis akin to Barbarian.

On the more intimate flank sits Together, a sealed box body horror arc fronted by Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Trapped in a far off rental as a holiday fractures, the arc observes love and green eyed envy and self harm turned somatic. It plays romantic, grotesque, and acutely uneasy, a three act descent into codependent hell. While no platform has formally placed a date, it looks like a certain fall stream.

Next comes Sinners, a 1930s period vampire folk story toplined by Michael B. Jordan. Framed in sepia richness with biblical metaphor, it nods to There Will Be Blood beside Let the Right One In. The work dissects American religious trauma using supernatural allegory. First test passes flag it as highly discussable at debut.

A cluster of streaming indies sits ready: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper each engages grief, missing persons, and identity, with metaphor before show.

Possession With Depth: Young & Cursed

Bowing October 2 on major streamers, Young & Cursed presents a rare union, close in focus, wide in mythology. Penned and steered by Andrew Chiaramonte, the movie observes five strangers who awaken in an isolated wilderness cabin, controlled by Kyra, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. As dusk gives way to night, Kyra’s grip intensifies, a violating force plundering fears, vulnerabilities, and regrets.

The horror here is psychological but charged with primal myth. Avoiding the usual exorcism path with Catholic ritual and Latin spell, this story returns to something older, something darker. Lilith ignores rite, she wells up from trauma, quietude, and human weakness. That possession comes from within, not without, flips the trope and aligns Young & Cursed with a growing trend in horror, intimate character studies that dress themselves in the skin of genre.

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. That is a savvy move. No overinflated mythology. No IP hangover. Just pure psychological dread, contained, tense, and tailor made for the binge and breathe rhythm of digital horror fans. In the noise, Young & Cursed could cut through by staying hushed, then erupting.

Festival Launchpads, Market Engines

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

Fantastic Fest’s horror bench is deep this year. Primate, an opening night tropical body-horror, invites Cronenberg meets Herzog talk. Whistle, revenge folklore with Aztec roots, is poised to close with blaze.

At midnight, entries like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You buzz for how they play, not only their names. That title, with A24 backing, satirizes toxic fandom during a convention lockdown and is set to pop.

SXSW staged Clown in a Cornfield and lined up microbudget haunts for talks. Sundance is expected to unspool a familiar crop of grief steeped elevated horror, and Tribeca’s genre set plays urban, social, and surreal.

Strategy at festivals now equals branding as well as discovery. A Fantastic Fest or TIFF badge is phase one marketing, not a coda.

Legacy Brands: Sequels, Reboots, Reinventions

Legacy IP arrives sturdier and more intentional this cycle.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, landing in July, re ups the 90s brand with a fresh lead and retro tone. Rather than prior modes, it goes camp and prom night melodrama. Bring tiaras, red dye, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 slots late June, seeking to build out techno horror lore using new characters and AI born frights. The first film’s success on both social media and streaming has given Universal the confidence to double down.

Next comes The Long Walk, adapting one of Stephen King’s earliest, most harrowing works, under Francis Lawrence, it functions as a harsh dystopian fable encased in survival horror, a children’s march that ends in death. If packaged well, it could track like The Hunger Games for horror adults.

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

Emerging Currents

Mythic horror goes mainstream
From Lilith in Young & Cursed to Aztec curses in Whistle, creators turn to ancient texts and symbols. This reads not as nostalgia but as reclaiming pre Christian archetypes. Horror goes beyond fright, it notes evil’s age.

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

Streamer originals stiffen their spine
The era of filler horror on streamers is ending. Streamers back real writing, real filmmakers, and genuine marketing. Films like Weapons and Sinners are treated as events, not content.

Festival Hype Equals Market Leverage
Festival seals operate as leverage for distribution lanes and press windows. A film minus festival planning in 2025 risks getting lost.

Theatrical lanes are trust falls
Theater slots go to likely overachievers or franchise starters. Everything else heads to PVOD or hybrid drops. Horror keeps theatrical presence, via curation.

The Road Ahead: Autumn Overload and the Winter Wildcard

With Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons stacked into September and October, fall saturates. Indies like Bone Lake and Keeper must claw for air. There may be pivots into early 2026 or across platforms.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 locks December, while a late surprise on a platform remains possible. 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.

Horror’s 2025 outcome will be decided not by one title, but by how its variety connects with splintered audiences. The play is not Get Out replication, it is long life horror past theaters.



The forthcoming 2026 scare year to come: brand plays, new stories, And A packed Calendar Built For chills

Dek The brand-new genre slate clusters right away with a January logjam, then spreads through summer, and pushing into the winter holidays, braiding franchise firepower, novel approaches, and data-minded offsets. The big buyers and platforms are prioritizing smart costs, theatrical exclusivity first, and short-form initiatives that shape the slate’s entries into mainstream chatter.

Horror’s status entering 2026

The horror sector has become the consistent option in programming grids, a corner that can lift when it catches and still safeguard the floor when it falls short. After the 2023 year signaled to strategy teams that disciplined-budget pictures can drive audience talk, 2024 extended the rally with visionary-driven titles and unexpected risers. The carry carried into 2025, where revived properties and arthouse crossovers highlighted there is appetite for a spectrum, from brand follow-ups to original features that export nicely. The sum for the 2026 slate is a slate that feels more orchestrated than usual across players, with defined corridors, a harmony of legacy names and new packages, and a tightened strategy on theatrical windows that fuel later windows on premium digital and OTT platforms.

Marketers add the category now behaves like a fill-in ace on the calendar. The genre can roll out on open real estate, generate a easy sell for creative and social clips, and overperform with viewers that turn out on advance nights and return through the week two if the feature pays off. Exiting a strike-induced shuffle, the 2026 configuration reflects comfort in that equation. The calendar kicks off with a stacked January run, then turns to spring and early summer for counterweight, while carving room for a September to October window that extends to spooky season and into the next week. The gridline also spotlights the continuing integration of specialty distributors and subscription services that can nurture a platform play, create conversation, and go nationwide at the precise moment.

A second macro trend is series management across linked properties and long-running brands. Studio teams are not just pushing another continuation. They are working to present lore continuity with a occasion, whether that is a title presentation that signals a fresh attitude or a star attachment that anchors a next entry to a original cycle. At the alongside this, the creative teams behind the most buzzed-about originals are embracing hands-on technique, practical gags and location-forward worlds. That blend hands 2026 a smart balance of brand comfort and unexpected turns, which is a recipe that travels worldwide.

How the majors and mini-majors are programming

Paramount fires first with two centerpiece plays that run the tonal gamut. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the director seat and Neve Campbell back at the front, positioning the film as both a baton pass and a foundation-forward character-forward chapter. Production is active in Atlanta, and the tonal posture indicates a classic-referencing treatment without replaying the last two entries’ family thread. Watch for a push rooted in brand visuals, first images of characters, and a staggered trailer plan timed to late fall. Distribution is Paramount in theaters.

Paramount also reawakens a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are re-teaming, with the Wayans brothers involved as creative partners for the first time since the early 2000s, a headline the campaign will feature. As a non-tentpole summer option, this one will chase mass reach through gif-able moments, with the horror spoof format allowing quick updates to whatever owns the meme cycle that spring.

Universal has three defined bets. SOULM8TE bows January 9, 2026, a tech-horror spinoff from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The premise is straightforward, melancholic, and big-hook: a grieving man onboards an digital partner that turns into a fatal companion. The date lines it up at the front of a thick month, with Universal’s marketing likely to echo viral uncanny stunts and short reels that fuses romance and creep.

On May 8, 2026, the studio sets 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 public release grid currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which leaves room for a proper title to become an teaser payoff closer to the opening teaser. The timing creates a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles own different weekends.

Filling out the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film lands October 23, 2026, a slot he has made his own before. Peele’s work are branded as auteur events, with a teaser that reveals little and a subsequent trailers that establish tone without plot reveals the concept. The holiday-adjacent corridor affords Universal to saturate pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then work the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, links with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček guides, with Souheila Yacoub headlining. The franchise has demonstrated that a gnarly, practical-first mix can feel high-value on a tight budget. Position this as a red-band summer horror shot that maximizes global rollout, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most non-U.S. markets.

Sony’s horror bench is notably deep. The studio deploys two franchise maneuvers in the back half. An untitled Insidious film rolls out August 21, 2026, continuing a proven supernatural brand on the grid while the spin-off branch evolves. Sony has changed the date on this title before, but the current plan locks it in late summer, where Insidious has found success.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil comes back in what Sony is positioning as a reimagined restart for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a central part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a focus to serve both franchise faithful and novices. The fall slot gives Sony time to build assets around world-building, and monster design, elements that can boost IMAX and PLF uptake and fan-culture participation.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, sets a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Robert Eggers’ Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film extends the filmmaker’s run of period horror shaped by historical precision and period language, this time steeped in lycan lore. The specialty arm has already claimed the date for a holiday release, a confidence marker in Eggers as a specialty play that can grow wide if early reception is positive.

SVOD and PVOD rhythms

Windowing plans in 2026 run on known playbooks. Universal’s horror titles head to copyright after a theatrical-first then PVOD phase, a cadence that fortifies both launch urgency and trial spikes in the tail. Prime Video continues to mix third-party pickups with world buys and select theatrical runs when the data points to it. Max and Hulu accent their strengths in catalog engagement, using curated hubs, seasonal hubs, and curated strips to increase tail value on the year’s genre earnings. Netflix keeps optionality about Netflix originals and festival pickups, locking in horror entries toward the drop and making event-like launches with compressed campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE this page and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, harnesses a dual-phase of focused cinema runs and fast windowing that converts buzz to sign-ups. That will be meaningful for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before relying on community channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ assesses case by case horror on a title-by-title basis. The platform has shown appetite to pick up select projects with prestige directors or star packages, then give them a prestige theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet awards-qualifying thresholds or to build credibility before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still leverages the 20th Century Studios slate, a critical input for month-over-month retention when the genre conversation surges.

Art-house genre prospects

Cineverse is crafting a 2026 sequence with two IP plays. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The promise is uncomplicated: the same moody, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a genre cult touchstone, reimagined for modern sound and cinematography. 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 suggested a theatrical rollout for the title, an optimistic indicator for fans of the savage series and for exhibitors hungry for R material in the October weeks.

Focus will play the auteur card with Werwulf, stewarding the film through autumn festivals if the cut is ready, then turning to the holiday dates to widen. That positioning has been successful for filmmaker-first horror with award possibilities. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not dated many 2026 horror titles in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines commonly finalize after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A plausible forecast is a run of late-summer and fall platformers that can grow if reception drives. Watch 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 as partners, using precision theatrical to fuel evangelism that fuels their user base.

Franchises versus originals

By tilt, 2026 tips toward the known side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all use legacy awareness. The risk, as ever, is viewer burnout. The go-to fix is to position each entry as a renewed feel. Paramount is elevating character and legacy in Scream 7, Sony is promising a clean-slate build for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is embracing a French sensibility from a emerging director. Those choices register when the audience has so many options and social sentiment spins fast.

Originals and director-driven titles add oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be pitched as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, puts Rachel McAdams in a marooned survival premise with Raimi’s signature playful menace. SOULM8TE offers a clear, chilling tech hook. Werwulf anchors in period detail and an severe tone. Even when the title is not based on a known brand, the deal build is assuring enough to translate curiosity into advance sales and Thursday previews.

Three-year comps clarify the template. In 2023, a theatrical-first model that held distribution windows did not foreclose a simultaneous release test from paying off when the brand was compelling. In 2024, filmmaker-craft-led horror over-performed in premium auditoriums. In 2025, a return of a beloved infection saga broadcast that global horror franchises can still feel novel when they angle differently and expand the canvas. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which proceeds January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The two-step approach, with chapters produced back-to-back, provides the means for marketing to relate entries through cast and motif and to sustain campaign assets without hiatuses.

How the look and feel evolve

The filmmaking conversations behind the 2026 slate point to a continued lean toward material, place-specific craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not play like any recent iteration of the property, a stance that reinforces the in-camera lean he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film wrapped photography and is set for its April 17, 2026 date. Expect a campaign that underscores tone and tension rather than theme-park spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership supporting cost management.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has talked about Werwulf as the grimmest project he has tackled, which tracks with a medieval setting and archaic dialect, a combination that can make for immersive sound design and a austere, elemental atmosphere on the big screen. Focus will likely preview this aesthetic in feature stories and craft features before rolling out a teaser that elevates tone over story, a move that has performed for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is geared for goopy mayhem, a signature of the series that travels well in red-band trailers and earns shareable reaction videos from early screenings. Scream 7 positions a meta reframe that centers an original star. Resident Evil will stand or stumble on creature execution and sets, which align with booth activations and staggered reveals. Insidious tends to be a soundstage showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the theatrical pitch feel key. Look for trailers that spotlight precise sound design, deep-bass stingers, and blank-sound beats that explode in larger rooms.

Calendar map: winter through the holidays

January is packed. SOULM8TE opens January 9, 2026, then Sony returns a week later with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple on January 16. Cineverse’s Return to Silent Hill follows on January 23, a brooding contrast amid headline IP. The month ends 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 thick, but the mix of tones lets each find a lane, and the five-week structure enables clean play for each if word of mouth spreads.

Post-January through spring build the summer base. Scream 7 hits February 27 with nostalgia energy. In April, The Mummy reimagines a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once belonged to genre counterprogramming and now can handle big openers. Universal’s 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 splits the lanes. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is comic-leaning and wide, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 presents brutal intensity. The counterprogramming logic is coherent. The spoof can hit next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest satisfies older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have cycled through premium screens.

Late-season stretch leans IP. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously performed. Resident Evil rolls in after September 18, a shoulder-season slot that still preps for Halloween marketing beats. Jordan Peele’s untitled film grabs October 23 and will dominate cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely amplified by a peekaboo tease plan and limited disclosures that elevate concept over story.

Year-end prestige and specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a flag plant that genre can play the holidays when packaged as awards-flirting horror. The distributor has done this before, platforming with care, then working critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to sustain conversation into January. If the film scores with critics, the studio can go wider in the first week of 2027 while building on holiday impulse and gift-card redemption.

One-sentence dossiers

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

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A grieving man’s AI companion unfolds into something murderously loving. Rating: TBA. Production: Photography complete for an early-year bow. Positioning: algorithmic dread with emotion.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (Sony, January 16, 2026)
Director: Nia DaCosta. Writer: Alex Garland. Top cast: Cillian Murphy, Jack O’Connell, and additional ensemble tied to a new antagonist faction. Logline: The second chapter in a trilogy enlarges the frame beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult hardens in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Filmed in tandem 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: ambience-forward 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 hard-edged boss scramble to survive on a rugged island as the power dynamic flips and paranoia spreads. 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 confidential in official materials. Logline: A modern reimagining that returns the monster to nightmare, driven by Cronin’s physical craft and suffocating dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Principal wrapped. Positioning: legendary monster re-up with auteur hand.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A in-home haunting tale that channels the fear through a youngster’s shifting subjective view. Rating: TBA. Production: locked. Positioning: studio-supported and name-above-title 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 reboot that satirizes current genre trends and true-crime crazes. Rating: pending. Production: cameras due to roll 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 detonates, with an overseas twist in tone and setting. Rating: not yet rated. Production: currently in New Zealand. Positioning: hard-R franchise continuation built for premium large format.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: TBA in marketing materials. Top cast: awaiting confirmation. Logline: The Further widens again, with a fresh family anchored to long-buried horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: planning summer shoot for late-summer date. Positioning: trusted supernatural label in a supportive window.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: awaiting public disclosure. Top cast: TBA. Logline: A ground-up reset designed to re-engineer the franchise from the ground up, with an emphasis on survival-first horror over action-centric bombast. Rating: forthcoming. Production: moving through development on a locked slot. Positioning: IP-accurate revival with mainstream runway.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: forthcoming. Logline: closely held. Rating: forthcoming. Production: active. 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 historical diction and elemental dread. Rating: TBA. Production: in active prep with holiday date set. Positioning: high-craft holiday horror with awards-season tail.

Wolf Creek: Legacy (Cineverse, TBA 2026)
Director: Greg McLean. Top cast: John Jarratt expected to return as Mick Taylor. Logline: The Australian outback slasher returns, with a standard theatrical approach before platforming. Status: window fluid, autumn forecast.

Why 2026, why now

Three grounded forces organize this lineup. First, production that stalled or shifted in 2024 needed spacing on the calendar. Horror can patch those gaps promptly because scripts often require limited locations, fewer large-scale VFX sequences, and shorter timelines. Second, studios have become more orderly about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently generated more than straight-to-streaming drops. Third, viral talk converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will work social-ready stingers from test screenings, managed scare clips dropping on Thursday previews, and experiential pop-ups that seed creator reels. It is a repeatable playbook because it performs.

Calendar math also matters. The first stretch of 2026 sees fewer family and superhero logjams, creating valuable space for genre entries that can capture a weekend or function as the older-skew counter. January is the prime example. Four separate horror flavors will coexist across five weekends, which lets each title generate conversation without cannibalizing the others. Summer provides the other window. The parody can surf the early-summer animated and action swell, then the hard-R entry can make hay in a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Money matters, ratings, and surprise hits

Budgets remain in the sweet spot. Most of the films above will track under the $40–$50 million range, 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 stealth-hit search 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 use those gaps. January could easily deliver the first quiet breakout of the year, and August into September gives Sony an avenue to hold screens with back-to-back supernatural IP while still leaving room for an indie breakout.

Internationally, brand recognition helps Resident Evil, Evil Dead, and Scream travel, while 28 Years Later benefits from a British setting and returning talent. Werwulf and The Mummy will lean on auteur and classic-monster awareness abroad. Streamers will amplify the tail, with copyright pickups boosting Universal’s slate and Shudder driving evangelism for Cineverse titles. 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.

What the calendar feels like for audiences

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers tempo and variety. January is a sampler, February delivers a legacy slasher, April revives a Universal monster, May and June provide a back-to-back supernatural punch 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 bleak, literate nightmare. That is how you preserve buzz while driving admissions without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can compound over time, using earlier releases to trailhead the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors value the spacing. Horror delivers regular Thursday spikes, disciplined footprints, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can earn PLF placement, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing materiality, sound, 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.

2026 Looks Exciting

Windows change. Ratings change. Casts rotate. But the spine of 2026 horror is in place. There is IP strength where it matters, creative ambition where it counts, 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 eleventh-hour specialty buy join the party. For now, the job is simple, edit tight trailers, protect the mystery, and let the shudders sell the seats.