Age-old Horror reawakens: Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a nightmare fueled feature, rolling out October 2025 on major streaming services

An haunting occult shockfest from storyteller / auteur Andrew Chiaramonte, unbinding an archaic terror when guests become tools in a supernatural contest. Launching on October 2, 2025, on Amazon Prime Video, Google’s YouTube, Google Play Movies & TV, iTunes Movies, Apple TV+, and Fandango streaming.

L.A., CA (August 8, 2025) – gear up for *Young & Cursed*, a disturbing narrative of survival and primeval wickedness that will redefine the horror genre this Halloween season. Realized by rising thriller expert Andrew Chiaramonte, this pressure-packed and tone-heavy motion picture follows five people who snap to caught in a wilderness-bound structure under the unfriendly dominion of Kyra, a mysterious girl inhabited by a biblical-era holy text monster. Get ready to be gripped by a audio-visual spectacle that fuses raw fear with mythic lore, landing on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Diabolic occupation has been a time-honored fixture in the movies. In *Young & Cursed*, that norm is reimagined when the malevolences no longer emerge from a different plane, but rather from their core. This mirrors the malevolent corner of the protagonists. The result is a edge-of-seat inner struggle where the intensity becomes a unforgiving struggle between light and darkness.


In a remote woodland, five characters find themselves cornered under the dark aura and curse of a unknown spirit. As the survivors becomes unresisting to combat her grasp, exiled and preyed upon by terrors beyond comprehension, they are forced to encounter their raw vulnerabilities while the doomsday meter unforgivingly moves toward their expiration.


In *Young & Cursed*, mistrust rises and connections implode, pressuring each figure to doubt their existence and the structure of decision-making itself. The risk rise with every breath, delivering a cinematic nightmare that intertwines supernatural terror with raw emotion.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my intention was to dive into basic terror, an curse rooted in antiquity, manifesting in soul-level flaws, and navigating a will that strips down our being when choice is taken.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Stepping into Kyra meant evoking something beneath mortal despair. She is unaware until the demon emerges, and that transformation is terrifying because it is so personal.”

Distribution & Access

*Young & Cursed* will be offered for worldwide release beginning this October 2, on Amazon’s platform, Google’s video hub, Google Play, Apple iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango on-demand—providing subscribers around the globe can face this haunted release.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just broadcast a new official trailer #2 for *Young & Cursed*, live to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a second look to its first preview, which has pulled in over strong viewer count.


In addition to its first availability, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has declared that *Young & Cursed* will also be streamed globally, exporting the fear to international horror buffs.


Witness this bone-rattling journey into fear. Confront *Young & Cursed* this spooky debut to explore these chilling revelations about the mind.


For bonus footage, making-of footage, and news from those who lived it, follow @YoungAndCursedFilm across your favorite networks and visit youngandcursed.com.





The horror genre’s pivotal crossroads: the 2025 season U.S. calendar weaves primeval-possession lore, art-house nightmares, alongside franchise surges

Running from endurance-driven terror drawn from primordial scripture through to installment follow-ups in concert with keen independent perspectives, 2025 is emerging as the most variegated plus blueprinted year in the past ten years.

It is loaded, and also intentionally sequenced. the big studios plant stakes across the year with established lines, as SVOD players pack the fall with debut heat set against scriptural shivers. In the indie lane, festival-forward creators is riding the carry from a top-tier 2024 festival cycle. Given Halloween is the centerpiece, the non-October slots are tuned with exactness. The early fall corridor has become the proving ground, notably this year, bookings reach January, spring, and mid-summer. Viewers are hungry, studios are disciplined, which means 2025 might go down as horror’s most intentional year yet.

Studio Playbook and Mini-Major Tactics: Elevated fear reclaims ground

The studio class is engaged. If 2024 set the stage for reinvention, 2025 presses the advantage.

Universal’s slate starts the year with a statement play: a newly envisioned Wolf Man, not returning to the Gothic European hamlet, in an immediate now. Under director Leigh Whannell fronted by Christopher Abbott with Julia Garner, this take locates the lycanthropy inside home disintegration. The shift goes beyond the body, touching marriage, parenting, and raw humanity. Booked into mid January, it helps remake the winter trough with prestige offerings, not discard thrillers.

As spring rolls in, Clown in a Cornfield bows, a YA slasher adaptation reframed as lean dread. Led by Eli Craig and featuring Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it feels like crimson splashed Midwest menace with winked critique. Under the costume, it needles small town fear, cross generational rifts, and crowd punishment. First wave buzz indicates sharp teeth.

When summer tapers, Warner’s slate launches the swan song inside its trusty horror universe: The Conjuring: Last Rites. The Warrens are back with Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, the movie targets a resonant finish through an infamous case. Despite a known recipe, Chaves is expected to tune it to a grieving, self reflective color. It goes early September, easing the path before October flood.

Arriving later is The Black Phone 2. Originally slated for early summer, its move to an October release suggests confidence. Scott Derrickson again directs, and so do the signature elements that made the first installment a sleeper hit: retro dread, trauma driven plotting, with spooky supernatural reasoning. This time the stakes climb, with more excavation of the “grabber” canon and family hauntings.

Completing the marquee stack is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a film that does not need traditional marketing to sell tickets. The return delves further into myth, stretches the animatronic parade, seeking teens plus thirty something gamers. It hits in December, cornering year end horror.

Platform Originals: Slim budgets, major punch

While theaters bet on familiarity, streamers are swinging risk forward, and returns look strong.

A high ambition play arrives with Weapons, a cold case horror anthology interlacing three eras linked by a mass vanishing. Under Zach Cregger fronted by Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the project unites horror with dramatic charge. With a late summer theatrical bow and fall streaming drop, it seems set to fuel decode culture and breakdowns, in the Barbarian lane.

More contained by design is Together, a close quarters body horror study including Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Located in a secluded rental as a trip collapses, the script studies love with jealousy with self rejection turning into decay. It moves between affection and rot, a triptych into codependent hell. Absent a posted platform date, it is tracking toward an autumn slot.

Also notable is Sinners, a 1930s set vampire folk tale featuring Michael B. Jordan. Shot in rich sepia tones and drenched in biblical metaphor, it nods to There Will Be Blood beside Let the Right One In. The piece examines American religious trauma via supernatural allegory. First test passes flag it as highly discussable at debut.

Extra indies bide their time on platforms: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper all work grief and disappearance and identity, choosing meaning over noise.

Deep Possession Currents: Young & Cursed

Rolling out October 2 across streaming, Young & Cursed positions itself as a rare hybrid, intimate in scope and mythic in reach. Written and directed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the film follows five strangers who wake in a remote wilderness cabin under the thrall of Kyra, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. As dusk gives way to night, Kyra’s grip intensifies, a violating force plundering fears, vulnerabilities, and regrets.

The chill is psyche led, anchored in primal myth. Skipping the exorcism norm of Catholic rite and Latin line, this film taps something older, something darker. Lilith bypasses ritual, she awakens from trauma, repression, and human fragility. By making possession inward rather than external, Young & Cursed joins a trend toward intimate character studies masked as genre.

The platforms, including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home, angle the film as Halloween counterprogramming to sequel load and monster re ups. It is canny scheduling. No overweight mythology. No IP hangover. Only psychological menace, compressed and taut, tuned to binge and gasp cycles online. Against fireworks, Young & Cursed might stand apart by stillness, then shock.

Festival Launchpads, Market Engines

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF remain the hothouse where next season’s horror grows. They serve less as display cases, more as runways.

Fantastic Fest’s horror bench is deep this year. Primate, a tropical body horror curtain raiser, invites Cronenberg Herzog comp. Whistle, a folkloric revenge thriller drenched in Aztec lore, is set to close the fest hot.

Midnight offerings such as If I Had Legs I’d Kick You surge on execution beyond the hook. A24’s satire of toxic fandom inside a con lockdown aims at breakout.

SXSW lifted Clown in a Cornfield and put microbudget hauntings into market talk. Sundance should deliver grief heavy elevated horror again, as Tribeca’s genre wing angles urban, social, and surreal.

Fest circuits are brand engines as much as discovery engines. A badge from Fantastic Fest or TIFF is now the first phase of marketing, not the last.

Franchise Horror: Returns, Restarts, and Fresh Angles

The sequel reboot ecosystem reads stronger and more precise.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, dated July, revives the 90s franchise with a new lead and throwback tone. In contrast to earlier chapters, it skews camp and prom night melodrama. Cue tiaras, phony blood, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 posts late June, targeting a broadened techno horror canon with new characters and AI spawned nightmares. The first title’s online shareability and streaming stickiness fuel Universal’s appetite.

The Long Walk, from an early and searing Stephen King work, is inbound, helmed by Francis Lawrence, it plays as a savage dystopian parable housed in survival horror, a walk to death contest without winners. 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.

Trends to Watch

Myth turns mainstream
From Lilith in Young & Cursed to Aztec curses in Whistle, horror is turning to ancient texts and symbols. This trend avoids nostalgia, reclaiming pre Christian archetypes. Horror surpasses shocks, it recalls evil’s antiquity.

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

SVOD originals harden up
The era of filler horror on streamers is ending. Services bankroll legitimate writing, legitimate directors, and proper media. Films like Weapons and Sinners are treated as events, not content.

Festival buzz converts to leverage
Laurels move markets, opening release doors and coverage arcs. A film minus festival planning in 2025 risks getting lost.

Theatrical becomes a trust fall
Studios are only releasing horror theatrically if they believe it will overperform or spin into sequels. The balance slides PVOD or hybrid. Horror is not vanishing from theaters, it is getting curated.

Forecast: Autumn crowding, winter surprise

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 will scrap for air. Keep an eye on possible slips into early 2026 or platform flips.

December is anchored by Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, but do not rule out a surprise streamer drop in the final weeks. Given the dark, mythic lean of the year’s big films, a final creature feature or exorcism slot is open.

Horror’s 2025 outcome will be decided not by one title, but by how its variety connects with splintered audiences. The assignment is not to chase the next Get Out, it is to build horror that endures beyond box office.



The coming 2026 genre lineup: entries, filmmaker-first projects, paired with A hectic Calendar calibrated for screams

Dek: The arriving terror year crowds up front with a January glut, and then carries through summer, and well into the holidays, balancing brand heft, new concepts, and strategic release strategy. Studios and platforms are embracing mid-range economics, theatrical-first rollouts, and viral-minded pushes that elevate these pictures into water-cooler talk.

Where horror stands going into 2026

Horror has shown itself to be the consistent play in studio calendars, a space that can accelerate when it breaks through and still hedge the risk when it does not. After the 2023 year re-taught greenlighters that responsibly budgeted horror vehicles can galvanize social chatter, 2024 kept the drumbeat going with buzzy auteur projects and under-the-radar smashes. The carry carried into 2025, where revivals and premium-leaning entries showed there is a lane for different modes, from sequel tracks to original one-offs that scale internationally. The result for 2026 is a roster that appears tightly organized across the major shops, with defined corridors, a harmony of household franchises and new pitches, and a recommitted priority on box-office windows that feed downstream value on paid VOD and home platforms.

Schedulers say the horror lane now operates like a flex slot on the slate. Horror can roll out on open real estate, generate a easy sell for creative and reels, and overperform with audiences that respond on previews Thursday and stick through the week two if the feature hits. Following a strike-affected pipeline, the 2026 rhythm telegraphs certainty in that engine. The slate kicks off with a loaded January window, then turns to spring and early summer for audience offsets, while making space for a late-year stretch that carries into the fright window and afterwards. The map also spotlights the continuing integration of arthouse labels and subscription services that can grow from platform, grow buzz, and broaden at the strategic time.

A reinforcing pattern is legacy care across brand ecosystems and legacy franchises. Studio teams are not just mounting another next film. They are moving to present threaded continuity with a marquee sheen, whether that is a graphic identity that telegraphs a tonal shift or a cast configuration that anchors a next film to a classic era. At the meanwhile, the helmers behind the most buzzed-about originals are celebrating in-camera technique, makeup and prosthetics and concrete locations. That mix produces 2026 a solid mix of trust and freshness, which is a pattern that scales internationally.

Inside the studio playbooks

Paramount marks the early tempo with two high-profile bets that span tone from serious to silly. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with original architect Kevin Williamson in the director seat and Neve Campbell back at the core, presenting it as both a cross-generational handoff and a classic-mode character-first story. Filming is in progress in Atlanta, and the artistic posture signals a nostalgia-forward campaign without looping the last two entries’ family thread. Watch for a push leaning on classic imagery, early character teases, and a promo sequence landing toward late fall. Distribution is Paramount theatrical.

Paramount also relaunches a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are reforming, with the Wayans brothers involved as creative contributors for the first time since the early 2000s, a campaign lever the campaign will spotlight. As a non-tentpole summer option, this one will pursue wide buzz through meme-friendly cuts, with the horror spoof format permitting quick redirects to whatever dominates pop-cultural buzz that spring.

Universal has three clear strategies. SOULM8TE premieres January 9, 2026, a digital-age offshoot from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The core idea is straightforward, tragic, and logline-clear: a grieving man adopts an digital partner that unfolds into a murderous partner. The date nudges it to the front of a busy month, with the Universal machine likely to reprise eerie street stunts and quick hits that interweaves longing and dread.

On May 8, 2026, the studio places an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely interpreted as the feature developed under placeholder labels in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The public calendar currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which leaves room for a proper title to become an attention spike closer to the initial promo. The timing secures a slot in early May while larger tentpoles stack elsewhere.

Closing out the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film secures October 23, 2026, a slot he has excelled in before. His projects are marketed as director events, with a opaque teaser and a subsequent trailers that tee up tone without spoiling the concept. The Halloween-adjacent date opens a lane to fill pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then activate the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, joins with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček is at the helm of, with Souheila Yacoub in the lead. The franchise has established that a visceral, on-set effects led method can feel cinematic on a tight budget. Look for a gore-forward summer horror charge that pushes international play, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most international markets.

Sony’s horror bench is surprisingly deep. The studio books two IP moves in the back half. An untitled Insidious film debuts August 21, 2026, preserving a proven supernatural brand active while the spin-off branch advances. Sony has reshuffled on this title before, but the current plan aims it in late summer, where the brand has been strong.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil steps back in what the studio is framing as a new foundation for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a key part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a mission to serve both devotees and first-timers. The fall slot hands Sony window to build assets around setting detail, and monster aesthetics, elements that can accelerate IMAX and PLF uptake and convention buzz.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, plants a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film builds on Eggers’ run of period horror built on minute detail and period language, this time focused on werewolf legend. The imprint has already booked the frame for a holiday release, a strong signal in Eggers as a specialty play that can platform wide if early reception is glowing.

SVOD and PVOD rhythms

Home-platform rhythms for 2026 run on predictable routes. Universal’s genre entries land on copyright after a big-screen and PVOD window, a cadence that optimizes both premiere heat and sign-up spikes in the later phase. Prime Video balances acquired titles with worldwide buys and small theatrical windows when the data supports it. Max and Hulu work their advantages in catalog discovery, using well-timed internal promotions, horror hubs, and curated strips to maximize the tail on 2026 genre cume. Netflix keeps options open about own-slate titles and festival deals, timing horror entries toward the drop and positioning as event drops arrivals with fast-turn plans. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, deploys a dual-phase of precision theatrical plays and rapid platforming that converts buzz to sign-ups. That will be material for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before pressing niche channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ keeps a case-by-case stance on horror on a title-by-title basis. The platform has shown appetite to purchase select projects with accomplished filmmakers or A-list packages, then give them a qualifying theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet guild rules or to build credibility before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still leans on the 20th Century Studios slate, a notable driver for month-over-month retention when the genre conversation heats up.

Festival-to-platform breakouts

Cineverse is structuring a 2026 arc with two brand plays. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The setup is direct: the same brooding, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult classic, 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. Cineverse has signaled a wide-to-platform plan for Legacy, an promising marker for fans of the uncompromising series and for exhibitors hungry for R material in the late stretch.

Focus will operate the filmmaker lane with Werwulf, guiding the film through festival season if the cut is ready, then leveraging the Christmas window to open out. That positioning has served the company well for arthouse horror with mainstream crossovers. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not dated many 2026 horror titles in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines typically coalesce after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A credible outlook is a cluster of late-summer and fall platformers that can surge if reception warrants. Anticipate an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that debuts at Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work as a pair, using targeted theatrical to kindle evangelism that fuels their subscriber base.

Franchise entries versus originals

By skew, 2026 leans toward the known side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all leverage brand equity. The challenge, as ever, is overexposure. The operating solution is to brand each entry as a fresh tone. Paramount is underscoring relationship and legacy in Scream 7, Sony is hinting at a clean restart for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is embracing a continental coloration from a rising filmmaker. Those choices move the needle when the audience has so many options and social sentiment whipsaws.

Non-franchise titles and auteur plays deliver oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be sold as a brand unto itself. Sam Raimi’s Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, puts Rachel McAdams into a survival chiller premise with Raimi’s impish dread. SOULM8TE offers a clear, chilling tech hook. Werwulf delivers period specificity and an flinty tone. Even when the title is not based on legacy IP, the cast-creatives package is known enough to convert curiosity into pre-sales and advance-audience nights.

Three-year comps frame the strategy. In 2023, a theater-first model that kept streaming intact did not hamper a hybrid test from hitting when the brand was compelling. In 2024, meticulous-craft horror popped in PLF. In 2025, a reawakened chapter of a beloved infection saga proved again that global horror franchises can still feel novel when they reorient and grow scope. 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 double feature plan, with chapters lensed sequentially, creates space for marketing to tie installments through protagonists and motifs and to continue assets in field without pause points.

Behind-the-camera trends

The director conversations behind this slate indicate a continued lean toward in-camera, locale-specific craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not resemble any recent iteration of the property, a stance that reinforces the practical-first approach he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film wrapped principal photography and is moving toward its April 17, 2026 date. Marketing will likely that centers mood and dread rather than fireworks, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership bolstering smart budget discipline.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has called Werwulf as the grimmest project he has tackled, which tracks with a Middle Ages setting and period-accurate language, a combination that can make for textured sound and a cold, elemental mood on the big screen. Focus will likely warm the market to this aesthetic in craft profiles and craft features before rolling out a teaser that elevates tone over story, a move that has clicked for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is geared for practical nastiness, a signature of the series that performs globally in red-band trailers and produces shareable shock clips from early screenings. Scream 7 aims for a meta pivot that returns to the core star. Resident Evil will live or die on monster work and world-building, which favor convention activations and staggered reveals. Insidious tends to be a theatrical sound showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the cinema argument feel definitive. Look for trailers that accent surgical sound design, deep-bass stingers, and quiet voids that sing on PLF.

How the year maps out

January is packed. Universal’s SOULM8TE opens January 9, 2026, then Sony returns a week later with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple on January 16. Return to Silent Hill follows on January 23, a moody palate cleanser amid heavier IP. The month buttons 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 real, but the spread of tones lets each find a lane, and the five-week structure allows a clean run for each if word of mouth sustains.

Post-January through spring stage summer. Paramount’s Scream 7 hits February 27 with legacy heat. In April, New Line’s The Mummy restores a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once belonged to genre counterprogramming and now enables big openers. The 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 underlines contrasts. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is lighter and broader, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 offers hard-R intensity. The counterprogramming logic is smart. The spoof can pop next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest serves older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have run their PLF course.

Late Q3 into Q4 leans recognizable. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously performed. Resident Evil follows September 18, a bridge slot that still feeds into Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event claims October 23 and will engross cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely reinforced by a mystery-driven teaser strategy and limited asset reveals that favor idea over plot.

Year-end prestige and specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a statement that genre can stand up at Christmas when packaged as filmmaker prestige. The distributor has done this before, deliberate rollout, then leaning on critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to extend talk into January. If the film wins with critics, the studio can broaden in the first week of 2027 while riding holiday turnout and gift-card use.

Project-by-project snapshots

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting to be detailed as production continues. Logline: Sidney returns to challenge a new Ghostface while the narrative resurfaces the original film’s genes. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: heritage pivot with a current edge.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A grieving man’s AI companion grows into something perilously amorous. Rating: TBA. Production: Shoot completed 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 broadens the canvas beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult rises in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Double-shot with the first film. Positioning: elevated outbreak saga chapter.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man goes back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to confront a shimmering reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed and U.S. theatrical set. 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 abrasive boss battle to survive on a uninhabited island as the pecking order swivels and paranoia creeps in. 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 not yet announced in official materials. Logline: A contemporary retelling that returns the monster to fear, based on Cronin’s physical craft and oozing dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Principal wrapped. Positioning: classic monster relaunch with a filmmaker’s stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. click site Logline: {A closed-door haunting piece that manipulates the fright of a child’s inconsistent POV. Rating: not yet rated. Production: completed. Positioning: studio-supported and toplined ghost thriller.

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 needles current genre trends and true crime fascinations. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: shoot planned for fall 2025. Positioning: big-tent summer spoof.

Evil Dead Burn (Warner Bros. domestic, July 24, 2026)
Director: Sébastien Vaniček. Top cast: Souheila Yacoub, with ensemble additions. Logline: A new infestation of Deadites detonates, with an international twist in tone and setting. Rating: TBA. Production: filming in New Zealand. Positioning: R-forward continuation crafted for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: awaiting reveal. Top cast: forthcoming. Logline: The Further extends again, with a unlucky family entangled with long-buried horrors. Rating: TBD. Production: gearing up for summer filming with late-summer bow. Positioning: durable spectral IP in a late-summer sweet spot.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: pending public reveal. Top cast: TBA. Logline: A fresh restart designed to re-establish the franchise from the ground up, with an preference for survival-driven horror over action pyrotechnics. Rating: pending. Production: in development with a locked date. Positioning: IP-accurate revival with mainstream runway.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: TBA. Logline: carefully shrouded. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: active. Positioning: director-branded event with teaser focus.

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 period-specific language and elemental fear. Rating: forthcoming. Production: in active prep with holiday date set. Positioning: holiday prestige play with craft awards upside.

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: date shifting, fall likely.

Why the calendar favors 2026

Three workable forces calibrate this lineup. First, production that eased or recalendared in 2024 called for breathing room in the schedule. Horror can plug those gaps fast because scripts often need fewer locations, fewer large-scale CGI runs, and shorter timelines. Second, studios have become more methodical about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently exceeded straight-to-streaming drops. Third, social chatter converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will amplify repeatable beats from test screenings, precision scare clips launched on Thursday previews, and experiential pop-ups that power influencer posts. It is a repeatable playbook because it holds up.

Factor four is the scheduling calculus. Early-2026 family and superhero concentrations ease, providing runway for genre entries that can seize a weekend or play as the older-leaning alternative. January is the prime example. Four horror lanes will cluster across five weekends, which lets WOM accrue cleanly. Summer provides the other window. The lampoon benefits from family and action buoyancy, then the hard-R entry can take advantage of a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Financials, ratings, and sleeper angles

Budgets remain in the efficient band. Most of the films above will land under the $40–$50 million mark, with many far below. That allows for broad premium screen use 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 lower and 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 use those gaps. 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. Project a sturdy PVOD period across titles, since horror fans have shown a willingness to pay for convenience after an opening weekend, especially when word of mouth is strong.

Audience journey through the year

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers beat and breadth. January is a spread, February delivers a legacy slasher, April reanimates a Universal monster, May and June provide a one-two spectral pairing for date nights and group outings, July leans brutal, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a icy, literate nightmare. That is how you keep chatter alive and occupancy strong without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can gain momentum, using earlier releases to stage the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors endorse 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 credibly make the premium-screen case, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing grain, audio design, and image-making 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 Is Well Positioned

Calendars slide. Ratings change. Casts reconfigure. But the spine of 2026 horror is sturdy. There is franchise muscle where it helps, fresh vision where it counts, and a calendar that shows studios grasp the timing of scares. The awards and festival pipeline into 2027 will come into focus once the fall festivals lock, and it would not be surprising to see at least one closing-window arthouse pickup join the party. For now, the job is simple, produce clean trailers, lock the reveals, and let the gasps sell the seats.