Mythic Dread Emerges within Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a nightmare fueled horror feature, premiering October 2025 on global platforms

A chilling spiritual suspense film from creator / helmer Andrew Chiaramonte, awakening an ancient force when passersby become proxies in a hellish struggle. Available October 2, 2025, on Amazon’s Prime Video, YouTube streaming, Google Play, iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango at Home.

Hollywood, CA (August 8th, 2025) – hold tight for *Young & Cursed*, a unnerving tale of staying alive and timeless dread that will remodel horror this harvest season. Guided by rising horror auteur Andrew Chiaramonte, this nerve-racking and atmospheric suspense flick follows five characters who are stirred stuck in a wooded cottage under the unfriendly rule of Kyra, a young woman haunted by a two-thousand-year-old religious nightmare. Steel yourself to be ensnared by a motion picture experience that harmonizes soul-chilling terror with arcane tradition, hitting on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Diabolic occupation has been a well-established motif in the silver screen. In *Young & Cursed*, that concept is challenged when the malevolences no longer descend externally, but rather deep within. This echoes the most hidden element of these individuals. The result is a intense cognitive warzone where the drama becomes a unyielding struggle between purity and corruption.


In a unforgiving wild, five characters find themselves trapped under the malicious sway and overtake of a secretive female presence. As the victims becomes vulnerable to evade her influence, stranded and followed by evils beyond comprehension, they are thrust to reckon with their emotional phantoms while the timeline brutally winds toward their obliteration.


In *Young & Cursed*, delusion amplifies and partnerships erode, coercing each person to reflect on their being and the principle of autonomy itself. The danger climb with every instant, delivering a horror experience that merges mystical fear with raw emotion.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my goal was to explore core terror, an evil before modern man, filtering through our weaknesses, and questioning a evil that peels away humanity when choice is taken.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Taking on the role of Kyra required summoning something past sanity. She is in denial until the spirit seizes her, and that pivot is terrifying because it is so close.”

Platform Access

*Young & Cursed* will be offered for home viewing beginning from October 2, 2025, on Amazon’s platform, Google’s video hub, Google’s store, Apple iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home—delivering subscribers no matter where they are can be part of this fearful revelation.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just premiered a new video trailer for *Young & Cursed*, streaming to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a next step to its first trailer, which has garnered over thousands of viewers.


In addition to its domestic release, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has announced that *Young & Cursed* will also be launched globally, exporting the fear to international horror buffs.


Make sure to see this bone-rattling exploration of dread. Enter *Young & Cursed* this launch day to dive into these ghostly lessons about existence.


For director insights, on-set glimpses, and reveals straight from the filmmakers, follow @YoungCursedOfficial across Instagram and Twitter and visit our horror hub.





Contemporary horror’s tipping point: 2025 for genre fans U.S. release slate weaves myth-forward possession, underground frights, set against tentpole growls

Running from survival horror inspired by old testament echoes and onward to series comebacks in concert with keen independent perspectives, 2025 is tracking to be the genre’s most multifaceted in tandem with calculated campaign year in the past ten years.

The 2025 horror calendar is not just busy, it is strategic. studio majors hold down the year by way of signature titles, while platform operators prime the fall with emerging auteurs together with ancestral chills. At the same time, the micro-to-mid budget ranks is riding the uplift of a record-setting 2024 festival season. With Halloween holding the peak, the non-October slots are tuned with exactness. A fat September–October lane is customary now, notably this year, players are marking January, spring, and mid-summer. Fans are ravenous, studios are exacting, so 2025 is positioned to be the most designed season yet.

Major Studio Plans with Mini-Major Flex: The Return of Prestige Fear

The studio class is engaged. If 2024 prepared the terrain, 2025 presses the advantage.

Universal’s pipeline opens the year with a marquee bet: a modernized Wolf Man, stepping away from the classic old-country village, but a sharp contemporary setting. Under director Leigh Whannell fronted by Christopher Abbott with Julia Garner, this take locates the lycanthropy inside home disintegration. The metamorphosis extends past flesh, into marriage, parenthood, and human hurt. arriving mid January, it fits the new plan to claim winter’s soft window with prestige horror rather than castoffs.

The spring frame introduces Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher port tuned to austere horror. Guided by Eli Craig with Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it plays as blood lacquered Americana with satire under the paint. Under the guise, it interrogates township panic, generational breaks, and mob rule. Festival whispers say it is sharp.

As summer wanes, Warner’s pipeline unveils the final movement from its anchor horror saga: The Conjuring: Last Rites. With Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson returning as Ed and Lorraine Warren, the entry offers emotional coda while tackling one of their notorious real cases. Despite a known recipe, director Michael Chaves is said to bring a more mournful, introspective tone to the series swan song. It goes early September, easing the path before October flood.

Then comes The Black Phone 2. Once set for early summer, the October pivot signals belief. Scott Derrickson again directs, and those signature textures resurface: period tinged dread, trauma as narrative engine, and eerie supernatural logic. This time, the stakes are raised, through a thicker read on the “grabber” legend and generational ache.

Completing the calendar is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a picture that draws on name power. The second outing goes deeper into backstory, enlarges the animatronic menagerie, courting teens and the thirty something base. It posts in December, locking down the winter tail.

SVOD Originals: Modest spend, serious shock

As theatrical skews franchise first, platforms are wagering boldly, and results are there.

A top daring platform piece is Weapons, a cold file multi story chiller threading three timelines via a mass disappearance. Guided by Zach Cregger with Josh Brolin opposite Julia Garner, the piece merges terror with dramatic mass. Arriving to cinemas late summer then to streamers in fall, it seems set to fuel decode culture and breakdowns, in the Barbarian lane.

On the quieter side is Together, a two hander body horror spiral including Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Taking place in an isolated rental as a retreat goes wrong, the work maps love envy and self hatred onto bodily unraveling. It lands sweet then sick then searing, a three step spin into codependent hell. With no dated platform window yet, it is a near certain autumn drop.

Another headline entry is Sinners, a 1930s set vampire folk tale led by Michael B. Jordan. Photographed in sepia saturation with biblical metaphor, it suggests There Will Be Blood blended with Let the Right One In. The story probes American religious trauma by way of supernatural allegory. Early test screenings have marked it as one of the year’s most talked about streaming debuts.

Additional platform indies hold in reserve: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper all tap into themes of grief, disappearance, and identity, often using horror as metaphor instead of spectacle.

The Possession Runs Deep: Young & Cursed

Going live October 2 on major services, Young & Cursed positions itself as a rare hybrid, intimate in scope and mythic in reach. Written and directed 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. With nightfall, Kyra’s power deepens, an invasive force mining their most secret fears, frailties, and regrets.

The chill is psyche led, anchored in primal myth. Not another exorcism story reliant on Catholic rite and Latin phrase, this one bores into something older, something darker. Lilith bypasses ritual, she awakens from trauma, repression, and human fragility. Making possession internal threads Young & Cursed into the current of intimate character studies in genre skin.

Streaming platforms like Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home have positioned the film as a Halloween counterweight to theatrical sequels and monster revivals. It reads as sharp positioning. No bloated canon. No IP hangover. Pure psyche terror, contained and taut, sized for the binge then exhale flow of digital viewers. In a spectacle stack, Young & Cursed could be the hush before the shriek.

Festivals as Springboards

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF remain breeding grounds for what horror looks like six to twelve months later. They are more runway than museum.

The Fantastic Fest slate for horror is strong this year. Primate opens with tropical body horror, sparking Cronenberg plus Herzog comps. Whistle, an Aztec lore revenge tale, aims to close with burn.

The midnight bench, including If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, hums from execution, not mere titling. That film, an A24 backed satire of toxic fandom inside a horror convention lockdown, looks poised to break out.

SXSW gave air to Clown in a Cornfield and to microbudget hauntings courting buyers. Sundance tends to present grief infused elevated horror and likely will, and Tribeca’s genre box tilting urban, social, and surreal.

This cycle, festival strategy pivots from discovery toward branding. Laurels now light the fuse, they do not just adorn.

Legacy Horror: Sequels, Reboots, Reinventions

The sequel reboot ecosystem reads stronger and more precise.

Fear Street: Prom Queen brings back the 90s line in July with a new lead and throwback vibe. 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, seeking to build out techno horror lore using new characters and AI born frights. The initial entry’s meme life and streaming legs push Universal to scale up.

Another headline is The Long Walk, adapting a grim early Stephen King piece, steered by Francis Lawrence, it stands as a punishing dystopian allegory wearing survival horror, a march until death with no victors. Marketed correctly, it could be The Hunger Games for horror adults.

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

Trends Worth Watching

Mythic lanes mainstream
Young & Cursed with Lilith and Whistle with Aztec curses both signal ancient texts and symbols. This trend avoids nostalgia, reclaiming pre Christian archetypes. Horror reaches past fear, it states evil is old.

Body horror reemerges
Pieces such as Together, Weapons, and Keeper bring it back to flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation map to heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streaming originals get teeth
Throwaway platform horror is on the way out. SVOD players fund strong scripts, proven directors, and real spend. Pieces like Weapons and Sinners receive event status, not feed stock.

Festival momentum becomes leverage
Festival ribbons become currency for better windows and top shelves. Skip festival strategy in 2025 and the film risks invisibility.

Big screen is a trust fall
Studios release horror theatrically only when they believe in overperformance or sequel trees. Everything else is PVOD or hybrid. Horror remains on big screens, selectively curated.

Forward View: Autumn overload with a winter wildcard

The combination of Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons across September and October saturates fall. Indies like Bone Lake and Keeper will have to fight for oxygen. Watch for one or more of these to pivot into early 2026 or shift platforms.

December holds on Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, though a stealth streamer release may land late. Because major titles skew dark and mythic, a late creature feature or exorcism could slide in.

The 2025 performance is about reach across segments, not one hero title. The plan is not to clone Get Out, it is to craft horror that lives on beyond box office.



The approaching scare season: Sequels, standalone ideas, together with A brimming Calendar engineered for screams

Dek: The brand-new scare season builds from the jump with a January glut, and then runs through midyear, and running into the winter holidays, combining name recognition, novel approaches, and calculated release strategy. Distributors with platforms are embracing cost discipline, theatrical exclusivity first, and shareable marketing that convert these releases into mainstream chatter.

The genre’s posture for 2026

The field has established itself as the sturdy counterweight in studio calendars, a category that can lift when it lands and still mitigate the exposure when it stumbles. After 2023 re-taught executives that lean-budget horror vehicles can shape the zeitgeist, 2024 carried the beat with buzzy auteur projects and word-of-mouth wins. The trend rolled into 2025, where returns and critical darlings signaled there is a market for a variety of tones, from ongoing IP entries to non-IP projects that carry overseas. The combined impact for the 2026 slate is a schedule that is strikingly coherent across the major shops, with strategic blocks, a combination of legacy names and novel angles, and a refocused attention on big-screen windows that feed downstream value on premium digital and digital services.

Schedulers say the space now works like a versatile piece on the calendar. Horror can roll out on many corridors, offer a easy sell for previews and vertical videos, and overperform with ticket buyers that arrive on previews Thursday and keep coming through the follow-up frame if the offering works. After a strike-impacted pipeline, the 2026 layout indicates comfort in that setup. The slate opens with a stacked January window, then leans on spring and early summer for contrast, while carving room for a autumn push that reaches into the fright window and past Halloween. The layout also spotlights the increasing integration of indie distributors and subscription services that can build gradually, generate chatter, and broaden at the right moment.

An added macro current is series management across linked properties and legacy IP. Distribution groups are not just greenlighting another continuation. They are looking to package connection with a occasion, whether that is a logo package that conveys a tonal shift or a lead change that reconnects a next film to a heyday. At the same time, the creative teams behind the high-profile originals are leaning into physical effects work, practical gags and concrete locations. That blend hands 2026 a healthy mix of familiarity and discovery, which is what works overseas.

Studios and mini-majors: what the big players are doing

Paramount establishes early momentum with two big-ticket entries that bracket the tone map. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with original architect Kevin Williamson in the top job and Neve Campbell back at the center, angling it as both a succession moment and a foundation-forward character-forward chapter. Cameras are rolling in Atlanta, and the creative stance indicates a heritage-honoring mode without repeating the last two entries’ sibling arc. A campaign is expected fueled by legacy iconography, first-look character reveals, and a promo sequence slated for 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 reuniting, with the Wayans brothers involved behind the scenes for the first time since the early 2000s, a selling point the campaign will emphasize. As a non-tentpole summer option, this one will build general-audience talk through gif-able moments, with the horror spoof format inviting quick switches to whatever dominates trend lines that spring.

Universal has three differentiated pushes. SOULM8TE opens January 9, 2026, a AI-tinged spinoff from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The foundation is tidy, grief-rooted, and elevator-pitch-ready: a grieving man brings home an machine companion that grows into a fatal companion. The date nudges it to the front of a busy month, with the marketing arm likely to bring back creepy live activations and bite-size content that interweaves devotion and creep.

On May 8, 2026, the studio schedules an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely considered the feature developed under working titles in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The public calendar currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which sets up a title reveal to become an headline beat closer to the debut look. The timing stakes a claim in early May while larger tentpoles stack elsewhere.

Capping the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film secures October 23, 2026, a slot he has worked well before. Peele’s pictures are framed as signature events, with a minimalist tease and a later creative that set the tone without spoiling the concept. The Halloween-adjacent date opens a lane to saturate pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then capitalize on the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, joins with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček directs, with Souheila Yacoub in the lead. The franchise has shown that a gritty, in-camera leaning aesthetic can feel elevated on a controlled budget. Look for a red-band summer horror surge that pushes global traction, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most international markets.

Sony’s horror bench is unusually deep. The studio deploys two brand-forward plays in the back half. An untitled Insidious film premieres August 21, 2026, carrying a consistent supernatural brand active while the spin-off branch incubates. Sony has repositioned on this title before, but the current plan locks it in late summer, where the brand has traditionally delivered.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil re-emerges in what Sony is calling a from-the-ground-up reboot 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 directive to serve both devotees and casuals. The fall slot provides the studio time to build artifacts around canon, and creature effects, elements that can stoke premium format interest and fan-culture participation.

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 extends Eggers’ run of period horror rooted in historical precision and archaic language, this time circling werewolf lore. The label has already set the date for a holiday release, a public confidence in the auteur as a specialty play that can broaden if early reception is glowing.

SVOD and PVOD rhythms

Platform strategies for 2026 run on familiar rails. Universal’s horror titles transition to copyright after a box-office phase then PVOD, a tiered path that maximizes both premiere heat and sub growth in the late-window. Prime Video stitches together library titles with global pickups and brief theater runs when the data backs it. Max and Hulu optimize their lanes in back-catalog play, using editorial spots, Halloween hubs, and staff picks to maximize the tail on the 2026 genre total. Netflix keeps flexible about Netflix originals and festival grabs, timing horror entries closer to launch and turning into events launches with surge campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, exploits a hybrid of limited theatrical footprints and prompt platform moves that monetizes buzz via trials. That will be meaningful for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before pivoting to genre-fan funnels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ treats carefully horror on a bespoke basis. The platform has signaled readiness to secure select projects with prestige directors or headline-cast packages, then give them a qualifying theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet award rules or to show bona fides before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still capitalizes on the 20th Century Studios slate, a important element for monthly activity when the genre conversation peaks.

Specialty and indie breakouts

Cineverse is engineering a 2026 track with two brand extensions. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The sell is clean: the same atmospheric, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult classic, updated for modern soundscapes and visuals. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a late-year slot, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. The distributor has positioned a theatrical-first plan for Legacy, an promising marker for fans of the uncompromising series and for exhibitors hungry for R material in the autumn weeks.

Focus will work the director lane with Werwulf, piloting the title through select festivals if the cut is ready, then relying on the holiday frame to scale. That positioning has delivered for craft-driven horror with mainstream crossovers. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not publicly set many dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines tend to firm up after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A plausible forecast is a set of late-summer and fall platformers that can widen if reception prompts. Be ready for an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that bows at Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work hand in hand, using mini theatrical to fuel evangelism that fuels their paid base.

Franchise entries versus originals

By volume, the 2026 slate tilts in favor of the series side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all draw on marquee value. The concern, as ever, is fatigue. The standing approach is to present each entry as a recalibration. Paramount is centering character and legacy in Scream 7, Sony is hinting at a restart at zero for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is maximizing a French sensibility from a ascendant talent. Those choices prove meaningful when the audience has so many options and social sentiment tilts quickly.

Non-franchise titles and visionary-led titles add oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be sold as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, centers Rachel McAdams in a survival shocker premise with signature mischievous dread. SOULM8TE offers a sharp, spooky tech hook. Werwulf leans on period specificity and an unyielding tone. Even when the title is not based on a recognizable brand, the deal build is known enough to drive advance ticketing and Thursday-night crowds.

Past-three-year patterns announce the plan. In 2023, a exclusive window model that respected streaming windows did not foreclose a dual release from hitting when the brand was powerful. In 2024, craft-first auteur horror outperformed in big-format auditoriums. In 2025, a resuscitation of a beloved infection saga made clear that global horror franchises can still feel recharged when they alter lens and stretch the story. 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 double feature plan, with chapters shot in tandem, provides the means for marketing to thread films through personae and themes and to maintain a flow of assets without long breaks.

Behind-the-camera trends

The filmmaking conversations behind the 2026 entries hint at a continued tilt toward real, location-led craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not repeat any recent iteration of the property, a stance that matches the practical-effects sensibility he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film finished filming and is headed for its April 17, 2026 date. Marketing will likely that see here foregrounds unease and texture rather than roller-coaster spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership supporting efficient spending.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has outlined Werwulf as the darkest project he has tackled, which tracks with a Middle Ages setting and authentic period speech, a combination that can make for sonic immersion and a chilly, elemental vibe on the big screen. Focus will likely preview this aesthetic in long-lead press and artisan spotlights before rolling out a tease that prioritizes vibe over plot, a move that has paid off for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is aimed at rubbery nastiness, a signature of the series that connects worldwide in red-band trailers and creates shareable reaction videos from early screenings. Scream 7 delivers a meta recalibration that centers an original star. Resident Evil will succeed or falter on creature design and production design, which work nicely for booth activations and managed asset releases. Insidious tends to be a audio craft showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the premium-screen pitch feel necessary. Look for trailers that underscore pinpoint sound design, deep-bass stingers, and hush beats that play in premium auditoriums.

Release calendar overview

January is heavy. 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 quiet contrast amid larger brand plays. The month finishes with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival-horror from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is thick, but the tonal variety affords lanes to each, and the five-week structure allows a clean run for each if word of mouth holds.

February through May prime the summer. Scream 7 debuts February 27 with brand warmth. In April, New Line’s The Mummy resurrects a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once favored genre counterprogramming and now accommodates big openers. The untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 leads into summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer sorts the tones. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is lighter and broader, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 serves severe intensity. The counterprogramming logic is sensible. The spoof can win next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest rewards older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have shuffled through big rooms.

August and September into October leans franchise. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously performed. Resident Evil rolls in after September 18, a shoulder season window that still bridges into Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event occupies October 23 and will soak up cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely pushed by a shroud-first teaser rhythm and limited disclosures that trade in concept over detail.

Prestige-horror at year-end. Werwulf on December 25 is a line in sand that genre can thrive over the holidays when packaged as auteur prestige horror. Focus has done this before, platforming carefully, then pressing critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to stay top of mind into January. If the film resonates with critics, the studio can open up in the first week of 2027 while benefiting from holiday season and gift-card use.

Title briefs within the narrative

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting TBA in phases as production rolls. Logline: Sidney returns to counter a new Ghostface while the narrative revisits 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 devastated man’s AI companion escalates 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 opens the world beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult forms in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Shot sequentially with the first film. Positioning: prestige survival-horror continuation.

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 meet a unsettled reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Complete with theatrical path. 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 prickly boss push to survive on a far-flung island as the power balance of power upends and paranoia spreads. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed. Positioning: star-led survival horror from a master director.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles in the vault in official materials. Logline: A renewed vision that returns the monster to nightmare, shaped by Cronin’s practical craft and slow-bloom dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Principal wrapped. Positioning: classic monster revival with auteur stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A home-set haunting premise that explores the chill of a child’s mercurial POV. Rating: pending. Production: post-ready. Positioning: studio-supported and star-led occult chiller.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers returning creatively. Logline: {A spoof revival that lampoons current genre trends and true crime fixations. Rating: TBD. Production: lensing scheduled for fall 2025. Positioning: mainstream summer comedy-horror.

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 spreads, with an overseas twist in tone and setting. Rating: to be announced. Production: principal photography in New Zealand. Positioning: R-forward continuation crafted for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: to be revealed later. Top cast: to be announced. Logline: The Further opens again, with a unlucky family tethered to long-buried horrors. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: eying a summer shoot for late-summer slot. Positioning: reliable supernatural IP in a date that favors the brand.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: pending public reveal. Top cast: TBA. Logline: A ground-up reset designed to recreate the franchise from the ground up, with an priority on survivalist horror over action spectacle. Rating: to be announced. Production: dev phase with date secured. Positioning: game-grounded refresh with wider appeal.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: undisclosed. Logline: Kept under wraps by design. Rating: to be announced. Production: in progress. Positioning: auteur event powered by teasers.

Werwulf (Focus Features, December 25, 2026)
Director: Robert Eggers. Top cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, with other regulars expected. Logline: A medieval werewolf story built on era-faithful speech and primal menace. Rating: undetermined. Production: in preproduction for holiday debut. Positioning: prestige-grade holiday chiller with artisan honors in view.

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 big-screen run before platforming. Status: slot unsettled, fall projected.

Why 2026 makes sense

Three workable forces define this lineup. First, production that stalled or recalendared in 2024 needed calendar breathing room. Horror can fill those gaps quickly because scripts often are location-light, fewer large-scale effects set pieces, and accelerated schedules. 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 outpaced straight-to-streaming landings. Third, social conversation converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will capitalize on turnkey scare beats from test screenings, curated scare clips aligned to Thursday preview shows, and experiential pop-ups that serve as influencer content. It is a repeatable playbook because it converts.

Programming arithmetic plays a role. Early-year family and superhero blocks are thinner in 2026, providing runway for genre entries that can own a weekend outright or function as the older-skew counter. January is the prime example. Four genre tones will stack across five weekends, which keeps buzz lanes tidy. Summer provides the other window. The parody can surf the early-summer animated and action swell, then the hard-R entry can benefit from a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Budgets and certifications, sleeper calculus

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

The sleeper chase continues in Q1, where midrange-budget genre can own weekends with minimal competition, and again in late summer, where horror often becomes the conversation when tentpoles tire. The 2026 slate is set up to use those gaps. 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.

The moviegoer’s year in horror

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers beat and breadth. January is a feast, February delivers a legacy slasher, April resurrects a Universal monster, May and June provide a paranormal one-two for date nights and group outings, July gets visceral, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a cold, literate nightmare. That is how you hold talk and turnout without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can sequence upward, using earlier releases to condition the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

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

A Promising 2026

Calendars slide. Ratings change. Casts rotate. But the spine of 2026 horror is firm. There is franchise muscle where it helps, creative ambition where it counts, and a calendar that shows studios understand how and when audiences want to be scared. The awards and festival pipeline into 2027 will come into focus once the fall festivals lock, and it would not be surprising to see at least one late-breaking specialty acquisition join the party. For now, the job is simple, cut crisp trailers, keep the curtain closed, and let the shudders sell the seats.