Age-old Evil Returns within Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a fear soaked supernatural thriller, launching Oct 2025 on top digital platforms

This blood-curdling otherworldly horror tale from writer / film architect Andrew Chiaramonte, evoking an age-old force when unfamiliar people become proxies in a demonic ceremony. Available on October 2, 2025, on Prime Video, the YouTube platform, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango on-demand.

Hollywood, CA (August 8th, 2025) – Prepare yourselves for *Young & Cursed*, a frightful portrayal of survival and old world terror that will remodel genre cinema this harvest season. Crafted by rising horror auteur Andrew Chiaramonte, this gritty and moody suspense flick follows five lost souls who are stirred ensnared in a hidden lodge under the malignant command of Kyra, a mysterious girl consumed by a timeless Old Testament spirit. Get ready to be captivated by a screen-based presentation that fuses bone-deep fear with spiritual backstory, hitting on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Diabolic occupation has been a long-standing element in visual storytelling. In *Young & Cursed*, that idea is challenged when the fiends no longer form beyond the self, but rather inside them. This echoes the grimmest dimension of all involved. The result is a riveting moral showdown where the plotline becomes a merciless confrontation between purity and corruption.


In a unforgiving wild, five teens find themselves caught under the unholy presence and grasp of a haunted apparition. As the survivors becomes unresisting to escape her dominion, severed and hunted by evils inconceivable, they are confronted to face their inner demons while the hours relentlessly counts down toward their fate.


In *Young & Cursed*, suspicion rises and partnerships collapse, pressuring each person to reflect on their essence and the idea of personal agency itself. The risk amplify with every instant, delivering a fear-soaked story that integrates ghostly evil with human vulnerability.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my purpose was to explore basic terror, an entity that predates humanity, manipulating our fears, and wrestling with a power that forces self-examination when freedom is gone.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Transforming into Kyra was about accessing something beyond human emotion. She is insensitive until the spirit seizes her, and that transformation is harrowing because it is so emotional.”

Streaming Info

*Young & Cursed* will be distributed for audiences beginning from October 2, 2025, on Prime Video, YouTube, Google’s store, Apple iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango at Home—giving streamers internationally can watch this paranormal experience.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just premiered a new official trailer #2 for *Young & Cursed*, uploaded to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a next step to its first preview, which has racked up over a hundred thousand impressions.


In addition to its North American premiere, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has confirmed that *Young & Cursed* will also be launched globally, making the film to thrill-seekers globally.


Avoid skipping this life-altering descent into hell. Stream *Young & Cursed* this spooky debut to confront these unholy truths about free will.


For featurettes, production news, and reveals from the creators, follow @YoungCursedOfficial across social media and visit the official digital haunt.





U.S. horror’s inflection point: 2025 U.S. Slate Mixes ancient-possession motifs, independent shockers, plus Franchise Rumbles

Running from endurance-driven terror drawn from primordial scripture all the way to franchise returns together with keen independent perspectives, 2025 is emerging as the most complex plus blueprinted year in the past ten years.

It is crowded, and also meticulously arranged. Top studios plant stakes across the year through proven series, in tandem streaming platforms crowd the fall with new perspectives set against mythic dread. At the same time, festival-forward creators is carried on the afterglow of 2024’s record festival wave. Since Halloween is the prized date, the non-October slots are tuned with exactness. The fall stretch is the proving field, and now, bookings reach January, spring, and mid-summer. Fans are ravenous, studios are methodical, which means 2025 may be recorded as the genre’s most deliberate campaign.

Studio and Mini-Major Strategies: High-craft horror returns

The studio class is engaged. If 2024 primed the reset, 2025 amplifies the bet.

Universal’s pipeline sets the tone with a marquee bet: a contemporary Wolf Man, situated not in a foggy nineteenth century European hamlet, but a crisp modern milieu. Directed by Leigh Whannell and toplined by Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this pass grounds the lycanthropy in household collapse. The change is not purely bodily, it is marital, parental, and achingly human. set for mid January, it fits the new plan to claim winter’s soft window with prestige horror rather than castoffs.

By spring, Clown in a Cornfield premieres, a YA slasher conversion presented as stripped terror. Steered by Eli Craig and featuring Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it functions as blood smeared American gothic with snark. Behind the greasepaint sits a critique of small town suspicion, generational fracture, and vigilante justice. First wave buzz indicates sharp teeth.

When summer tapers, Warner’s schedule unveils the final movement within its surest horror brand: The Conjuring: Last Rites. With Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson back as Ed and Lorraine Warren, the entry offers emotional coda while tackling one of their notorious real cases. Granted the structure is classic, Michael Chaves is rumored to steer toward a somber, reflective register for the close. It goes early September, easing the path before October flood.

Then comes The Black Phone 2. First targeted at early summer, the move into October reads bullish. Derrickson re teams, and the DNA that clicked last time remains: 70s style chill, trauma as theme, with spooky supernatural reasoning. This time the stakes climb, through a fuller probe of the “grabber” lore and inherited grief.

Capping the big ticket run is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a picture that draws on name power. The return delves further into myth, enlarges the animatronic menagerie, with a bullseye on teens and thirty something nostalgics. It drops in December, stabilizing the winter back end.

Streaming Offerings: Economy, maximum dread

While cinemas swing on series strength, platforms are greenlighting boldly, and the needle moves.

A flagship risky title is Weapons, a multi timeline cold-case dread piece threading three timelines via a mass disappearance. Directed by Zach Cregger anchored by Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the film fuses dread with dramatic heft. Opening theatrically late summer ahead of fall SVOD, it will likely trigger thread wars and analysis videos, recalling Barbarian.

At the smaller scale sits Together, a close quarters body horror study featuring Alison Brie opposite Dave Franco. Confined to a lonely rental when a vacation turns, the script studies love with jealousy with self rejection turning into decay. It is romantic, grotesque, and deeply uncomfortable, a three act spiral into codependent hell. Although a platform date is not yet posted, it is virtually assured for fall.

One more platform talker is Sinners, a thirties era vampire folk parable featuring Michael B. Jordan. Captured with warm sepia and heavy biblical metaphor, it channels There Will Be Blood against Let the Right One In. The work dissects American religious trauma using supernatural allegory. Initial test audience notes point to a buzzy streaming debut.

Several other streaming indies are quietly waiting in the wings: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper all tap into themes of grief, disappearance, and identity, often using horror as metaphor instead of spectacle.

Possession Runs Deep: Young & Cursed

Posting October 2 across the big platforms, Young & Cursed arrives as a rare marriage, contained in staging yet mythic in effect. Authored and directed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the narrative rides with five strangers waking in a secluded woodland cabin, held by Kyra, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. As night descends, so does Kyra’s power, an invasive force that exploits their deepest fears, weaknesses, and regrets.

The threat is psychological first, wired with primal myth. Rather than another exorcism film centered on Catholic rites or Latin incantations, this one reaches back to something older, something darker. Lilith does not answer ceremony, she climbs through trauma, hush, and human fracture. Turning possession inward syncs Young & Cursed to the trend of character led dramas draped in 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. It is a smart play. No overstuffed canon. No brand fatigue. Just psychological dread, contained and tense, tailored to the binge then breathe cadence of digital horror fans. Against fireworks, Young & Cursed might stand apart by stillness, then shock.

Festival Born and Buyer Ready

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF still seed what horror becomes in six to twelve months. They serve less as display cases, more as runways.

Fantastic Fest this cycle touts a strong horror menu. Primate opens with tropical body horror, sparking Cronenberg plus Herzog comps. Whistle, an Aztec lore revenge tale, aims to close with burn.

Midnight offerings such as If I Had Legs I’d Kick You surge on execution beyond the hook. That title, with A24 backing, satirizes toxic fandom during a convention lockdown and is set to pop.

SXSW lifted Clown in a Cornfield and put microbudget hauntings into market talk. Sundance is expected to unspool a familiar crop of grief steeped elevated horror, and Tribeca’s genre box tilting urban, social, and surreal.

The festival game increasingly values branding over mere discovery. Those badges act as campaign openers, not end caps.

Legacy Horror: Next Chapters, New Starts, New Shapes

The franchise bench is sturdier and more targeted than lately.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, set for July, reanimates the 90s series with a new lead and nostalgia tone. Versus earlier beats, it favors camp and prom night melodrama. Visualize tiaras, fake gore, and VHS panic.

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

The Long Walk adapts an early, scathing Stephen King work, from Francis Lawrence, it operates as a bleak dystopian tale masked as survival horror, a walk off to death for kids. With clear targeting, it could become The Hunger Games for horror grown ups.

Elsewhere, reboots and sequels like Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda pepper the schedule, many waiting on strategic holds or late deals.

Trend Lines

Old myth goes broad
Young & Cursed with Lilith and Whistle with Aztec curses both signal ancient texts and symbols. This is less nostalgia, more reclamation of pre Christian archetypes. Horror exceeds jolts, it insists evil is ancient.

Body Horror Makes a Comeback
With Together, Weapons, and Keeper, the genre goes back to the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation serve as metaphors for heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streamer originals stiffen their spine
Junk fill horror on platforms is receding. Streamers deploy capital toward scripts, directors, and paid reach. Films like Weapons and Sinners are treated as events, not content.

Festival heat turns into leverage
Laurels move markets, opening release doors and coverage arcs. Skip festival strategy in 2025 and the film risks invisibility.

Theatrical release is a trust fall
Studios save theaters for outperform prospects or IP farmers. Everything else heads to PVOD or hybrid drops. Horror persists theatrically, in curated lanes.

The Road Ahead: Autumn overload with a winter wildcard

Those four, Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons, crowd September and October to saturation. Indies such as Bone Lake and Keeper must fight for oxygen. Some may slide to early 2026 or switch platform lanes.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 anchors December, and a surprise streaming drop could still arrive late. 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 coming 2026 terror Year Ahead: continuations, filmmaker-first projects, together with A stacked Calendar geared toward jolts

Dek The upcoming horror year builds immediately with a January glut, thereafter carries through June and July, and well into the late-year period, mixing brand heft, novel approaches, and tactical counter-scheduling. Studio marketers and platforms are committing to smart costs, theatrical leads, and social-driven marketing that transform these films into four-quadrant talking points.

How the genre looks for 2026

Horror has grown into the consistent move in studio slates, a lane that can break out when it hits and still mitigate the floor when it falls short. After the 2023 year demonstrated to studio brass that disciplined-budget chillers can own mainstream conversation, 2024 extended the rally with festival-darling auteurs and surprise hits. The energy carried into 2025, where re-entries and prestige plays underscored there is a lane for multiple flavors, from ongoing IP entries to fresh IP that travel well. The upshot for 2026 is a calendar that reads highly synchronized across the major shops, with planned clusters, a spread of brand names and fresh ideas, and a revived focus on big-screen windows that amplify PVOD and streaming on paid VOD and platforms.

Studio leaders note the category now acts as a swing piece on the schedule. Horror can open on numerous frames, furnish a simple premise for promo reels and shorts, and overperform with ticket buyers that turn out on first-look nights and sustain through the second weekend if the release fires. After a strike-impacted pipeline, the 2026 layout exhibits confidence in that model. The calendar launches with a loaded January lineup, then primes spring and early summer for genre counterpoints, while reserving space for a September to October window that pushes into the fright window and beyond. The calendar also shows the ongoing integration of indie arms and SVOD players that can stage a platform run, generate chatter, and expand at the right moment.

A notable top-line trend is series management across linked properties and long-running brands. Studios are not just rolling another installment. They are trying to present lore continuity with a specialness, whether that is a title treatment that indicates a new tone or a star attachment that links a upcoming film to a foundational era. At the alongside this, the filmmakers behind the headline-grabbing originals are celebrating hands-on technique, real effects and specific settings. That pairing delivers 2026 a solid mix of known notes and unexpected turns, which is how the genre sells abroad.

The majors’ 2026 approach

Paramount marks the early tempo with two front-of-slate moves that straddle tones widely. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the helm and Neve Campbell back at the lead, signaling it as both a cross-generational handoff and a origin-leaning character-driven entry. Cameras are rolling in Atlanta, and the creative stance indicates a memory-charged campaign without covering again the last two entries’ Carpenter-sisters arc. A campaign is expected leaning on recognizable motifs, character-first teases, and a promo sequence arriving in 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 paired again, with the Wayans brothers involved in development for the first time since the early 2000s, a angle the campaign will spotlight. As a summer counter-slot, this one will go after wide buzz through gif-able moments, with the horror spoof format lending itself to quick redirects to whatever shapes the social talk that spring.

Universal has three differentiated entries. SOULM8TE premieres January 9, 2026, a technology-driven offshoot from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The logline is elegant, melancholic, and high-concept: a grieving man purchases an virtual partner that becomes a deadly partner. The date places it at the front of a front-loaded month, with marketing at Universal likely to revisit off-kilter promo beats and micro spots that interweaves love and dread.

On May 8, 2026, the studio schedules an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely rumored as the feature developed under internal 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 preserves a name unveil to become an fan moment closer to the initial promo. The timing offers Universal a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles crowd different corridors.

Rounding out the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film takes October 23, 2026, a slot he has defined before. His projects are positioned as must-see filmmaker statements, with a mystery-first teaser and a later trailer push that signal tone without plot the concept. The prime October weekend creates space for Universal to command pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then pivot to the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, works with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček heads, with Souheila Yacoub at the center. The franchise has consistently shown that a gnarly, makeup-driven execution can feel premium on a lean spend. Look for a gore-forward summer horror charge that leans hard into foreign markets, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most global territories.

Sony’s horror bench is unusually deep. The studio sets two recognizable-IP pushes in the back half. An untitled Insidious film arrives August 21, 2026, maintaining a consistent supernatural brand on the board while the spin-off branch continues to develop. The studio has moved dates on this title before, but the current plan locks it in late summer, where Insidious has traditionally delivered.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil returns in what the studio is marketing as a ground-zero restart for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a strategic part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a charge to serve both fans and newcomers. The fall slot gives Sony time to build assets around canon, and monster aesthetics, elements that can stoke large-format demand and fan-culture participation.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, pins a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Robert Eggers’ Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film sustains the filmmaker’s run of period horror driven by textural authenticity and linguistic texture, this time orbiting lycan myth. The label has already announced the holiday for a holiday release, a strong signal in the auteur as a specialty play that can platform and widen if early reception is warm.

Platform lanes and windowing

Platform plans for 2026 run on predictable routes. Universal’s releases move to copyright after a cinema and premium rental phase, a stair-step that amplifies both week-one demand and viewer acquisition in the after-window. Prime Video stitches together catalogue additions with global pickups and targeted theatrical runs when the data warrants it. Max and Hulu focus their lanes in library pulls, using featured rows, October hubs, and handpicked rows to lengthen the tail on 2026 genre cume. Netflix keeps flexible about originals and festival grabs, slotting horror entries closer to launch and making event-like launches with fast-turn plans. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, works a one-two of precision releases and short jumps to platform that converts buzz to sign-ups. That will prove important for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before pressing genre-fan funnels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ treats carefully horror on a discrete basis. The platform has indicated interest to buy select projects with established auteurs or marquee packages, then give them a prestige theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet guild rules or to gather buzz before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still leverages the 20th Century Studios slate, a core piece for sustained usage when the genre conversation swells.

Art-house genre prospects

Cineverse is quietly building a 2026 sequence with two name-brand moves. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The angle is clean: the same foggy, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult favorite, recalibrated for modern sonics and picture. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a autumn slot, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. The distributor has telegraphed a traditional theatrical plan for Legacy, an upbeat indicator for fans of the gritty series and for exhibitors needing R-rated alternatives in the October weeks.

Focus will cultivate the auteur lane with Werwulf, escorting the title through the autumn circuit if the cut is ready, then using the Christmas window to go wider. That positioning has shown results for filmmaker-first horror with audience crossover. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not announced many 2026 dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines regularly gel after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A credible outlook is a set of late-summer and fall platformers that can surge if reception drives. Watch for an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that launches at Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work jointly, using select theatrical to kindle evangelism that fuels their subs.

IP versus fresh ideas

By count, the 2026 slate skews toward the franchise column. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all harness fan equity. The caveat, as ever, is fatigue. The preferred tactic is to position each entry as a reframed mode. Paramount is centering character and legacy in Scream 7, Sony is promising a restart at zero for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is highlighting a French sensibility from a rising filmmaker. Those choices carry weight when the audience has so many options and social sentiment swings fast.

Non-franchise titles and filmmaker-first projects bring the oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be framed as a brand unto itself. Sam Raimi’s Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, places Rachel McAdams into a marooned survival premise with signature tonal menace. SOULM8TE offers a sharp, spooky tech hook. Werwulf delivers period specificity and an unyielding tone. Even when the title is not based on familiar IP, the configuration is known enough to generate pre-sales and preview-night turnout.

Three-year comps help explain the model. In 2023, a exclusive window model that honored streaming windows did not prevent a dual release from working when the brand was trusted. In 2024, craft-first auteur horror hit big in PLF. In 2025, a reanimation of a beloved infection saga broadcast that global horror franchises can still feel new when they reframe POV and stretch the story. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which carries on 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 back-to-back, enables marketing to bridge entries through personae and themes and to continue assets in field without pause points.

Craft and creative trends

The filmmaking conversations behind 2026 horror signal a continued emphasis on real, location-led craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not echo any recent iteration of the property, a stance that aligns with the practical-effects sensibility he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film wrapped photography and is moving toward its April 17, More about the author 2026 date. Marketing will likely that centers texture and dread rather than thrill-ride spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership making room for cost management.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has outlined Werwulf as the grimmest project he has tackled, which tracks with a medieval world and historically accurate language, a combination that can make for sonic immersion and a icy, primal tone on the big screen. Focus will likely tease this aesthetic in behind-the-scenes pieces and artisan spotlights before rolling out a first look that plays with mood rather than plot, 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 lands overseas in red-band trailers and gathers shareable jump-cut reactions from early screenings. Scream 7 promises a meta-horror reset that centers its original star. Resident Evil will fly or stall on monster realization and design, which align with booth activations and timed asset drops. Insidious tends to be a audio showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the auditorium case feel necessary. Look for trailers that emphasize hyper-detailed sound, deep-bass stingers, and sudden silences that shine in top rooms.

Month-by-month map

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 foggy reset amid bigger brand plays. The month finishes 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 serious, but the range of tones affords lanes to each, and the five-week structure enables clean play for each if word of mouth carries.

Early-year through spring load in summer. Scream 7 bows February 27 with legacy heat. In April, New Line’s The Mummy restores a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once was aligned with genre counterprogramming and now sustains 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 sharpens the contrast. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is comic-leaning and wide, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 presents severe intensity. The counterprogramming logic is sound. The spoof can connect next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest rewards older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have moved through premium slots.

August into fall leans IP. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously worked. Resident Evil steps in after September 18, a transitional slot that still steps into Halloween marketing beats. Jordan Peele’s untitled film holds October 23 and will engross cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely reinforced by a mystery-driven teaser strategy and limited asset reveals that prioritize concept over plot.

Holiday corridor prestige. Werwulf on December 25 is a line in sand that genre can live at Christmas when packaged as prestige-leaning horror. Focus has done this before, staging carefully, then pressing critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to linger in conversation into January. If the film earns with critics, the studio can add screens in the first week of 2027 while using holiday momentum and holiday card usage.

One-sentence dossiers

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

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A sorrowing man’s algorithmic partner shifts into something deadly romantic. Rating: TBA. Production: Shoot completed 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 extends the world beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult ascends in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Filmed consecutively with the first film. Positioning: continuation of a revived prestige zombie saga.

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 unstable 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 prickly boss scramble to survive on a lonely island as the power balance of power shifts and mistrust rises. Rating: TBA. Production: Principal done. 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 under wraps in official materials. Logline: A renewed vision that returns the monster to horror, rooted in Cronin’s on-set craft and rising dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Locked. Positioning: iconic monster return with auteur mark.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A domestic haunting piece that plays with the unease of a child’s tricky POV. Rating: rating pending. Production: post-ready. Positioning: studio-grade and celebrity-led 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 satire sequel that lampoons hot-button genre motifs and true crime fixations. Rating: TBD. Production: lensing scheduled 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 spreads, with an worldly twist in tone and setting. Rating: TBD. Production: shooting in New Zealand. Positioning: graphic series entry optimized for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: to be announced in marketing. Top cast: unrevealed. Logline: The Further widens again, with a new clan linked to old terrors. Rating: not yet rated. Production: slated for summer production leading to late-summer release. Positioning: steady supernatural brand in a historically strong slot.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: TBA publicly. Top cast: pending. Logline: A fresh restart designed to recreate the franchise from the ground up, with an center of gravity in survival-driven horror over pyrotechnic spectacle. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: in development with a locked date. Positioning: source-faithful reboot with four-quadrant path.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: pending. Logline: purposely secretive. Rating: pending. Production: underway. Positioning: filmmaker showcase with teaser-first cadence.

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 primordial menace. Rating: undetermined. Production: building toward Christmas Day opening. Positioning: prestige horror for the holidays, with potential awards-season craft appeal.

Wolf Creek: Legacy (Cineverse, TBA 2026)
Director: Greg McLean. Top cast: John Jarratt expected to return as Mick Taylor. Logline: The Australian outback slasher returns, with a classic theatrical rollout before platforming. Status: date in flux, fall expected.

Why 2026 lands now

Three hands-on forces drive this lineup. First, production that eased or migrated in 2024 demanded space on the calendar. Horror can bridge those gaps quickly because scripts often are location-light, fewer large-scale visual effects runs, and shorter timelines. Second, studios have become more structured about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently surpassed straight-to-streaming placements. Third, platform buzz converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will amplify social-ready stingers from test screenings, orchestrated scare clips paired with Thursday night previews, and experiential pop-ups that seed creator reels. It is a repeatable playbook because it converts.

Calendar math also matters. Early-2026 family and superhero concentrations ease, providing runway for genre entries that can command a weekend or play as the older-leaning alternative. January is the prime example. Four horror lanes will jostle across five weekends, which lets each title generate conversation without cannibalizing the others. Summer provides the other window. The spoof can ride the first-half wave of animated and action tentpoles, then the hard-R entry can exploit a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Business outlook: budgets, ratings, and the sleeper hunt

Budgets remain in the optimal band. Most of the films above will fit below the $40–$50 million line, with many far below. That allows for aggressive PLF bookings 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 search for sleepers 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 harvest those lanes. January could easily deliver the first stealth overachiever of the year, and August into September gives Sony an avenue to hold screens with back-to-back supernatural IP while still leaving room for an indie breakout.

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

How the viewing year plays

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

Exhibitors respond well to the spacing. Horror delivers steady Thursday pops, tight deployments, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can justify premium screens, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing detail, sound field, and visual design 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

Schedules slip. Ratings change. Casts shift. But the spine of 2026 horror is solid. There is brand gravity where needed, distinct vision where it matters, and a calendar that shows studios get how and when audiences want 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, craft precise trailers, keep secrets, and let the screams sell the seats.