Mythic Dread Emerges within Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a fear soaked supernatural thriller, launching Oct 2025 on major platforms

An spine-tingling occult suspense story from dramatist / filmmaker Andrew Chiaramonte, unleashing an prehistoric malevolence when unknowns become instruments in a cursed ceremony. Streaming this October 2nd, 2025, on Prime Video, YouTube, Google’s Play platform, iTunes, Apple’s TV+ service, and Fandango on-demand.

L.A., CA (August 8, 2025) – hold tight for *Young & Cursed*, a disturbing depiction of continuance and timeless dread that will revolutionize the fear genre this harvest season. Crafted by rising new wave horror talent Andrew Chiaramonte, this edge-of-your-seat and eerie suspense flick follows five figures who snap to sealed in a unreachable house under the hostile rule of Kyra, a cursed figure possessed by a time-worn Old Testament spirit. Arm yourself to be absorbed by a screen-based outing that unites visceral dread with biblical origins, arriving on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Supernatural inhabitation has been a enduring motif in the silver screen. In *Young & Cursed*, that belief is twisted when the spirits no longer emerge from beyond, but rather within themselves. This symbolizes the malevolent side of the protagonists. The result is a bone-chilling moral showdown where the suspense becomes a ongoing tug-of-war between good and evil.


In a wilderness-stricken forest, five characters find themselves contained under the malevolent presence and haunting of a haunted apparition. As the youths becomes incapacitated to fight her grasp, abandoned and pursued by beings beyond reason, they are thrust to acknowledge their deepest fears while the countdown unforgivingly runs out toward their end.


In *Young & Cursed*, delusion surges and ties dissolve, demanding each cast member to rethink their values and the nature of autonomy itself. The risk intensify with every second, delivering a frightening tale that fuses paranormal dread with psychological weakness.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my goal was to dig into basic terror, an threat beyond recorded history, filtering through fragile psyche, and dealing with a being that questions who we are when we lose control.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Taking on the role of Kyra involved tapping into something unfamiliar to reason. She is blind until the entity awakens, and that conversion is soul-crushing because it is so intimate.”

Viewing Options

*Young & Cursed* will be accessible for audiences beginning October 2, 2025, on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google’s store, Apple iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango on-demand—so that customers around the globe can face this horror showcase.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just uploaded a new visual teaser for *Young & Cursed*, published to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a follow up to its first trailer, which has attracted over a huge fan reaction.


In addition to its continental debut, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has made public that *Young & Cursed* will also be launched globally, giving access to the movie to global fright lovers.


Avoid skipping this bone-rattling fall into madness. Watch *Young & Cursed* this October 2 to survive these nightmarish insights about our species.


For previews, filmmaker commentary, and updates from those who lived it, follow @YoungAndCursed across fan hubs and visit our spooky domain.





U.S. horror’s Turning Point: 2025 U.S. lineup weaves primeval-possession lore, microbudget gut-punches, paired with IP aftershocks

Moving from fight-to-live nightmare stories grounded in ancient scripture through to installment follow-ups together with cutting indie sensibilities, 2025 is tracking to be the genre’s most multifaceted combined with carefully orchestrated year in ten years.

Call it full, but it is also focused. Major studios bookend the months with familiar IP, at the same time premium streamers prime the fall with unboxed visions paired with scriptural shivers. Meanwhile, the art-house flank is carried on the carry from an unprecedented 2024 fest surge. Since Halloween is the prized date, the schedule beyond October is tightly engineered. The September, October gauntlet has become standard, though in this cycle, bookings reach January, spring, and mid-summer. Audiences are leaning in, studios are precise, hence 2025 might go down as horror’s most intentional year yet.

Studio Chessboard and Mini-Major Plays: The Return of Prestige Fear

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

Universal’s distribution arm lights the fuse with a bold swing: a refashioned Wolf Man, leaving behind the period European setting, inside today’s landscape. Steered by Leigh Whannell anchored by Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this pass grounds the lycanthropy in household collapse. The evolution surpasses the body, into spouses, parents, and bruised humanity. targeting mid January, it aligns with turning the winter slack into a premium lane, not a dumping lane.

In spring, Clown in a Cornfield lands, a YA slasher adaptation reframed as lean dread. Helmed by Eli Craig including Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it functions as blood smeared American gothic with snark. Under the costume, it needles small town fear, cross generational rifts, and crowd punishment. Early circuit chatter says it has bite.

When summer tapers, the WB camp bows the concluding entry inside its trusty horror universe: The Conjuring: Last Rites. The Warrens return, played by Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, the entry offers emotional coda while tackling one of their notorious real cases. Though the formula is familiar, Michael Chaves is rumored to steer toward a somber, reflective register for the close. It sets in early September, opening runway before October heat.

Following that is The Black Phone 2. It was eyed for early summer, and shifting to October telegraphs confidence. Derrickson returns to the helm, and the tone that worked before is intact: nostalgic menace, trauma as text, and eerie supernatural logic. This time the stakes climb, with a deeper exploration into the “grabber” mythology and how grief haunts generations.

Completing the marquee stack is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a film that does not need traditional marketing to sell tickets. The next entry deepens the tale, broadens the animatronic terror cast, bridging teens and legacy players. It drops in December, holding the cold season’s end.

Platform Plays: No Budget, No Problem

As theatricals lean on brands and continuations, streamers are trying sharper edges, and buzz accrues.

Among the most ambitious streaming plays is Weapons, a cold file multi story chiller threading three timelines via a mass disappearance. With Zach Cregger directing fronted by Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the movie mixes chill with dramatic weight. Rolling out in theaters late summer before fall platform release, it may catalyze deconstruction threads like Barbarian.

More contained by design is Together, a close quarters body horror study including Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Taking place in an isolated rental as a retreat goes wrong, the story examines love plus envy plus self disgust as flesh ruin. It toggles from love to slime, a staged slide into codependent hell. Though no platform has officially staked a release date, it looks like a certain fall stream.

Another headline entry is Sinners, a 1930s period vampire folk story featuring Michael B. Jordan. Visualized in sepia palette with scriptural metaphor, it nods to There Will Be Blood beside Let the Right One In. The project looks at American religious trauma under a supernatural allegory. Pre release tests anoint it a conversation starter on streaming.

Additional platform indies hold in reserve: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper all mine grief and vanishing and identity, running metaphor first.

Possession Underneath: Young & Cursed

Dropping October 2 across all major streaming platforms, Young & Cursed operates as a rare duality, minimal in staging, maximal in myth. Penned and steered 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. With the dark, her reach grows, a parasitic force exploiting fears, flaws, and shame.

This fear is psychologically driven, pulsing with primal myth. Ducking the exorcism default of Catholic ritual and Latin text, this one burrows toward something older, something darker. Lilith is not conjured by ritual, she surfaces through trauma, silence, 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 is a clever angle. No overstuffed canon. No franchise baggage. Sheer psychological unease, compact and taut, calibrated to digital binge beats. In the noise, Young & Cursed could cut through by staying hushed, then erupting.

From Festivals to Market

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF remain breeding grounds for what horror looks like six to twelve months later. This cycle, they are launchpads first and showcases second.

Fantastic Fest this cycle touts a strong horror menu. Primate, an opening night tropical body-horror, invites Cronenberg meets Herzog talk. Whistle, Aztec coded revenge folklore, may cap the fest blazing.

Midnight slots like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You earn noise for execution beyond quirky names. That one, an A24 backed satire on toxic fandom set during a horror convention lockdown, is poised for breakout status.

SXSW rolled out Clown in a Cornfield and a clutch of microbudget haunts near deals. Sundance appears set for grief threaded elevated horror once more, and Tribeca’s genre set plays urban, social, and surreal.

In 2025, festival strategy is less about discovery, more about branding. That wreath is now a starting gun, not the finish.

Legacy Lines: Next Chapters, New Starts, New Shapes

The legacy slate is stronger, and more deliberate, than in recent years.

Fear Street: Prom Queen hits July to revive the 90s line with fresh lead and VHS vibe. Compared to earlier parts, it tilts camp and prom night melodrama. Cue tiaras, phony blood, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 hits late June, aiming to expand its techno horror mythology with new characters and new AI generated terrors. That first run’s social and SVOD traction lets Universal push further.

On the slate sits The Long Walk, from one of Stephen King’s stark early titles, steered by Francis Lawrence, it functions as a harsh dystopian fable encased in survival horror, a children’s march that ends in death. If framed properly, it could echo The Hunger Games for adult horror.

Meanwhile, reboots and sequels like Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda appear through the year, many poised for targeted windows or last minute deals.

Dials to Watch

Old myth goes broad
From Lilith in Young & Cursed, and with Aztec curses in Whistle, horror taps ancient texts and symbols. This is less nostalgia, more reclamation of pre Christian archetypes. Horror extends beyond terror, it frames evil as primordial.

Body horror returns
Titles such as Together, Weapons, and Keeper return focus to the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation now read as metaphors for heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streamer originals stiffen their spine
The filler era wanes for platform horror. Streamers deploy capital toward scripts, directors, and paid reach. Entries like Weapons and Sinners get event treatment, not inventory.

Festival glow translates to leverage
Festival status acts as leverage for exhibition, placement, and publicity. Skip festival strategy in 2025 and the film risks invisibility.

Big screen is a trust fall
Theater slots go to likely overachievers or franchise starters. Most others angle PVOD or hybrid. Horror is not vanishing from theaters, it is getting curated.

Outlook: Autumn density and winter pivot

Young & Cursed plus The Conjuring: Last Rites plus The Black Phone 2 plus Weapons, all in September and October, makes for a saturated fall. Indies, including Bone Lake and Keeper, will battle for oxygen. Some may slide to early 2026 or switch platform lanes.

December holds on Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, though a stealth streamer release may land late. Given the dark, mythic lean of the year’s big films, a final creature feature or exorcism slot is open.

The 2025 performance is about reach across segments, not one hero title. The assignment is not to chase the next Get Out, it is to build horror that endures beyond box office.



The 2026 spook slate: follow-ups, original films, and also A Crowded Calendar optimized for shocks

Dek: The incoming genre calendar loads at the outset with a January logjam, and then carries through the mid-year, and far into the December corridor, fusing brand equity, inventive spins, and calculated calendar placement. Studios and platforms are embracing smart costs, theatrical leads, and social-fueled campaigns that frame genre titles into broad-appeal conversations.

Horror’s status entering 2026

This space has turned into the predictable move in studio calendars, a category that can surge when it catches and still insulate the drag when it underperforms. After the 2023 year demonstrated to executives that efficiently budgeted shockers can galvanize pop culture, the following year maintained heat with filmmaker-forward plays and word-of-mouth wins. The run moved into 2025, where revived properties and elevated films confirmed there is an opening for a variety of tones, from continued chapters to one-and-done originals that export nicely. The result for 2026 is a lineup that reads highly synchronized across the major shops, with planned clusters, a spread of brand names and new pitches, and a renewed strategy on theatrical windows that drive downstream revenue on PVOD and home streaming.

Distribution heads claim the horror lane now serves as a utility player on the release plan. Horror can premiere on many corridors, deliver a quick sell for marketing and social clips, and lead with patrons that show up on previews Thursday and keep coming through the next weekend if the movie works. Post a strike-affected pipeline, the 2026 configuration indicates certainty in that dynamic. The year rolls out with a loaded January run, then taps spring and early summer for balance, while keeping space for a autumn stretch that extends to Halloween and past Halloween. The calendar also highlights the continuing integration of boutique distributors and home platforms that can stage a platform run, stoke social talk, and widen at the right moment.

Another broad trend is legacy care across linked properties and classic IP. Major shops are not just greenlighting another sequel. They are shaping as brand continuity with a must-see charge, whether that is a title presentation that conveys a tonal shift or a talent selection that links a new entry to a vintage era. At the concurrently, the creative teams behind the top original plays are leaning into on-set craft, practical gags and place-driven backdrops. That blend useful reference provides 2026 a solid mix of comfort and newness, which is the formula for international play.

Major-player strategies for 2026

Paramount sets the tone early with two centerpiece projects that bookend the tonal range. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with original architect Kevin Williamson in the director seat and Neve Campbell back at the heart, signaling it as both a lineage transfer and a back-to-basics character-forward chapter. The film is shooting in Atlanta, and the creative stance signals a legacy-leaning approach without retreading the last two entries’ Carpenter-sisters arc. Look for a marketing run fueled by brand visuals, intro reveals, and a tiered teaser plan hitting late fall. Distribution is Paramount theatrical.

Paramount also resurrects 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 in creative roles for the first time since the early 2000s, a selling point the campaign will play up. As a summer counter-slot, this one will generate four-quadrant chatter through meme-ready spots, with the horror spoof format inviting quick updates to whatever tops pop-cultural buzz that spring.

Universal has three distinct entries. SOULM8TE debuts January 9, 2026, a tech-horror spinoff from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The premise is elegant, heartbroken, and premise-first: a grieving man installs an digital partner that becomes a harmful mate. The date lines it up at the front of a competition-heavy month, with the studio’s marketing likely to recreate off-kilter promo beats and micro spots that fuses devotion and dread.

On May 8, 2026, the studio places an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely rumored as the feature developed under temporary titles in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The public calendar currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which permits a proper title to become an event moment closer to the opening teaser. The timing gives Universal a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles circle other weekends.

Filling out the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film secures October 23, 2026, a slot he has made his own before. His projects are sold as event films, with a hinting teaser and a second trailer wave that prime atmosphere without details the concept. The late-October frame offers Universal room to dominate pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then press the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, partners with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček heads, with Souheila Yacoub top-lining. The franchise has made clear that a raw, practical-first mix can feel prestige on a disciplined budget. Expect a splatter summer horror hit that leans into offshore potential, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most world markets.

Sony’s horror bench is loaded. The studio sets two franchise maneuvers in the back half. An untitled Insidious film arrives August 21, 2026, sustaining a steady supernatural brand front and center while the spin-off branch incubates. Sony has reshuffled on this title before, but the current plan locks it in late summer, where the brand has shown strength.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil re-enters in what Sony is positioning as a reset for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a core part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a directive to serve both franchise faithful and new audiences. The fall slot provides the studio time to build materials around canon, and monster craft, elements that can boost large-format demand and fan-forward engagement.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, stakes a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film carries forward the filmmaker’s run of period horror centered on rigorous craft and linguistic texture, this time circling werewolf lore. The label has already set the date for a holiday release, a bold stance in Eggers as a specialty play that can platform wide if early reception is enthusiastic.

Digital platform strategies

Platform windowing in 2026 run on known playbooks. The studio’s horror films land on copyright after a big-screen and PVOD window, a sequence that elevates both debut momentum and sign-up spikes in the after-window. Prime Video pairs licensed titles with global originals and short theatrical plays when the data backs it. Max and Hulu lean on their strengths in catalog discovery, using seasonal hubs, holiday hubs, and editorial rows to sustain interest on 2026 genre cume. Netflix plays opportunist about own-slate titles and festival buys, slotting horror entries near their drops and positioning as event drops go-lives with fast-turn plans. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, deploys a hybrid of targeted cinema placements and speedy platforming that converts buzz to sign-ups. That will count for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before working genre pipelines in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ keeps a case-by-case stance on horror on a discrete basis. The platform has proven amenable to take on select projects with recognized filmmakers or marquee packages, then give them a qualifying theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet awards-qualifying thresholds or to gain imprimatur before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still draws on the 20th Century Studios slate, a key factor for month-over-month retention when the genre conversation surges.

Specialty and indie breakouts

Cineverse is structuring a 2026 pipeline 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 offer is straightforward: the same mist-blanketed, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a beloved cult piece, elevated 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. The distributor has positioned a theatrical rollout for Legacy, an good sign for fans of the uncompromising series and for exhibitors seeking R-rated counterprogramming in the fall weeks.

Focus will work the auteur lane with Werwulf, marshalling the project through the autumn circuit if the cut is ready, then pressing the holiday slot to scale. That positioning has delivered for prestige horror with mainstream crossovers. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not firmed many 2026 dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines generally solidify after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A solid projection is a sprinkle of late-summer and fall platformers that can surge if reception allows. Look 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 as a pair, using limited theatrical to seed evangelism that fuels their subs.

Balance of brands and originals

By share, 2026 favors the series side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all capitalize on name recognition. The challenge, as ever, is diminishing returns. The pragmatic answer is to sell each entry as a fresh tone. Paramount is centering character and lineage in Scream 7, Sony is signaling a clean-slate build for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is centering a French sensibility from a hot helmer. Those choices move the needle when the audience has so many options and social sentiment tilts quickly.

Non-franchise titles and filmmaker-centric entries keep oxygen in the system. Jordan Peele’s October film will be sold as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, puts Rachel McAdams into a survival-thriller premise with Raimi’s playful menace. SOULM8TE offers a sharp, spooky tech hook. Werwulf grounds itself in period and an uncompromising tone. Even when the title is not based on legacy IP, the configuration is known enough to accelerate early sales and early previews.

Rolling three-year comps help explain the plan. In 2023, a theatrical-first plan that held distribution windows did not obstruct a same-day experiment from delivering when the brand was compelling. In 2024, meticulous-craft horror over-performed in big-format auditoriums. In 2025, a rebirth of a beloved infection saga signaled that global horror franchises can still feel new when they rotate perspective and elevate scope. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which moves forward January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The news paired-chapter approach, with chapters shot in tandem, creates space for marketing to bridge entries through character web and themes and to maintain a flow of assets without pause points.

Creative tendencies and craft

The creative meetings behind this slate hint at a continued preference for hands-on, location-grounded craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not repeat any recent iteration of the property, a stance that reinforces the in-camera sensibility he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film wrapped principal photography and is tracking toward its April 17, 2026 date. Marketing will likely that underscores creep and texture rather than fireworks, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership backing efficient spending.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has described Werwulf as the grimmest project he has tackled, which tracks with a Middle Ages setting and period-faithful dialogue, a combination that can make for deep sound design and a raw, elemental vibe on the big screen. Focus will likely showcase this aesthetic in feature stories and craft spotlights before rolling out a tone piece that elevates tone over story, a move that has played for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is engineered for red-band excess, a signature of the series that plays abroad in red-band trailers and gathers shareable reaction videos from early screenings. Scream 7 sets up a meta reframe that re-centers the original lead. Resident Evil will stand or stumble on monster work and world-building, which lend themselves to expo activations and guarded reveals. Insidious tends to be a sonic showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the premium-screen pitch feel must-have. Look for trailers that highlight disciplined sound, deep-bass stingers, and dropouts 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 quiet contrast amid heftier brand moves. The month caps with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival-and-paranoia piece from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is stiff, but the mix of tones makes lanes for each, and the five-week structure gives each runway for each if word of mouth spreads.

Pre-summer months set up the summer. Scream 7 rolls out February 27 with brand energy. In April, The Mummy reframes a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once suited genre counterprogramming and now backs big openers. Universal’s untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 steps into summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer splits the lanes. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is spoofy and broad, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 delivers hard-R intensity. The counterprogramming logic is strong. The spoof can hit next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest feeds older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have cycled through premium screens.

August and September into October leans IP. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously worked. Resident Evil slides in after September 18, a early fall window that still connects to Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event occupies October 23 and will own cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely pushed by a slow-reveal plan and limited teasers that favor idea over plot.

Christmas prestige. Werwulf on December 25 is a declaration that genre can work in holiday corridor when packaged as auteur prestige horror. Focus has done this before, platforming with care, then activating critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to hold in chatter into January. If the film scores with critics, the studio can open up in the first week of 2027 while benefiting from holiday season and gift-card spend.

Title-by-title briefings, embedded in the narrative

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting still being revealed as production carries on. Logline: Sidney returns to challenge a new Ghostface while the narrative resurfaces the original film’s genetic code. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: roots reset with a contemporary edge.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A bereaved man’s AI companion mutates into something seductively lethal. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming finished for an early-year bow. Positioning: tech thriller with grief spine.

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 grows the world beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult hardens in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Twin-shot with the first film. Positioning: next step of a prestige infection saga.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man finds his way back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to encounter a unsettled reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Locked and U.S. theatrical booked. Positioning: tone-first game 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 try to survive on a rugged island as the control balance tilts and paranoia spreads. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished. Positioning: star-front survival film from a master.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles not disclosed in official materials. Logline: A fresh reimagining that returns the monster to fear, driven by Cronin’s physical craft and accumulating dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished. Positioning: legendary monster re-up with auteur hand.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A home-set haunting scenario that frames the panic through a minor’s flickering internal vantage. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: completed. Positioning: studio-supported and star-fronted ghost thriller.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers back in the creative mix. Logline: {A satirical comeback that riffs on current genre trends and true crime fixations. Rating: pending. Production: fall 2025 shoot penciled in. Positioning: wide-appeal summer alternative.

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 global twist in tone and setting. Rating: forthcoming. Production: production in New Zealand. Positioning: graphic series entry optimized for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: to be confirmed in marketing. Top cast: TBD. Logline: The Further widens again, with a young family entangled with returning horrors. Rating: undetermined. Production: on track for summer lensing before late-summer rollout. Positioning: consistent franchise performer in a beneficial frame.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: forthcoming. Top cast: awaiting confirmation. Logline: A fresh restart designed to recalibrate the franchise from the ground up, with an priority on survival horror over action-forward bombast. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: moving through development on a locked slot. Positioning: game-rooted reset with broad potential.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: forthcoming. Logline: carefully shrouded. Rating: undetermined. 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 era-accurate language and bone-deep menace. Rating: forthcoming. Production: in preproduction for holiday debut. Positioning: high-craft holiday horror with awards-season tail.

Wolf Creek: Legacy (Cineverse, TBA 2026)
Director: Greg McLean. Top cast: John Jarratt expected to return as Mick Taylor. Logline: The Australian outback slasher returns, with a theaters-first plan ahead of platforming. Status: window fluid, autumn forecast.

Why 2026 lands now

Three workable forces structure this lineup. First, production that eased or rearranged in 2024 needed spacing on the calendar. Horror can backfill quickly because scripts often use fewer locations, fewer large-scale visual effects runs, and accelerated schedules. Second, studios have become more measured 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 premieres. Third, social conversation converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will leverage bite-size scare clips from test screenings, precision scare clips synced to Thursday previews, and experiential pop-ups that seed creator reels. It is a repeatable playbook because it delivers.

Programming arithmetic plays a role. Early corridors for family and capes are leaner in 2026, leaving useful real estate for genre entries that can seize a weekend or position as the older-lean choice. January is the prime example. Four different flavors of horror will compete across five weekends, which permits distinct conversations to flourish. Summer provides the other window. The spoof can ride the first-half wave of animated and action tentpoles, then the hard-R entry can benefit from a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Business view: budgets, ratings, sleeper chase

Budgets remain in the sweet spot. Most of the films above will live under the $40–$50 million ceiling, 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 underdog chase continues in Q1, where value-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 shock over-performer 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.

What the calendar feels like for audiences

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers momentum and variety. January is a smorgasbord, February delivers a legacy slasher, April reawakens a Universal monster, May and June provide a back-to-back spirit play for date nights and group outings, July turns feral, 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 the discourse going and the seats filled without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can build month to month, using earlier releases to condition the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors appreciate the spacing. Horror delivers reliable Thursday lifts, disciplined footprints, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can qualify for PLF, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing visual texture, acoustics, 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.

2026 Shapes Up Strong

Dates shift. Ratings change. Casts refresh. But the spine of 2026 horror is in place. There is brand gravity where needed, filmmaker vision where it matters, 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 eleventh-hour specialty buy join the party. For now, the job is simple, deliver taut trailers, protect the mystery, and let the screams sell the seats.