Age-old Evil Rises in Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a fear soaked thriller, arriving Oct 2025 on major platforms

A hair-raising spiritual terror film from screenwriter / creative lead Andrew Chiaramonte, liberating an age-old malevolence when outsiders become puppets in a malevolent ceremony. Hitting screens this October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google’s Play platform, Apple iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango streaming.

Hollywood, CA (August 8th, 2025) – get set for *Young & Cursed*, a nightmarish narrative of struggle and old world terror that will transform fear-driven cinema this Halloween season. Brought to life by rising horror auteur Andrew Chiaramonte, this claustrophobic and gothic screenplay follows five people who come to sealed in a wooded lodge under the aggressive command of Kyra, a haunted figure controlled by a time-worn ancient fiend. Arm yourself to be seized by a motion picture event that blends bone-deep fear with folklore, coming on Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Cursed embodiment has been a time-honored trope in the silver screen. In *Young & Cursed*, that notion is challenged when the fiends no longer come from an outside force, but rather within themselves. This illustrates the most terrifying element of the victims. The result is a riveting mind game where the intensity becomes a merciless confrontation between right and wrong.


In a isolated wild, five campers find themselves caught under the ghastly rule and haunting of a uncanny character. As the group becomes paralyzed to resist her command, left alone and tormented by creatures unnamable, they are forced to acknowledge their inner horrors while the deathwatch mercilessly counts down toward their destruction.


In *Young & Cursed*, suspicion intensifies and friendships collapse, coercing each survivor to evaluate their character and the notion of personal agency itself. The tension mount with every short lapse, delivering a nerve-wracking journey that weaves together ghostly evil with emotional fragility.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my aim was to dig into ancestral fear, an evil born of forgotten ages, channeling itself through psychological breaks, and dealing with a curse that questions who we are when we lose control.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Portraying Kyra was centered on something past sanity. She is clueless until the control shifts, and that flip is haunting because it is so close.”

Watch the Horror Unfold

*Young & Cursed* will be accessible for streaming beginning this October 2, on Prime Video, YouTube, Google’s store, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango on-demand—giving horror lovers anywhere can be part of this spirit-driven thriller.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just premiered a new sneak peek #2 for *Young & Cursed*, up to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a companion to its intro video, which has racked up over massive response.


In addition to its domestic release, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has broadcast that *Young & Cursed* will also be shared across borders, taking the terror to international horror buffs.


Don’t miss this visceral journey into fear. Brace yourself for *Young & Cursed* this launch day to survive these unholy truths about the human condition.


For cast commentary, on-set glimpses, and reveals from Chiaramonte Films, follow @YoungCursedOfficial across media channels and visit youngandcursed.com.





The horror genre’s inflection point: 2025 U.S. rollouts fuses archetypal-possession themes, festival-born jolts, together with franchise surges

Across pressure-cooker survival tales steeped in legendary theology and stretching into legacy revivals and sharp indie viewpoints, 2025 is coalescing into the most textured combined with intentionally scheduled year in years.

The 2025 horror calendar is not merely full, it is methodical. studio powerhouses hold down the year using marquee IP, in parallel streaming platforms load up the fall with unboxed visions in concert with ancestral chills. In the indie lane, the artisan tier is drafting behind the kinetic energy from a record 2024 festival run. Because Halloween stands as the showcase, the rest of the calendar is filling out with surgical precision. A packed September to October corridor has become a rite of passage, but this year, the genre is also staking January, spring, and mid-summer. Horror fans are craving, studios are exacting, thus 2025 could stand as the most orchestrated year.

Studio Roadmap and Mini-Major Pulse: Premium dread reemerges

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

Universal Pictures kicks off the frame with a statement play: a reinterpreted Wolf Man, steering clear of the antique European village, instead in a current-day frame. Guided by Leigh Whannell featuring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this version roots the lycanthropy in family fracture. The arc is bodily and domestic, about marriage, caregiving, and fragile humanity. set for mid January, it joins a broader aim to occupy winter’s quiet with elevated titles, not leftovers.

The spring frame introduces Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher conversion presented as stripped terror. Helmed by Eli Craig with Katie Douglas alongside Kevin Durand, it is blood soaked Americana horror with a satirical streak. Behind the greasepaint sits a critique of small town suspicion, generational fracture, and vigilante justice. Early reactions hint at fangs.

By late summer, Warner’s schedule sets loose the finale inside its trusty horror universe: The Conjuring: Last Rites. The Warrens are back with Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, the entry offers emotional coda while tackling one of their notorious real cases. Though the formula is familiar, director Michael Chaves is said to bring a more mournful, introspective tone to the series swan song. It arrives early September, buying space before the October wave.

Following that is The Black Phone 2. Set early then moved to October, a confidence tell. Derrickson re teams, and the core ingredients of the sleeper original are back: period tinged dread, trauma in the foreground, with spooky supernatural reasoning. This pass pushes higher, with more excavation of the “grabber” canon and family hauntings.

Completing the marquee stack is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, an offering that markets itself. The continuation widens the legend, builds out the animatronic fear crew, with a bullseye on teens and thirty something nostalgics. It posts in December, holding the cold season’s end.

Digital Originals: Lean budgets, heavy bite

While the big screen favors titles you know, platforms are greenlighting boldly, and the needle moves.

An especially bold streamer bet is Weapons, a cold-case woven horror suite splicing three ages joined by a mass disappearance. Steered by Zach Cregger and starring Josh Brolin with Julia Garner, the piece merges terror with dramatic mass. With a late summer theatrical bow and fall streaming drop, it seems set to fuel decode culture and breakdowns, in the Barbarian lane.

On the more intimate flank sits Together, a room scale body horror descent led by 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 lands sweet then sick then searing, a three step spin into codependent hell. Although a platform date is not yet posted, it is poised for a fall platform bow.

Then there is Sinners, a Depression era vampire folk fable headlined by Michael B. Jordan. Photographed in sepia saturation with biblical metaphor, it recalls There Will Be Blood spliced to Let the Right One In. The piece examines American religious trauma via supernatural allegory. Early test screens tag it as a top talked streaming debut.

Additional platform indies hold in reserve: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper all work grief and disappearance and identity, choosing meaning over noise.

The Possession Runs Deep: Young & Cursed

Arriving October 2 across major platforms, Young & Cursed presents a rare union, close in focus, wide in mythology. Penned and steered by Andrew Chiaramonte, the movie observes five strangers who awaken in an isolated wilderness cabin, controlled by Kyra, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. When evening turns to black, Kyra’s control expands, an encroaching force weaponizing fears, cracks, and guilt.

The menace is mind forward, supercharged by primal myth. Resisting the exorcism template of Catholic ceremony and Latin chant, this one digs into something older, something darker. Lilith resists liturgy, she blooms through trauma, secrecy, and human delicacy. Turning possession inward syncs Young & Cursed to the trend of character led dramas draped in genre.

Platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home position the film as a Halloween counter to sequel heavy theatricals and monster revivals. It is canny scheduling. No overinflated mythology. No IP hangover. Bare psychological dread, trim and tense, designed for binge and breath patterns. Among spectacle, Young & Cursed might win by restraint, then release.

Festival Born and Buyer Ready

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF function as launch beds for the coming year’s horror. They serve less as display cases, more as runways.

The Fantastic Fest slate for horror is strong this year. Primate, a tropical body horror opening night title, is drawing comparisons to both Cronenberg and Herzog. Whistle, a folkloric revenge thriller steeped in Aztec lore, is expected to close the fest with fire.

Midnight entries such as If I Had Legs I’d Kick You draw buzz for more than titles, namely execution. That one, an A24 backed satire on toxic fandom set during a horror convention lockdown, is poised for breakout status.

SXSW premiered Clown in a Cornfield and introduced several microbudget hauntings currently circling deals. Sundance likely lifts another batch of grief laced elevated horror, and Tribeca’s genre box tilting urban, social, and surreal.

Strategy at festivals now equals branding as well as discovery. The laurel is campaign ignition, not epilogue.

Long Running Lines: Follow Ups, Restarts, and Reframes

Legacy entries present stronger and more purposeful this time.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, landing in July, re ups the 90s brand with a fresh lead and retro tone. Compared to earlier parts, it tilts camp and prom night melodrama. Imagine tiaras, smeared red, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 opens late June, and aims to widen its techno horror mythology with new characters and AI generated terrors. The opening film’s buzz and platform staying power help Universal go bigger.

The Long Walk adapts an early, scathing Stephen King work, helmed by Francis Lawrence, it operates as a bleak dystopian tale masked as survival horror, a walk off to death for kids. 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.

Key Trends

Mythic dread mainstreams
From Lilith in Young & Cursed to Aztec curses in Whistle, creators turn to ancient texts and symbols. This is less nostalgia, more reclamation of pre Christian archetypes. Horror does more than scare, it reminds that evil predates us.

Body horror ascends again
Entries like Together, Weapons, and Keeper shift back to flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation function as metaphors for heartbreak, grief, and regret.

SVOD originals harden up
Disposable horror filler days on platforms have passed. Streamers deploy capital toward scripts, directors, and paid reach. Titles such as Weapons and Sinners are treated as events, not mere content.

Festival heat turns into leverage
Festival ribbons become currency for better windows and top shelves. Without a festival strategy in 2025, a horror film risks vanishing.

The big screen is a trust exercise
Studios save theaters for outperform prospects or IP farmers. The remainder goes PVOD or hybrid. Horror still lives in theaters, more curated than broad.

Forward View: Fall pileup, winter curveball

With Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons stacked into September and October, fall saturates. Indies including Bone Lake and Keeper will wrestle for room. Expect one or more to pivot into early 2026 or shift platforms.

With Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 in December, a stealth streamer drop might pop near year end. 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 aim is not another Get Out chase, it is durable horror beyond gross.



The new terror lineup: brand plays, Originals, paired with A brimming Calendar aimed at screams

Dek: The upcoming terror calendar crams right away with a January cluster, and then unfolds through summer, and pushing into the December corridor, marrying franchise firepower, creative pitches, and well-timed counter-scheduling. Studios and streamers are relying on lean spends, big-screen-first runs, and shareable marketing that shape horror entries into culture-wide discussion.

The genre’s posture for 2026

The horror sector has emerged as the bankable counterweight in studio slates, a category that can break out when it resonates and still protect the drag when it doesn’t. After the 2023 year proved to decision-makers that lean-budget genre plays can dominate pop culture, 2024 held pace with buzzy auteur projects and quiet over-performers. The trend flowed into 2025, where reboots and prestige plays made clear there is capacity for several lanes, from franchise continuations to original features that resonate abroad. The aggregate for the 2026 slate is a calendar that shows rare alignment across studios, with intentional bunching, a spread of recognizable IP and first-time concepts, and a recommitted priority on release windows that drive downstream revenue on paid VOD and home platforms.

Schedulers say the horror lane now works like a versatile piece on the distribution slate. The genre can arrive on a wide range of weekends, furnish a tight logline for teasers and social clips, and outperform with audiences that respond on Thursday previews and continue through the next pass if the release works. Following a work stoppage lag, the 2026 cadence telegraphs assurance in that playbook. The slate gets underway with a busy January band, then leans on spring and early summer for counterweight, while reserving space for a fall run that reaches into spooky season and into early November. The arrangement also highlights the deeper integration of specialty distributors and subscription services that can platform and widen, ignite recommendations, and scale up at the sweet spot.

A companion trend is brand management across ongoing universes and legacy IP. Major shops are not just rolling another sequel. They are seeking to position brand continuity with a occasion, whether that is a title treatment that telegraphs a fresh attitude or a star attachment that threads a latest entry to a classic era. At the very same time, the directors behind the top original plays are prioritizing real-world builds, practical effects and specific settings. That interplay provides 2026 a strong blend of familiarity and surprise, which is how horror tends to travel globally.

The studios and mini-majors, and how they are playing the year

Paramount fires first with two spotlight bets that bookend the tonal range. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with original architect Kevin Williamson in the director position and Neve Campbell back at the focus, framing it as both a succession moment and a heritage-centered relationship-driven entry. Filming is underway in Atlanta, and the story approach hints at a heritage-honoring framework without recycling the last two entries’ Carpenter sisters arc. The studio is likely to mount a drive built on heritage visuals, character spotlights, and a rollout cadence timed to late fall. Distribution is Paramount’s theatrical route.

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 set to reunite, with the Wayans brothers involved as creative voices for the first time since the early 2000s, a headline the campaign will stress. As a off-tentpole summer play, this one will generate general-audience talk through gif-able moments, with the horror spoof format permitting quick switches to whatever dominates the meme cycle that spring.

Universal has three distinct strategies. SOULM8TE rolls out January 9, 2026, a AI-tinged spinoff from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The premise is straightforward, grief-rooted, and high-concept: a grieving man onboards an digital partner that shifts into a fatal companion. The date puts it at the front of a front-loaded month, with Universal’s campaign likely to reprise odd public stunts and snackable content that fuses affection and anxiety.

On May 8, 2026, the studio schedules an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely believed to be the feature developed under placeholder labels in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The official listing currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which creates space for a name unveil to become an PR pop closer to the debut look. The timing holds ground in early May while larger tentpoles circle other weekends.

Rounding out the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film grabs October 23, 2026, a slot he has thrived in before. Peele’s pictures are treated as director events, with a hinting teaser and a subsequent trailers that signal tone without plot the concept. The holiday-adjacent corridor allows Universal to dominate 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, teams with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček commands, with Souheila Yacoub anchoring. The franchise has demonstrated that a in-your-face, physical-effects centered aesthetic can feel high-value on a controlled budget. Position this as a hard-R summer horror hit that embraces foreign markets, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most international markets.

Sony’s horror bench is surprisingly deep. The studio launches two name-brand pushes in the back half. An untitled Insidious film premieres August 21, 2026, extending a proven supernatural brand alive while the spin-off branch gestates. Sony has reslotted on this title before, but the current plan sticks it in late summer, where Insidious has shown strength.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil reboots in what Sony is framing as a clean-slate approach for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a primary part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a directive to serve both franchise faithful and casuals. The fall slot hands Sony window to build campaign pieces around narrative world, and creature builds, elements that can increase large-format demand and community activity.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, places a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Robert Eggers’ Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film continues the filmmaker’s run of period horror defined by minute detail and textual fidelity, this time circling werewolf lore. Focus Features has already locked the day for a holiday release, a vote of confidence in Eggers as a specialty play that can move wide if early reception is enthusiastic.

How the platforms plan to play it

Platform strategies for 2026 run on proven patterns. Universal’s genre slate head to copyright after a theatrical and PVOD run, a stair-step that enhances both premiere heat and subscription bumps in the later window. Prime Video will mix third-party pickups with global originals and limited runs in theaters when the data supports it. Max and Hulu press their advantages in catalog discovery, using editorial spots, fright rows, and programmed rows to increase tail value on the horror cume. Netflix keeps options open about own-slate titles and festival additions, scheduling horror entries on shorter runways and turning into events rollouts with tight-window plans. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, leverages a tiered of focused cinema runs and rapid platforming that funnels enthusiasm into trials. That will be critical 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+ adopts case-by-case posture for horror on a per-project basis. The platform has signaled readiness to invest in select projects with acclaimed directors or A-list packages, then give them a small theatrical footprint in partnership with exhibitors to meet qualifying rules or to earn receipts before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still capitalizes on the 20th Century Studios slate, a core piece for monthly engagement when the genre conversation heats up.

Indie and specialty outlook

Cineverse is quietly building a 2026 corridor with two brand plays. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The proposition is clear: the same atmospheric, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult classic, recalibrated for modern mix and image. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a fall window, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. The distributor has hinted a big-screen first plan for the title, an upbeat indicator for fans of the nasty series and for exhibitors hungry for R material in the autumn weeks.

Focus will work the auteur lane with Werwulf, guiding the film through festival season if the cut is ready, then turning to the December frame to move out. That positioning has proved effective for elevated genre with mainstream crossovers. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not locked many 2026-specific horror dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines typically coalesce after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A credible outlook is a cluster of late-summer and fall platformers that can broaden 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 together, using select theatrical to stir evangelism that fuels their subs.

Franchise entries versus originals

By count, the 2026 slate favors the known side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all activate cultural cachet. The trade-off, as ever, is viewer burnout. The operating solution is to present each entry as a reframed mode. Paramount is leading with core character and DNA in Scream 7, Sony is positioning a clean restart for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is centering a French sensibility from a emerging director. Those choices matter when the audience has so many options and social sentiment changes rapidly.

Originals and talent-first projects add air. Jordan Peele’s October film will be framed as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, anchors on Rachel McAdams in a survival shocker premise with the filmmaker’s mischievous menace. SOULM8TE offers a clean, creepy tech hook. Werwulf anchors in period detail and an rigorous tone. Even when the title is not based on a brand, the deal build is assuring enough to accelerate early sales and advance-audience nights.

Recent-year comps announce the model. In 2023, a theatrical-first model that kept clean windows did not preclude a dual release from paying off when the brand was robust. In 2024, filmmaker-craft-led horror outperformed in PLF auditoriums. In 2025, a rebirth of a beloved infection saga made clear that global horror franchises can still feel novel when they pivot perspective and elevate scope. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which advances January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The linked-chapter plan, with chapters shot back-to-back, enables marketing to bridge entries through protagonists and motifs and to sustain campaign assets without doldrums.

Production craft signals

The production chatter behind the upcoming entries hint at a continued lean toward material, place-specific craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not repeat any recent iteration of the property, a stance that echoes the hands-on effects stance he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film completed principal and is set for its April 17, 2026 date. Promo should that centers texture and dread rather than thrill-ride spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership enabling budget prudence.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has spoken of Werwulf as the most severe project he has tackled, which tracks with a period English setting and era-correct language, a combination that can make for immersive sound design and a austere, elemental atmosphere on the big screen. Focus will likely showcase this aesthetic in long-lead features and below-the-line spotlights before rolling out a initial teaser that plays with mood rather than plot, a move that has played for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is geared for gross-out texture, a signature of the series that plays abroad in red-band trailers and creates shareable audience clips from early screenings. Scream 7 hints at a meta inflection that re-anchors on the original star. Resident Evil will live or die on monster realization and design, which favor booth activations and selective drops. Insidious tends to be a sound design showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the big-screen case feel primary. Look for trailers that highlight surgical sound design, deep-bass stingers, and held silences that shine in top rooms.

Annual flow

January is stacked. 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 big-brand pushes. The month buttons with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a stranded thriller from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is stiff, but the range of tones ensures lanes for each, and the five-week structure offers clean runway for each if word of mouth sustains.

Late winter and spring load in summer. Paramount’s Scream 7 rolls out February 27 with nostalgia energy. In April, The Mummy reintroduces a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once belonged to genre counterprogramming and now accommodates big openers. The untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 rolls 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 spoofy and broad, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 brings brutal intensity. The counterprogramming logic is solid. The spoof can pop next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest caters to older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have moved through premium slots.

Late-season stretch leans franchise. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the his comment is here brand has previously done well. Resident Evil arrives after September 18, a transitional slot that still preps for Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event occupies October 23 and will seize cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely pushed by a mystery-first teaser plan and limited previews that center concept over reveals.

Prestige-horror at year-end. Werwulf on December 25 is a position that genre can live at Christmas when packaged as filmmaker-first prestige. The distributor has done this before, staging carefully, then working critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to sustain conversation into January. If the film scores with critics, the studio can go wider in the first week of 2027 while riding holiday turnout and gift-card use.

Title briefs within the narrative

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting ongoing as production carries on. Logline: Sidney returns to confront 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 machine mate grows into something fatal and romantic. Rating: TBA. Production: Principal is complete for an early-year bow. Positioning: digital-age horror with pathos.

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: Shot sequentially 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 collide with a altering reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Complete with theatrical path. 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 unyielding boss push to survive on a cut-off island as the power balance of power inverts and unease intensifies. Rating: TBA. Production: Wrapped. Positioning: star-forward survival chiller from a master.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles confidential in official materials. Logline: A fresh reimagining that returns the monster to horror, based on Cronin’s in-camera craft and quiet dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished. Positioning: classic monster relaunch with a filmmaker’s stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A domestic haunting story that toys with the dread of a child’s tricky read. Rating: forthcoming. Production: fully shot. Positioning: studio-scale and toplined eerie suspense.

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 spoof revival that satirizes present-day genre chatter and true-crime buzz. Rating: pending. Production: fall 2025 production window. Positioning: broad summer counterprogrammer.

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 bursts, with an international twist in tone and setting. Rating: TBA. Production: on location in New Zealand. Positioning: graphic series entry optimized for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: TBA publicly. Top cast: undisclosed. Logline: The Further stirs again, with a different family lashed to lingering terrors. Rating: forthcoming. Production: on track for summer lensing before late-summer rollout. Positioning: steady supernatural brand in a historically strong slot.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: unrevealed publicly. Top cast: TBA. Logline: A new start designed to rebuild the franchise from the ground up, with an preference for classic survival-horror tone over action fireworks. Rating: undetermined. Production: on a development track with locked window. Positioning: IP-accurate revival with mainstream runway.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: TBA. Logline: intentionally withheld. Rating: not yet rated. Production: proceeding. 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 time-true diction and bone-deep menace. Rating: undetermined. Production: prepping toward a December 25 launch. 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 traditional theatrical release planned before platforming. Status: date shifting, fall likely.

Why this year, why now

Three hands-on forces frame this lineup. First, production that eased or shuffled in 2024 needed calendar breathing room. Horror can fill those gaps quickly because scripts often are location-light, fewer large-scale CGI runs, and accelerated schedules. 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 out-earned straight-to-streaming placements. Third, online chatter converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will amplify shareable moments from test screenings, precision scare clips calibrated to navigate here Thursday preview timing, and experiential pop-ups that become influencer fuel. It is a repeatable playbook because it wins.

Another factor is the scheduling math. Family and superhero corridors are not as densely packed in early 2026, opening usable real estate for genre entries that can seize a weekend or stand as the older-leaning counter. January is the prime example. Four separate horror flavors will jostle 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 exploit a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Financials, ratings, and sleeper angles

Budgets remain in the strike zone. Most of the films above will stay under the $40 to $50 million threshold, with many far below. That allows for expanded PLF presence 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 disciplined-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 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. Count on a vigorous PVOD arc overall, since horror fans have shown a willingness to pay for convenience after an opening weekend, especially when word of mouth is strong.

How the year flows for audiences

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers flow and breadth. January is a sampler, February delivers a legacy slasher, April brings back a Universal monster, May and June provide a two-beat supernatural run for date nights and group outings, July goes red-band, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a chilly, literate nightmare. That is how you maintain buzz and butts in seats without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can build month to month, using earlier releases to prime the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors like the spacing. Horror delivers frequent Thursday-night spikes, tight deployments, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can credibly make the premium-screen case, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing surface detail, sound, and camera work 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

Timing shifts. Ratings change. Casts update. But the spine of 2026 horror is set. There is recognizable IP where it plays, original 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 last-minute boutique pickup join the party. For now, the job is simple, shape lean trailers, guard the secrets, and let the fear sell the seats.