Antediluvian Evil Stirs in Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a pulse pounding supernatural thriller, rolling out October 2025 on premium platforms

This haunting metaphysical suspense story from narrative craftsman / movie maker Andrew Chiaramonte, triggering an primordial curse when unrelated individuals become victims in a malevolent trial. Going live October 2, 2025, on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube streaming, Google’s digital store, Apple’s iTunes, Apple TV Plus, and Fandango platform.

Hollywood, CA (August 8th, 2025) – stay alert for *Young & Cursed*, a unnerving story of struggle and age-old darkness that will reshape fear-driven cinema this scare season. Produced by rising creative mind Andrew Chiaramonte, this edge-of-your-seat and shadowy film follows five young adults who are stirred sealed in a cut-off shack under the sinister sway of Kyra, a possessed female dominated by a time-worn sacred-era entity. Ready yourself to be captivated by a filmic presentation that intertwines instinctive fear with ancestral stories, premiering on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Hellish influence has been a long-standing theme in genre filmmaking. In *Young & Cursed*, that concept is redefined when the dark entities no longer arise outside their bodies, but rather from their core. This marks the darkest corner of the group. The result is a enthralling cognitive warzone where the narrative becomes a unyielding battle between moral forces.


In a forsaken no-man's-land, five youths find themselves cornered under the fiendish control and possession of a elusive character. As the characters becomes submissive to withstand her will, marooned and pursued by evils beyond comprehension, they are pushed to battle their greatest panics while the seconds coldly winds toward their dark fate.


In *Young & Cursed*, unease intensifies and links disintegrate, prompting each member to question their true nature and the integrity of freedom of choice itself. The intensity surge with every fleeting time, delivering a scare-fueled ride that marries mystical fear with human fragility.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my goal was to tap into primal fear, an spirit older than civilization itself, manifesting in soul-level flaws, and wrestling with a presence that threatens selfhood when stripped of free will.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Playing Kyra was about accessing something beneath mortal despair. She is blind until the curse activates, and that transformation is haunting because it is so raw.”

Release & Availability

*Young & Cursed* will be unleashed for audience access beginning from October 2, 2025, on Prime Video, YouTube, Google’s store, iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango at Home—delivering users globally can dive into this fearful revelation.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just released a new follow-up preview for *Young & Cursed*, up to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a follow-through to its original promo, which has pulled in over strong viewer count.


In addition to its regional launch, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has stated that *Young & Cursed* will also be taken worldwide, making the film to horror fans worldwide.


Make sure to see this heart-stopping journey into fear. Confront *Young & Cursed* this October the 2nd to dive into these nightmarish insights about our species.


For featurettes, set experiences, and updates from the creators, follow @YoungAndCursed across your socials and visit our spooky domain.





Current horror’s watershed moment: 2025 in focus U.S. Slate weaves legend-infused possession, festival-born jolts, paired with returning-series thunder

Across endurance-driven terror inspired by ancient scripture as well as series comebacks in concert with acutely observed indies, 2025 appears poised to be the genre’s most multifaceted in tandem with deliberate year in recent memory.

The 2025 horror calendar is not merely full, it is methodical. leading studios set cornerstones via recognizable brands, concurrently streamers stack the fall with first-wave breakthroughs and old-world menace. At the same time, festival-forward creators is fueled by the afterglow from a high-water 2024 festival stretch. As Halloween remains the genre’s crown jewel, the rest of the calendar is filling out with surgical precision. That late Q3 to mid Q4 lane is the crucible, and in 2025, horror is also claiming January, spring, and even mid-summer. Viewers are hungry, studios are exacting, therefore 2025 may end up the most intentional cycle yet.

Studio and Mini-Major Strategies: Prestige-leaning dread rebounds

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

the Universal banner kicks off the frame with a bold swing: a modernized Wolf Man, eschewing a mist-shrouded old-world European town, within a sleek contemporary canvas. With Leigh Whannell at the helm anchored by Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this telling braids lycanthropy with a family meltdown. The transformation is not just physical, it is marital, parental, and painfully human. timed for mid January, it backs a move to shape winter into a prestige corridor, not a discard corridor.

Spring ushers in Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher page-to-screen distilled into spare horror. Steered by Eli Craig and featuring Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it functions as blood smeared American gothic with snark. Beneath the mask, it picks at rural paranoia, age cohort splits, and lynch mob logic. Initial fest notes point to real bite.

When summer fades, Warner’s pipeline rolls out the capstone of its most reliable horror franchise: The Conjuring: Last Rites. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson again portray Ed and Lorraine Warren, the installment promises emotional closure while taking on one of the duo’s most infamous real life cases. Though the outline is tried, Chaves is guiding toward a solemn, meditative finish. It lands in early September, carving air ahead of October’s stack.

After that, The Black Phone 2. From early summer to October, a strong signal. Derrickson returns to the helm, and the memorable motifs return: nostalgic menace, trauma in the foreground, plus uncanny supernatural grammar. This time, the stakes are raised, through a fuller probe of the “grabber” lore and inherited grief.

Completing the marquee stack is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a picture that draws on name power. The second outing goes deeper into backstory, thickens the animatronic pantheon, and targets both teens and thirtysomething fans of the original game. It drops in December, pinning the winter close.

Digital Originals: Slim budgets, major punch

With theaters prioritizing brand safety, streamers are trying sharper edges, and buzz accrues.

A flagship risky title is Weapons, a cold file multi story chiller knitting three time bands around a mass vanishing. Helmed by Zach Cregger with Josh Brolin opposite Julia Garner, the release pairs unease with narrative heft. Arriving to cinemas late summer then to streamers in fall, it may catalyze deconstruction threads like Barbarian.

At the smaller scale sits Together, a close quarters body horror study featuring Alison Brie opposite Dave Franco. Located in a secluded rental as a trip collapses, the arc observes love and green eyed envy and self harm turned somatic. It reads tender, repulsive, and intensely uneasy, a three act churn into codependent hell. Before a platform date is locked, it is virtually assured for fall.

In the mix sits Sinners, a 1930s vintage vampire folk yarn toplined by Michael B. Jordan. Photographed in sepia saturation with biblical metaphor, it channels There Will Be Blood against Let the Right One In. The story probes American religious trauma by way of supernatural allegory. Trial screenings frame it as a high chatter SVOD arrival.

A cluster of streaming indies sits ready: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper all work grief and disappearance and identity, choosing meaning over noise.

The Possession Runs Deep: Young & Cursed

Going live October 2 on major services, Young & Cursed presents a rare union, close in focus, wide in mythology. Written and directed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the story trails five strangers who come to in a far off forest cabin, ruled 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 chill is psyche led, anchored in primal myth. Resisting the exorcism template of Catholic ceremony and Latin chant, this one reaches back to something older, something darker. Lilith comes not via liturgy, but from trauma, quiet, and human brittleness. Turning possession inward syncs Young & Cursed to the trend of character led dramas draped in genre.

Across Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home, the film stands as Halloween counterprogramming to sequel glut and monster revivals. It looks like sharp programming. No overinflated mythology. No continuity burden. Bare psychological dread, trim and tense, designed for binge and breath patterns. Inside spectacle, Young & Cursed may separate by silence, then rupture.

Festival Heat to Market Leverage

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF operate as greenhouses for horror six to twelve months down the line. They serve less as display cases, more as runways.

This year’s Fantastic Fest has already confirmed a strong horror lineup. Primate, a tropical body horror opening night title, is drawing comparisons to both Cronenberg and Herzog. Whistle, an Aztec lore revenge tale, aims to close with burn.

Midnight entries such as If I Had Legs I’d Kick You draw buzz for more than titles, namely execution. That film, an A24 backed satire of toxic fandom inside a horror convention lockdown, looks poised to break out.

SXSW premiered Clown in a Cornfield and introduced several microbudget hauntings currently circling deals. Sundance tends to present grief infused elevated horror and likely will, with Tribeca’s genre menu reading urban, social, and surreal.

In 2025, festival strategy is less about discovery, more about branding. A Fantastic Fest or TIFF badge is phase one marketing, not a coda.

Series Horror: Sequels, Reboots, Reinventions

The returning series menu is stronger and more calculated than before.

Fear Street: Prom Queen comes in July with franchise revival, new lead, retro styling. Versus earlier beats, it favors camp and prom night melodrama. Visualize tiaras, fake gore, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 slots late June, targeting a broadened techno horror canon with new characters and AI spawned nightmares. The opener’s social chatter and SVOD hours justify Universal’s deeper play.

The Long Walk, from an early and searing Stephen King work, is inbound, Directed 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.

Additionally, reboots and sequels, among them Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda, populate the months, with timing held for strategy or acquisitions.

What to Watch

Mythic horror goes mainstream
Young & Cursed with Lilith and Whistle with Aztec curses both signal ancient texts and symbols. It eschews nostalgia to repossess pre Christian archetypes. Horror extends beyond terror, it frames evil as primordial.

Body horror returns
With films like Together, Weapons, and Keeper, horror is going back to the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation symbolize heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streaming Originals Grow Teeth
Throwaway platform horror is on the way out. Streamers deploy capital toward scripts, directors, and paid reach. Films like Weapons and Sinners are treated as events, not content.

Festival momentum becomes leverage
Laurels are not just decorative, they leverage theatrical, premium placement, and media cycles. Without a festival strategy in 2025, a horror film risks vanishing.

Cinemas are a trust fall
The big screen goes to those expected to beat comps or build series. Everything else heads to PVOD or hybrid drops. Horror keeps theatrical presence, via curation.

Forecast: 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 like Bone Lake and Keeper will scrap for air. Keep an eye on possible slips into early 2026 or platform flips.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 steadies December, yet a last minute streamer surprise is in play. Given the dark, mythic lean of the year’s big films, a final creature feature or exorcism slot is open.

What matters is slate breadth meeting fractured audiences, not one crown jewel. The aim is not another Get Out chase, it is durable horror beyond gross.



The forthcoming 2026 scare Year Ahead: brand plays, original films, together with A packed Calendar aimed at chills

Dek The emerging horror season clusters up front with a January pile-up, thereafter stretches through peak season, and running into the festive period, combining franchise firepower, new concepts, and well-timed offsets. Distributors with platforms are betting on efficient budgets, theatrical leads, and short-form initiatives that frame genre releases into four-quadrant talking points.

Horror momentum into 2026

The genre has emerged as the surest play in studio calendars, a vertical that can scale when it performs and still cushion the risk when it stumbles. After 2023 reminded top brass that cost-conscious horror vehicles can own social chatter, 2024 held pace with auteur-driven buzzy films and unexpected risers. The upswing rolled into 2025, where revived properties and elevated films made clear there is a market for different modes, from legacy continuations to filmmaker-driven originals that resonate abroad. The sum for 2026 is a schedule that presents tight coordination across the field, with defined corridors, a mix of familiar brands and new concepts, and a refocused emphasis on exclusive windows that fuel later windows on premium rental and SVOD.

Studio leaders note the space now works like a flex slot on the calendar. The genre can launch on almost any weekend, create a grabby hook for teasers and social clips, and over-index with fans that line up on Thursday nights and continue through the second frame if the entry works. Post a strike-bent pipeline, the 2026 configuration signals comfort in that approach. The calendar begins with a front-loaded January schedule, then primes spring and early summer for genre counterpoints, while holding room for a fall run that flows toward All Hallows period and into early November. The gridline also spotlights the continuing integration of indie arms and digital platforms that can platform a title, build word of mouth, and widen at the timely point.

A companion trend is series management across shared IP webs and veteran brands. Distribution groups are not just rolling another chapter. They are aiming to frame ongoing narrative with a marquee sheen, whether that is a graphic identity that telegraphs a new vibe or a star attachment that links a incoming chapter to a original cycle. At the simultaneously, the helmers behind the most buzzed-about originals are embracing in-camera technique, makeup and prosthetics and concrete locations. That fusion gives 2026 a healthy mix of known notes and freshness, which is the formula for international play.

Major-player strategies for 2026

Paramount sets the tone early with two centerpiece titles that sit at tonal extremes. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with original architect Kevin Williamson in the director seat and Neve Campbell back at the heart, steering it as both a passing of the torch and a heritage-centered character-centered film. Filming is underway in Atlanta, and the directional approach suggests a heritage-honoring angle without rehashing the last two entries’ Carpenter sisters arc. Anticipate a campaign leaning on brand visuals, character-first teases, and a tease cadence slated for late fall. Distribution is cinema-first via Paramount.

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 back together, with the Wayans brothers involved in development for the first time since the early 2000s, a headline the campaign will foreground. As a summer counter-slot, this one will seek four-quadrant chatter through joke-first clips, with the horror spoof format enabling quick shifts to whatever dominates trend lines that spring.

Universal has three clear plays. SOULM8TE debuts January 9, 2026, a tie-in spinoff from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The story engine is efficient, tragic, and elevator-pitch-ready: a grieving man purchases an AI companion that turns into a harmful mate. The date places it at the front of a crowded corridor, with the marketing arm likely to bring back uncanny live moments and short-form creative that interweaves companionship and anxiety.

On May 8, 2026, the studio slots an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely read as the feature developed under code names in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The public release grid currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which reserves space for a branding reveal to become an attention spike closer to the teaser. The timing holds ground in early May while larger tentpoles take the main frames.

Supplementing the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film secures October 23, 2026, a slot he has defined before. Peele’s pictures are branded as auteur events, with a hinting teaser and a second wave of trailers that prime atmosphere without details the concept. The late-October frame lets the studio to take 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, aligns with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček helms, with Souheila Yacoub top-lining. The franchise has long shown that a gritty, prosthetic-heavy treatment can feel cinematic on a controlled budget. Position this as a grime-caked summer horror shot that spotlights global rollout, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most non-U.S. markets.

Sony’s horror bench is unusually deep. The studio launches two IP moves in the back half. An untitled Insidious film premieres August 21, 2026, sustaining a bankable supernatural brand in play while the spin-off branch progresses. The studio has shifted dates on this title before, but the current plan locks it in late summer, where the brand has done well historically.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil reappears in what the studio is selling as a reset 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 directive to serve both longtime followers and general audiences. The fall slot provides the studio time to build assets around world-building, and creature design, elements that can drive format premiums and convention buzz.

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 Eggers’ run of period horror grounded in meticulous craft and historical speech, this time circling werewolf lore. Focus Features has already reserved the holiday for a holiday release, a signal of faith in Eggers as a specialty play that can move wide if early reception is favorable.

Streamers and platform exclusives

Home-platform rhythms for 2026 run on tested paths. Universal’s slate flow to copyright after a box-office phase then PVOD, a sequence that boosts both premiere heat and platform bumps in the later phase. Prime Video interleaves outside acquisitions with global pickups and limited cinema engagements when the data recommends it. Max and Hulu lean on their strengths in library pulls, using featured rows, holiday hubs, and editorial rows to extend momentum on the horror cume. Netflix keeps optionality about first-party entries and festival snaps, locking in horror entries closer to drop and framing as events premieres with compressed campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, operates a hybrid of selective theatrical runs and accelerated platforming that drives paid trials from buzz. That will play for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before working horror-fan channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ keeps a case-by-case stance on horror on a situational basis. The platform has demonstrated openness to pick up select projects with award winners or A-list packages, then give them a art-house footprint in partnership with exhibitors to meet qualification bars or to generate social proof before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still feeds from the 20th Century Studios slate, a critical input for monthly activity when the genre conversation surges.

Indie and specialty outlook

Cineverse is mapping a 2026 lane with two brand plays. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The pitch is tight: the same mist-blanketed, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult item, 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 signaled a traditional cinema play for the title, an good sign for fans of the relentless series and for exhibitors in need of adult counterprogramming in the autumn stretch.

Focus will play the auteur card with Werwulf, marshalling the project through fall festivals if the cut is ready, then activating the year-end corridor to open out. That positioning has shown results for arthouse horror with four-quadrant hopes. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not announced many 2026 dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines tend to firm up after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A safe bet is a cluster of late-summer and fall platformers that can surge if reception justifies. Anticipate an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that screens at Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work in concert, using select theatrical to ignite evangelism that fuels their paid base.

Series vs standalone

By number, the 2026 slate leans toward the brand-heavy side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all harness household recognition. The question, as ever, is brand erosion. The standing approach is to market each entry as a recast vibe. Paramount is underscoring character and legacy in Scream 7, Sony is teasing a ground-zero restart for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is embracing a French-tinted vision from a breakout filmmaker. Those choices have impact when the audience has so many options and social sentiment moves quickly.

Non-franchise titles and talent-first projects add oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be treated as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, sets Rachel McAdams in a marooned survival premise with the filmmaker’s mischievous menace. SOULM8TE offers a focused, eerie tech hook. Werwulf grounds itself in period and an rigorous tone. Even when the title is not based on familiar IP, the deal build is anchored enough to accelerate early sales and Thursday previews.

Past-three-year patterns contextualize the model. In 2023, a exclusive window model that held distribution windows did not hamper a day-date move from paying off when the brand was robust. In 2024, auteur craft horror rose in big-format auditoriums. In 2025, a resurgence of a beloved infection saga reminded the market that global horror franchises can still feel alive when they angle differently and widen scale. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which continues January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The linked-chapter plan, with chapters shot back-to-back, enables marketing to tie installments through relationships and themes and to continue assets in field without hiatuses.

How the look and feel evolve

The behind-the-scenes chatter behind the 2026 entries forecast a continued move toward tactile, place-driven craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not follow any recent iteration of the property, a stance that accords with the prosthetic-forward taste he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film completed principal and is headed for its April 17, 2026 date. Plan for a push that centers creep and texture rather than whiz-bang spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership enabling budget prudence.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has framed Werwulf as the most severe project he has tackled, which tracks with a medieval world and historically accurate language, a combination that can make for deep sound design and a icy, primal tone on the big screen. Focus will likely highlight this aesthetic in craft journalism and artisan 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 calibrated for gross-out texture, a signature of the series that connects worldwide in red-band trailers and produces shareable screening reactions from early screenings. Scream 7 targets a meta-horror reset that centers its original star. Resident Evil will hit or miss on monster realization and design, which match well with con floor moments and managed asset releases. Insidious tends to be a audio showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the theater case feel essential. Look for trailers that accent pinpoint sound design, deep-bass stingers, and mute beats that benefit on big speakers.

Calendar map: winter through the holidays

January is busy. 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 gloomy counterbalance 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 formidable, but the palette of tones affords lanes to each, and the five-week structure permits a clean run for each if word of mouth sticks.

Early-year through spring tee up summer. Paramount’s Scream 7 bows February 27 with heritage buzz. In April, The Mummy revives a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once favored genre counterprogramming and now hosts big openers. The untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 leads into summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer underlines contrasts. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is playful and broad, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 drops blood-heavy intensity. The counterprogramming logic is sensible. The spoof can thrive next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest hits squarely for older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have run their PLF course.

End of summer through fall leans recognizable. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously worked. Resident Evil lands after September 18, a transitional slot that still preps for Halloween marketing beats. Jordan Peele’s untitled film secures October 23 and will absorb cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely backed by a minimalist tease strategy and limited asset reveals that prioritize concept over plot.

Prestige-horror at year-end. Werwulf on December 25 is a signal that genre can work in holiday corridor when packaged as auteur prestige horror. Focus has done this before, slow-rolling, then turning to critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to sustain conversation into January. If the film lands critically, the studio can increase count in the first week of 2027 while turning holiday audiences and holiday gift-card burn.

Title-by-title briefings, embedded in the narrative

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting TBA in phases as production pushes forward. Logline: Sidney returns to meet a new Ghostface while the narrative reconnects to the original film’s founding notes. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: origin-forward with a contemporary twist.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A bereaved man’s AI companion grows into something perilously amorous. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming finished for an early-year bow. Positioning: techno-horror with feeling.

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 scales click site the story beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult organizes in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Shot sequentially with the first film. Positioning: revived prestige horror saga’s second leg.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man goes back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to confront a shimmering reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed and U.S. theatrical set. Positioning: ambience-forward adaptation.

Send Help (20th Century Studios, January 30, 2026)
Director: Sam Raimi. Top cast: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Dennis Haysbert, Chris Pang. Logline: After a plane crash, an employee and her hard-edged boss work to survive on a rugged island as the power dynamic flips and paranoia builds. Rating: TBA. Production: Principal done. Positioning: star-centered survival shocker from a maestro.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles kept quiet in official materials. Logline: A modern reconception that returns the monster to terror, shaped by Cronin’s on-set craft and suffocating dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Wrapped. Positioning: legacy monster restart with director stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A home-set haunting setup that threads the dread through a child’s wavering subjective view. Rating: pending. Production: fully shot. Positioning: studio-backed, star-driven ghostly suspense.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers reuniting creatively. Logline: {A parody return that riffs on of-the-moment horror beats and true-crime buzz. Rating: to be announced. Production: production booked for fall 2025. 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 global twist in tone and setting. Rating: undetermined. Production: lensing in New Zealand. Positioning: R-rated franchise charge tuned for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: TBA publicly. Top cast: awaiting confirmation. Logline: The Further reopens, with a different family entangled with past horrors. Rating: forthcoming. Production: gearing up for summer filming with late-summer bow. Positioning: dependable ghost-franchise slot that suits the brand.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: to be announced publicly. Top cast: TBA. Logline: A restart designed to reframe the franchise from the ground up, with an tilt toward survivalist horror over pyrotechnic spectacle. Rating: pending. Production: moving through development on a locked slot. Positioning: canon-conscious reboot with mainstream reach.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: TBD. Logline: tightly guarded. Rating: to be announced. 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 raw menace. Rating: TBA. Production: building toward Christmas Day opening. Positioning: specialty holiday horror poised for crafts recognition.

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 conventional theatrical window prior to platforming. Status: schedule in motion, fall targeted.

Why 2026, why now

Three pragmatic forces shape this lineup. First, production that slowed or recalendared in 2024 required schedule breathing room. Horror can plug those gaps fast because scripts often need fewer locations, fewer large-scale VFX sequences, 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 drops. Third, social chatter converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will amplify meme-ready beats from test screenings, select scare clips pegged to Thursday preview nights, and experiential pop-ups that generate creator assets. It is a repeatable playbook because it works.

Factor four is the scheduling calculus. Family and cape-heavy lanes thin out in early 2026, freeing space for genre entries that can lead a weekend or serve as the mature-skew alternative. January is the prime example. Four horror varieties will trade weekends across five weekends, which gives each title a lane and limits cannibalization. Summer provides the other window. The parody can surf the early-summer animated and action swell, then the hard-R entry can leverage a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Economics and ratings, plus sleeper strategy

Budgets remain in the target range. Most of the films above will live under the $40–$50 million ceiling, with many far below. That allows for heavy premium placement 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 surprise-hit pursuit 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 capitalize on those pockets. 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. Predict a resilient PVOD phase industry-wide, 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 momentum and variety. January is a sampler, February delivers a legacy slasher, April resurrects a Universal monster, May and June provide a back-to-back spirit play 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 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 ratchet upward, using earlier releases to stage the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors appreciate the spacing. Horror delivers Thursday preview surges, smart allocations, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can command PLF, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing texture, soundscape, and image-making that benefit from larger formats. The calendar also leaves room for specialty platformers to open in New York and Los Angeles, build reviews, and slide into national conversation as the fall progresses.

A Strong 2026 Horizon

Release dates move. Ratings change. Casts update. But the spine of 2026 horror is set. There is brand equity where it matters, inventive vision where it helps, and a calendar that shows studios understand how and when audiences want to be scared. The awards and festival pipeline into 2027 will come into focus once the fall festivals lock, and it would not be surprising to see at least one late-arriving specialty entry join the party. For now, the job is simple, edit tight trailers, keep the secrets, and let the gasps sell the seats.