Ancient Dread surfaces: Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a pulse pounding chiller, launching October 2025 on top streamers

One bone-chilling supernatural fright fest from cinematographer / cinema craftsman Andrew Chiaramonte, setting free an primeval malevolence when outsiders become conduits in a demonic ceremony. Going live on October 2, 2025, on Amazon’s Prime Video, the YouTube platform, Google’s digital store, iTunes Movies, Apple TV Plus, and Fandango at Home.

Los Angeles, CA (August 8th, 2025) – steel yourselves for *Young & Cursed*, a gripping narrative of struggle and mythic evil that will reconstruct fear-driven cinema this ghoul season. Produced by rising imaginative director Andrew Chiaramonte, this unsettling and gothic story follows five individuals who arise isolated in a off-grid wooden structure under the unfriendly rule of Kyra, a mysterious girl claimed by a two-thousand-year-old scriptural evil. Brace yourself to be ensnared by a screen-based adventure that blends deep-seated panic with arcane tradition, coming on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Cursed embodiment has been a iconic motif in visual storytelling. In *Young & Cursed*, that idea is turned on its head when the presences no longer emerge outside their bodies, but rather through their own souls. This embodies the malevolent shade of every character. The result is a psychologically brutal identity crisis where the emotions becomes a brutal contest between heaven and hell.


In a barren forest, five young people find themselves caught under the possessive force and curse of a unidentified female figure. As the group becomes paralyzed to break her will, abandoned and tormented by spirits unnamable, they are forced to wrestle with their darkest emotions while the timeline relentlessly draws closer toward their dark fate.


In *Young & Cursed*, anxiety builds and relationships fracture, prompting each protagonist to reflect on their character and the idea of free will itself. The intensity mount with every tick, delivering a frightening tale that fuses spiritual fright with human vulnerability.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my purpose was to explore primal fear, an threat from prehistory, manifesting in psychological breaks, and wrestling with a spirit that forces self-examination when freedom is gone.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Embodying Kyra needed manifesting something rooted in terror. She is unaware until the possession kicks in, and that transition is emotionally raw because it is so visceral.”

Streaming Info

*Young & Cursed* will be aired for streaming beginning on October 2nd, 2025, on Prime Video, Google’s video hub, Google’s store, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home—delivering subscribers anywhere can experience this chilling supernatural event.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just rolled out a new video trailer for *Young & Cursed*, debuted to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a follow up to its release of trailer #1, which has earned over a viral response.


In addition to its first availability, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has declared that *Young & Cursed* will also be released internationally, presenting the nightmare to scare fans abroad.


Experience this visceral spiral into evil. Tune into *Young & Cursed* this horrific release to acknowledge these dark realities about human nature.


For director insights, extra content, and updates from inside the story, follow @YoungAndCursedFilm across Instagram and Twitter and visit our film’s homepage.





Current horror’s inflection point: the 2025 cycle U.S. calendar weaves legend-infused possession, festival-born jolts, in parallel with series shake-ups

Spanning fight-to-live nightmare stories drawn from scriptural legend all the way to IP renewals plus surgical indie voices, 2025 is tracking to be horror’s most layered combined with blueprinted year in recent memory.

The 2025 horror calendar is not merely full, it is methodical. the big studios bookend the months using marquee IP, at the same time platform operators stack the fall with debut heat plus primordial unease. In the indie lane, the art-house flank is buoyed by the kinetic energy from a top-tier 2024 festival cycle. Because Halloween continues as the prize window, the remaining months are slotted with surgical care. That late Q3 to mid Q4 lane is the crucible, notably this year, teams are capturing January, spring, and mid-summer. Audiences are eager, studios are targeted, as a result 2025 might go down as horror’s most intentional year yet.

Studio Roadmap and Mini-Major Pulse: Elevated fear reclaims ground

The upper tier is moving decisively. If 2024 primed the reset, 2025 compounds the move.

Universal’s pipeline lights the fuse with a headline swing: a refreshed Wolf Man, eschewing a mist-shrouded old-world European town, but a crisp modern milieu. Directed by Leigh Whannell and starring 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. Slated for mid January, it fits the new plan to claim winter’s soft window with prestige horror rather than castoffs.

In spring, Clown in a Cornfield lands, a YA slasher page-to-screen distilled into spare horror. Eli Craig directs and featuring Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it functions as blood smeared American gothic with snark. Under the guise, it interrogates township panic, generational breaks, and mob rule. Early circuit chatter says it has bite.

As summer winds down, Warner’s schedule bows the concluding entry from its bankable horror series: The Conjuring: Last Rites. Farmiga and Wilson return as the Warrens, the installment aims for closure as it frames a famed case. Although the framework is familiar, Chaves is expected to tune it to a grieving, self reflective color. It goes early September, easing the path before October flood.

Arriving later is The Black Phone 2. First targeted at early summer, the move into October reads bullish. Derrickson resumes command, and the memorable motifs return: vintage toned fear, trauma driven plotting, plus uncanny supernatural grammar. The bar is raised this go, with more excavation of the “grabber” canon and family hauntings.

Capping the big ticket run is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a movie that scarcely needs conventional ads. The sequel leans deeper into its lore, broadens the animatronic terror cast, bridging teens and legacy players. It hits in December, buttoning the final window.

Streaming Offerings: No Budget, No Problem

As theatricals lean on brands and continuations, streamers are pushing into risk, and dividends follow.

A top daring platform piece is Weapons, a cold file multi story chiller stitching three periods attached to a mass disappearance. From Zach Cregger and starring Josh Brolin with Julia Garner, the work combines fright with dramatic torque. With a late summer theatrical bow and fall streaming drop, it is poised to inspire think pieces and forums, echoing Barbarian.

In the micro chamber lane is Together, a room scale body horror descent featuring Alison Brie opposite Dave Franco. Taking place in an isolated rental as a retreat goes wrong, the work maps love envy and self hatred onto bodily unraveling. It moves between affection and rot, a triptych into codependent hell. Despite no official platform date, it is virtually assured for fall.

One more platform talker is Sinners, a Depression era vampire folk fable toplined by Michael B. Jordan. Rendered in sepia depth and layered biblical metaphor, it feels like There Will Be Blood fused with Let the Right One In. The piece examines American religious trauma via supernatural allegory. Trial screenings frame it as a high chatter SVOD arrival.

Further platform indies wait for their cue: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper each explores grief and disappearance and identity, opting allegory above bombast.

Possession With Depth: Young & Cursed

Going live October 2 on major services, Young & Cursed plays as a rare fusion, spare in setting, sweeping in lore. Authored and directed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the release shadows five strangers waking in a hidden woods cabin, bound to Kyra, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. When darkness comes, Kyra’s power swells, a penetrating force tapping their private fears, soft spots, and remorse.

The threat is psychological first, wired with primal myth. Rather than another exorcism film centered on Catholic rites or Latin incantations, this one burrows toward something older, something darker. Lilith comes not via liturgy, but from trauma, quiet, and human brittleness. Possession that blooms from within, not without, inverts the trope and places Young & Cursed within a growing horror trend, intimate character studies wrapped in genre.

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 smart play. No overweight mythology. No brand fatigue. Just pure psychological dread, contained, tense, and tailor made for the binge and breathe rhythm of digital horror fans. With a spectacle heavy year, Young & Cursed may pop by going quiet, then screaming.

Festival Badges as Fuel

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF remain the hothouse where next season’s horror grows. This year, the launchpad function outruns the showcase role.

This year’s Fantastic Fest has already confirmed a strong horror lineup. Primate, a tropical body horror curtain raiser, invites Cronenberg Herzog comp. Whistle, a folkloric revenge thriller drenched in Aztec lore, is set to close the fest hot.

Midnight fare like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You rides on craft as well as title. 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 surfaced several microbudget hauntings that circle deals. Sundance is on track for grief tuned elevated horror, with Tribeca’s genre lane skewing urban, social, and surreal.

Fest circuits are brand engines as much as discovery engines. A badge from Fantastic Fest or TIFF is now the first phase of marketing, not the last.

Series Horror: Follow Ups, Restarts, and Reframes

Legacy IP arrives sturdier and more intentional this cycle.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, due in July, revives the ’90s horror franchise with a new lead and a throwback tone. Rather than prior modes, it goes camp and prom night melodrama. Expect tiaras, corn syrup blood, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 opens late June, targeting a broadened techno horror canon with new characters and AI spawned nightmares. The original’s social and streaming breakout emboldened Universal to double down.

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

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.

Signals and Trends

Mythic dread mainstreams
From Lilith in Young & Cursed through Aztec curses in Whistle, teams draw on ancient texts and symbols. Rather than nostalgia, it reclaims pre Christian archetypes. Horror reaches past fear, it states evil is old.

Body horror comes roaring back
Work like Together, Weapons, and Keeper revisit the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation symbolize heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streamers grow fangs
The filler era wanes for platform horror. Platforms invest in real scripts, real directors, and real campaigns. Releases like Weapons and Sinners are elevated to events, not just content.

Festival heat turns into leverage
Festival laurels are no longer ornamental, they are leverage for theatrical release, premium placement, and media cycles. A horror film without a festival strategy in 2025 risks disappearing.

Theatrical lanes are trust falls
The cinema lane is kept for probable outperformers or branchers. Other titles pivot PVOD or hybrid. Horror is not shrinking in theaters, but it is becoming more curated.

The Road Ahead: Fall pileup, winter curveball

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 such as Bone Lake and Keeper will tussle for space. 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. With mythic energy high, a late creature or exorcism entry could pop.

The trick lies in diverse menus finding segmented crowds, not single title bets. The mission is not a new Get Out, it is sustained horror beyond tickets.



The coming 2026 genre Year Ahead: Sequels, non-franchise titles, in tandem with A jammed Calendar designed for frights

Dek The incoming horror season loads in short order with a January glut, after that spreads through the warm months, and well into the holiday stretch, marrying brand heft, original angles, and calculated alternatives. Distributors with platforms are committing to mid-range economics, theatrical exclusivity first, and short-form initiatives that frame these films into all-audience topics.

The state of horror, heading into 2026

The genre has turned into the steady lever in studio slates, a category that can grow when it resonates and still mitigate the losses when it underperforms. After 2023 signaled to leaders that mid-range genre plays can command audience talk, 2024 held pace with visionary-driven titles and quiet over-performers. The run pushed into 2025, where legacy revivals and premium-leaning entries demonstrated there is capacity for a variety of tones, from continued chapters to filmmaker-driven originals that export nicely. The end result for 2026 is a grid that feels more orchestrated than usual across the major shops, with defined corridors, a pairing of established brands and original hooks, and a reinvigorated stance on theatrical windows that fuel later windows on premium rental and SVOD.

Studio leaders note the space now slots in as a plug-and-play option on the calendar. The genre can premiere on most weekends, yield a easy sell for trailers and short-form placements, and overperform with crowds that arrive on preview nights and maintain momentum through the subsequent weekend if the release works. Post a strike-induced shuffle, the 2026 cadence underscores faith in that dynamic. The calendar gets underway with a stacked January stretch, then uses spring and early summer for off-slot scheduling, while saving space for a fall cadence that runs into spooky season and into November. The schedule also features the expanded integration of specialty distributors and SVOD players that can stage a platform run, stoke social talk, and go nationwide at the proper time.

A second macro trend is IP stewardship across connected story worlds and heritage properties. The studios are not just making another continuation. They are looking to package brand continuity with a specialness, whether that is a art treatment that announces a new tone or a casting move that threads a new installment to a foundational era. At the simultaneously, the helmers behind the headline-grabbing originals are leaning into tactile craft, practical gags and vivid settings. That convergence provides 2026 a robust balance of assurance and discovery, which is how the genre sells abroad.

How the majors and mini-majors are programming

Paramount opens strong with two headline pushes that sit at tonal extremes. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with original architect Kevin Williamson in the lead and Neve Campbell back at the front, setting it up as both a passing of the torch and a DNA-forward character-forward chapter. Filming is underway in Atlanta, and the story approach signals a memory-charged framework without looping the last two entries’ Carpenter sisters arc. Count on a promo wave built on franchise iconography, character-first teases, and a teaser-to-trailer rhythm slated for late fall. Distribution is Paramount in theaters.

Paramount also reawakens a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed navigate to this website 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 angle the campaign will stress. As a summer alternative, this one will go after large awareness through joke-first clips, with the horror spoof format making room for quick turns to whatever tops horror talk that spring.

Universal has three clear strategies. SOULM8TE premieres January 9, 2026, a connected offshoot from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The story engine is clean, melancholic, and easily pitched: a grieving man adopts an synthetic partner that becomes a fatal companion. The date locates it at the front of a front-loaded month, with the studio’s marketing likely to replay off-kilter promo beats and brief clips that threads longing and foreboding.

On May 8, 2026, the studio sets an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely taken to be the feature developed under working names in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The listed schedule currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which permits a official title to become an teaser payoff closer to the initial tease. The timing stakes a claim in early May while larger tentpoles occupy other frames.

Filling out the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film claims October 23, 2026, a slot he has thrived in before. Peele’s work are branded as event films, with a opaque teaser and a next wave of trailers that define feel without revealing the concept. The prime October weekend offers Universal room to fill pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then lean on the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, links with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček steers, with Souheila Yacoub at the center. The franchise has consistently shown that a flesh-and-blood, physical-effects centered style can feel cinematic on a lean spend. Position this as a red-band summer horror surge that embraces foreign markets, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most overseas territories.

Sony’s horror bench is notably deep. The studio deploys two name-brand pushes in the back half. An untitled Insidious film arrives August 21, 2026, preserving a dependable supernatural brand in motion while the spin-off branch progresses. Sony has reslotted on this title before, but the current plan aims it in late summer, where Insidious has long performed.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil re-enters in what the studio is calling a from-the-ground-up reboot for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a vital part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a clearer mandate to serve both devotees and first-timers. The fall slot creates runway for Sony to build marketing units around canon, and monster design, elements that can boost IMAX and PLF uptake and fan-culture participation.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, pins a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film continues the filmmaker’s run of period horror rooted in historical precision and linguistic texture, this time orbiting lycan myth. The specialty arm has already booked the frame for a holiday release, a vote of confidence in Eggers as a specialty play that can platform and widen if early reception is warm.

How the platforms plan to play it

Streaming playbooks in 2026 run on stable tracks. The studio’s horror films window into copyright after a cinema and premium rental phase, a cadence that fortifies both launch urgency and platform bumps in the after-window. Prime Video continues to mix third-party pickups with cross-border buys and qualifying theatrical engagements when the data encourages it. Max and Hulu focus their lanes in deep cuts, using in-app campaigns, holiday hubs, and featured rows to keep attention on aggregate take. Netflix stays opportunistic about originals and festival wins, confirming horror entries near their drops and elevating as drops drops with fast-turn plans. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, exploits a two-step of precision releases and short jumps to platform that drives paid trials from buzz. That will be material for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before activating horror-fan channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ cherry-picks horror on a title-by-title basis. The platform has indicated interest to buy select projects with recognized filmmakers or name-led packages, then give them a qualifying theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet award rules or to gain imprimatur before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still feeds from the 20th Century Studios slate, a core piece for platform stickiness when the genre conversation peaks.

The specialty lanes and indie surprises

Cineverse is steadily assembling a 2026 pipeline with two recognizable titles. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The promise is direct: the same foggy, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult hit, upgraded for modern sound and cinematography. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a autumn slot, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. Cineverse has flagged a traditional cinema play for Legacy, an upbeat indicator for fans of the nasty series and for exhibitors in need of adult counterprogramming in the autumn weeks.

Focus will work the auteur lane with Werwulf, curating the rollout through the fall circuit if the cut is ready, then relying on the Christmas window to scale. That positioning has served the company well for prestige horror with four-quadrant hopes. 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 likely scenario is a handful of late-summer and fall platformers that can expand if reception encourages. Keep an eye on an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that debuts at Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work jointly, using boutique theatrical to seed evangelism that fuels their paid base.

Balance of brands and originals

By volume, 2026 favors the franchise column. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all exploit brand equity. The potential drawback, as ever, is overexposure. The pragmatic answer is to pitch each entry as a recast vibe. Paramount is elevating character-first legacy in Scream 7, Sony is hinting at a fresh ground-up build for Resident Evil, and this website New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is leaning into a French sensibility from a rising filmmaker. Those choices matter when the audience has so many options and social sentiment changes rapidly.

Non-franchise titles and talent-first projects bring the oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be pitched as a brand unto itself. Sam Raimi’s Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, features Rachel McAdams in a survival chiller premise with the director’s playful dread. SOULM8TE offers a focused, eerie tech hook. Werwulf emphasizes period craft and an unyielding tone. Even when the title is not based on known IP, the deal build is assuring enough to spark pre-sales and advance-audience nights.

Recent comps make sense of the strategy. In 2023, a theatrical-first plan that kept streaming intact did not preclude a day-date try from thriving when the brand was big. In 2024, craft-forward auteur horror hit big in large-format rooms. In 2025, a revived cycle of a beloved infection saga broadcast that global horror franchises can still feel renewed when they change perspective and expand the canvas. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which unfolds January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The two-film strategy, with chapters filmed consecutively, provides the means for marketing to link the films through relationships and themes and to keep assets in-market without lulls.

How the look and feel evolve

The director conversations behind the upcoming entries forecast a continued preference for hands-on, location-grounded craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not echo any recent iteration of the property, a stance that matches the prosthetic-forward taste he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film wrapped principal photography and is set for its April 17, 2026 date. Plan for a push that spotlights texture and dread rather than whiz-bang spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership supporting tight cost control.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has called Werwulf as the bleakest project he has tackled, which tracks with a medieval world and authentic period speech, a combination that can make for immersive sound design and a spare, elemental mood on the big screen. Focus will likely highlight this aesthetic in long-lead press and craft coverage before rolling out a preview that elevates tone over story, a move that has clicked for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is designed for visceral gnarl, a signature of the series that connects worldwide in red-band trailers and gathers shareable shock clips from early screenings. Scream 7 hints at a meta-horror reset that re-anchors on the original star. Resident Evil will succeed or falter on monster aesthetics and world-building, which align with convention floor stunts and planned releases. Insidious tends to be a sound design showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the cinema value feel key. Look for trailers that accent hyper-detailed sound, deep-bass stingers, and dropouts that play in premium auditoriums.

Annual flow

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 tonal palate cleanser amid headline IP. The month finishes with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival shocker from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is stiff, but the spread of tones affords lanes to each, and the five-week structure enables clean play for each if word of mouth spreads.

Late winter and spring seed summer. Paramount’s Scream 7 opens February 27 with brand energy. In April, New Line’s The Mummy re-centers a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once served genre counterprogramming and now nurtures big openers. The untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 leads into summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer sorts the tones. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is playful and broad, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 delivers ferocious intensity. The counterprogramming logic is coherent. The spoof can succeed 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 PLF.

Back half into fall leans recognizable. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously clicked. Resident Evil arrives after September 18, a transitional slot that still connects to Halloween marketing beats. Jordan Peele’s untitled film takes October 23 and will soak up cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely driven by a tease-and-hold strategy and limited previews that trade in concept over detail.

Holiday corridor prestige. Werwulf on December 25 is a stakes that genre can thrive over the holidays when packaged as director prestige horror. Focus has done this before, selective rollout, then using critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to hold in chatter into January. If the film hits with critics, the studio can broaden in the first week of 2027 while turning holiday audiences and gift-card spend.

Project-by-project snapshots

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting rolling out as production moves. Logline: Sidney returns to face a new Ghostface while the narrative returns to the original film’s genes. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: return-to-core with a fresh edge.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A bereaved man’s synthetic partner turns into something fatal and romantic. Rating: TBA. Production: Photography 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 surges in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Lensed back-to-back 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 returns 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: moody game adaptation built on atmosphere.

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 demanding boss fight to survive on a isolated island as the hierarchy tilts and mistrust rises. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed. Positioning: A-list survival chiller from a master.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles not yet announced in official materials. Logline: A contemporary retelling that returns the monster to chill, founded on Cronin’s tactile craft and encroaching dread. Rating: TBA. Production: In the can. Positioning: classic monster reset with creative stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A in-home haunting tale that explores the horror of a child’s uncertain perspective. Rating: rating pending. Production: completed. Positioning: studio-backed, star-driven supernatural mood piece.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers involved creatively again. Logline: {A spoof revival that skewers of-the-moment horror beats and true crime preoccupations. Rating: TBA. Production: lensing scheduled for fall 2025. Positioning: mass-audience summer option.

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 detonates, with an international twist in tone and setting. Rating: forthcoming. Production: shooting in New Zealand. Positioning: hard-hitting R entry designed for premium formats.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: TBA publicly. Top cast: pending. Logline: The Further yawns again, with a new family snared by residual nightmares. Rating: pending. Production: gearing up for summer filming with late-summer bow. Positioning: steady supernatural brand in a historically strong slot.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: TBD publicly. Top cast: awaiting confirmation. Logline: A from-scratch rebuild designed to re-engineer the franchise from the ground up, with an emphasis on classic survival-horror tone over action spectacle. Rating: pending. Production: on a development track with locked window. Positioning: source-faithful reboot with four-quadrant path.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: unrevealed. Logline: tightly guarded. Rating: forthcoming. Production: active. Positioning: director event, teaser-led.

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 period-precise speech and ancient menace. Rating: not yet rated. Production: building toward Christmas Day opening. Positioning: auteur prestige horror aimed at holiday corridor with crafts prospects.

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 standard theatrical approach before platforming. Status: slot unsettled, fall projected.

Why the 2026 timing works

Three execution-level forces define this lineup. First, production that hiccuped or rearranged in 2024 needed calendar breathing room. Horror can bridge those gaps quickly because scripts often need fewer locations, fewer large-scale digital sequences, and shorter schedules. Second, studios have become more strict about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently surpassed straight-to-streaming landings. Third, social buzz converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will leverage reaction-worthy moments from test screenings, orchestrated scare clips timed to Thursday night previews, and experiential pop-ups that become influencer fuel. It is a repeatable playbook because it performs.

There is also the slotting calculus. Family and superhero corridors are not as densely packed in early 2026, leaving useful real estate for genre entries that can dominate a weekend or operate as the older-skew option. January is the prime example. Four horror varieties will stack across five weekends, which keeps buzz lanes tidy. Summer provides the other window. The parody can surf the early-summer animated and action swell, then the hard-R entry can make hay in a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Money matters, ratings, and surprise hits

Budgets remain in the efficient band. Most of the films above will track under the $40–$50 million range, with many far below. That allows for strong PLF footprints 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 modest-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 exploit those windows. January could easily deliver the first stealth overachiever of the year, and August into September gives Sony an avenue to hold screens with back-to-back supernatural IP while still leaving room for an indie breakout.

Internationally, brand recognition helps Resident Evil, Evil Dead, and Scream travel, while 28 Years Later benefits from a British setting and returning talent. Werwulf and The Mummy will lean on auteur and classic-monster awareness abroad. Streamers will amplify the tail, with copyright pickups boosting Universal’s slate and Shudder driving evangelism for Cineverse titles. 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.

Audience journey through the year

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers rhythm and variety. January is a feast, February delivers a legacy slasher, April reintroduces a Universal monster, May and June provide a two-beat supernatural run for date nights and group outings, July gets visceral, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a austere, literate nightmare. That is how you keep chatter alive and occupancy strong without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can build month to month, using earlier releases to set up the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors appreciate the spacing. Horror delivers regular Thursday spikes, tight deployments, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can deserve premium formats, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing dimensionality, sonics, and framing that benefit from larger formats. The calendar also leaves room for specialty platformers to open in New York and Los Angeles, build reviews, and slide into national conversation as the fall progresses.

2026 Is Well Positioned

Calendars slide. Ratings change. Casts adjust. But the spine of 2026 horror is set. There is brand heft where it matters, original 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 late-stage specialty acquisition join the party. For now, the job is simple, deliver taut trailers, keep the secrets, and let the scares sell the seats.