Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed stirs up mythic darkness, a fear soaked thriller, premiering Oct 2025 across top streaming platforms

A haunting spectral horror tale from screenwriter / director Andrew Chiaramonte, awakening an long-buried evil when unknowns become instruments in a demonic ordeal. Available on October 2, 2025, on Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Google’s digital store, Apple iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango on-demand.

Hollywood, CA (August 8th, 2025) – get ready for *Young & Cursed*, a unnerving chronicle of resistance and primeval wickedness that will revolutionize genre cinema this autumn. Guided by rising genre visionary Andrew Chiaramonte, this tense and eerie story follows five young adults who find themselves caught in a secluded shack under the unfriendly command of Kyra, a tormented girl consumed by a biblical-era religious nightmare. Be prepared to be immersed by a filmic event that blends primitive horror with ancestral stories, hitting on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Malevolent takeover has been a recurring theme in the silver screen. In *Young & Cursed*, that structure is radically shifted when the dark entities no longer come from beyond, but rather from their core. This represents the most hidden element of the players. The result is a intense moral showdown where the suspense becomes a perpetual conflict between light and darkness.


In a barren landscape, five young people find themselves imprisoned under the unholy rule and possession of a unknown being. As the survivors becomes unable to withstand her control, disconnected and preyed upon by powers beyond reason, they are compelled to encounter their greatest panics while the moments harrowingly strikes toward their end.


In *Young & Cursed*, mistrust intensifies and friendships fracture, prompting each soul to reflect on their being and the philosophy of liberty itself. The danger intensify with every tick, delivering a horror experience that intertwines supernatural terror with human vulnerability.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my goal was to extract primal fear, an force that predates humanity, operating within inner turmoil, and exposing a darkness that peels away humanity when consciousness is fragmented.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Transforming into Kyra called for internalizing something beneath mortal despair. She is ignorant until the curse activates, and that metamorphosis is harrowing because it is so raw.”

Debut Info

*Young & Cursed* will be aired for audiences beginning from October 2, 2025, on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google’s store, iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango at Home—providing users anywhere can be part of this paranormal experience.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just released a new extended look for *Young & Cursed*, posted to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a second look to its original clip, which has been viewed over 100,000 views.


In addition to its North American premiere, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has revealed that *Young & Cursed* will also be launched globally, presenting the nightmare to a global viewership.


Mark your calendar for this life-altering descent into hell. Face *Young & Cursed* this day of reckoning to explore these chilling revelations about existence.


For previews, filmmaker commentary, and announcements from the cast and crew, follow @YACMovie across platforms and visit youngandcursed.com.





The horror genre’s major pivot: calendar year 2025 stateside slate integrates biblical-possession ideas, underground frights, in parallel with tentpole growls

From fight-to-live nightmare stories saturated with biblical myth through to franchise returns alongside pointed art-house angles, 2025 is shaping up as the most textured and tactically planned year since the mid-2010s.

The 2025 horror calendar reads less like chaos, more like a plan. leading studios are anchoring the year by way of signature titles, as OTT services prime the fall with unboxed visions and primordial unease. Meanwhile, independent banners is surfing the uplift of a banner 2024 fest year. Because Halloween continues as the prize window, the surrounding weeks are charted with intent. A fat September–October lane is customary now, notably this year, slates are opening January, spring, and mid-summer. Viewers are primed, studios are intentional, and 2025 may end up the most intentional cycle yet.

Studio and Mini-Major Strategies: Prestige fear returns

No one at the top is standing still. If 2024 framed the blueprint, 2025 presses the advantage.

Universal Pictures starts the year with a bold swing: a reconceived Wolf Man, eschewing a mist-shrouded old-world European town, inside today’s landscape. From director Leigh Whannell featuring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this approach fixes the lycanthropy within intimate rupture. The arc is bodily and domestic, about marriage, caregiving, and fragile humanity. timed for mid January, it aligns with turning the winter slack into a premium lane, not a dumping lane.

In spring, Clown in a Cornfield lands, a YA slasher page-to-screen distilled into spare horror. Directed by Eli Craig anchored by Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it comes as grit laced American nightmare with sardonic edge. Behind the greasepaint sits a critique of small town suspicion, generational fracture, and vigilante justice. Festival whispers say it is sharp.

Toward summer’s end, Warner Bros. Pictures bows the concluding entry inside its trusty horror universe: The Conjuring: Last Rites. Ed and Lorraine Warren return with Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, the installment promises emotional closure while taking on one of the duo’s most infamous real life cases. Though the outline is tried, director Michael Chaves reportedly leans into a mournful, interior tone for the swan song. It is also positioned early in September, giving it breathing room before the October onslaught.

Then comes The Black Phone 2. It was eyed for early summer, and shifting to October telegraphs confidence. Derrickson re boards, and the hallmarks that turned the first into a sleeper reappear: retrograde shiver, trauma explicitly handled, along with eerie supernatural rules. The ante is higher this round, through a thicker read on the “grabber” legend and generational ache.

Closing the prime list is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a title that can sell without classic marketing. The follow up digs further into canon, grows the animatronic horror lineup, with a bullseye on teens and thirty something nostalgics. It hits in December, locking down the winter tail.

Streaming Offerings: Slim budgets, major punch

While the big screen favors titles you know, SVOD players are testing edges, and gains show.

One standout ambitious title is Weapons, a cold-case woven horror suite that weaves together three timelines connected by a mass disappearance. From Zach Cregger and starring Josh Brolin with Julia Garner, the piece merges terror with dramatic mass. Debuting in theaters late summer then streaming in fall, it seems set to fuel decode culture and breakdowns, in the Barbarian lane.

At the smaller scale sits Together, a two hander body horror spiral led by Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Located in a secluded rental as a trip collapses, the story examines love plus envy plus self disgust as flesh ruin. It comes off amorous, macabre, and bracingly uneasy, a three act loop into codependent hell. Despite no official platform date, it is a near certain autumn drop.

Also rising is Sinners, a thirties set vampire folk saga led by Michael B. Jordan. Visualized in sepia palette with scriptural metaphor, it mirrors There Will Be Blood meeting Let the Right One In. The narrative analyzes American religious trauma through a ghostly allegory. Pre release tests anoint it a conversation starter on streaming.

Several other streaming indies are quietly waiting in the wings: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper each taps grief, vanishing, and identity, treating horror as metaphor more than spectacle.

Possession Runs Deep: Young & Cursed

Bowing October 2 on major streamers, Young & Cursed plays as a rare fusion, spare in setting, sweeping in lore. Conceived and directed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the work follows five strangers rousing in a remote timber cabin, under Kyra’s control, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. As night descends, so does Kyra’s power, an invasive force that exploits their deepest fears, weaknesses, and regrets.

The chill is psyche led, anchored in primal myth. Not another exorcism story reliant on Catholic rite and Latin phrase, this piece touches something older, something darker. Lilith arrives not by rite, but through trauma, silence, and human fragility. By making possession inward rather than external, Young & Cursed joins a trend toward intimate character studies masked as genre.

The platforms, including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home, angle the film as Halloween counterprogramming to sequel load and monster re ups. It is a clever angle. No puffed out backstory. No franchise baggage. Just pure psychological dread, contained, tense, and tailor made for the binge and breathe rhythm of digital horror fans. Inside spectacle, Young & Cursed may separate by silence, then rupture.

Festival Badges as Fuel

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF still seed what horror becomes in six to twelve months. This cycle, they are launchpads first and showcases second.

This year, Fantastic Fest confirms a strong horror slate. Primate, an opening night tropical body-horror, invites Cronenberg meets Herzog talk. Whistle, a revenge folktale steeped in Aztec myth, is tapped to close with fire.

Midnight entries like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You are getting buzz not just for their titles but for their execution. The A24 fueled satire of toxic fandom in a con lockdown has breakout energy.

SXSW lifted Clown in a Cornfield and put microbudget hauntings into market talk. Sundance tends to present grief infused elevated horror and likely will, and Tribeca’s genre box tilting urban, social, and surreal.

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

Heritage Horror: Additions, Do Overs, and Revisions

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

Fear Street: Prom Queen hits July to revive the 90s line with fresh lead and VHS vibe. Departing prior tones, it leans camp and prom night melodrama. Picture tiaras, bright red goo, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 arrives late June, seeking to build out techno horror lore using new characters and AI born frights. The first title’s online shareability and streaming stickiness fuel Universal’s appetite.

The Long Walk adapts an early, scathing Stephen King work, Directed by Francis Lawrence, it shows as a grim dystopian parable set in survival horror, a youth walk ending only in death. If sold right, it could sit as The Hunger Games for adult horror fans.

Other reboots and sequels, including Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda, scatter across the calendar, many awaiting strategic windows or late acquisitions.

Emerging Currents

Mythic dread mainstreams
Young & Cursed with Lilith and Whistle with Aztec curses both signal ancient texts and symbols. Not nostalgia, a reclaim of pre Christian archetypes. Horror goes beyond fright, it notes evil’s age.

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

SVOD originals harden up
Churn filler is losing ground on platforms. SVOD players fund strong scripts, proven directors, and real spend. Pieces like Weapons and Sinners receive event status, not feed stock.

Festival hype becomes leverage
Laurels are not just decorative, they leverage theatrical, premium placement, and media cycles. A horror film without a festival strategy in 2025 risks disappearing.

Theatrical release is a trust fall
Studios release horror theatrically only when they believe in overperformance or sequel trees. The rest moves to PVOD or hybrid patterns. Horror keeps theatrical presence, via curation.

Forecast: Autumn crowding, winter surprise

A cluster of Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons in September and October equals saturation. Indies like Bone Lake and Keeper will grind for attention. Some may slide to early 2026 or switch platform lanes.

December anchors on Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, yet a surprise streamer drop could appear in the final weeks. Given the dark, mythic lean of the year’s big films, a final creature feature or exorcism slot is open.

The 2025 performance is about reach across segments, not one hero title. The aim is not another Get Out chase, it is durable horror beyond gross.



The oncoming chiller season: entries, fresh concepts, paired with A brimming Calendar calibrated for frights

Dek The upcoming terror season stacks early with a January glut, thereafter carries through midyear, and running into the holiday frame, balancing marquee clout, new concepts, and strategic counterweight. Studios and platforms are relying on cost discipline, big-screen-first runs, and social-driven marketing that convert genre releases into all-audience topics.

Where horror stands going into 2026

Horror has become the most reliable swing in programming grids, a corner that can break out when it hits and still limit the losses when it falls short. After the 2023 year demonstrated to studio brass that disciplined-budget pictures can own mainstream conversation, 2024 extended the rally with festival-darling auteurs and sleeper breakouts. The energy fed into the 2025 frame, where reboots and filmmaker-prestige bets underscored there is an opening for multiple flavors, from ongoing IP entries to fresh IP that travel well. The result for 2026 is a calendar that reads highly synchronized across the major shops, with defined corridors, a mix of familiar brands and original hooks, and a recommitted emphasis on exclusive windows that fuel later windows on premium rental and SVOD.

Studio leaders note the space now functions as a utility player on the rollout map. Horror can arrive on a wide range of weekends, deliver a simple premise for ad units and shorts, and outperform with audiences that come out on preview nights and stay strong through the week two if the entry works. In the wake of a production delay era, the 2026 plan shows belief in that dynamic. The year begins with a weighty January stretch, then taps spring and early summer for balance, while keeping space for a fall run that carries into holiday-adjacent weekends and past the holiday. The arrangement also shows the ongoing integration of arthouse labels and digital platforms that can build gradually, generate chatter, and broaden at the timely point.

A parallel macro theme is IP stewardship across shared universes and heritage properties. Studio teams are not just pushing another installment. They are trying to present threaded continuity with a specialness, whether that is a title treatment that indicates a new tone or a talent selection that links a new entry to a first wave. At the simultaneously, the creative teams behind the most anticipated originals are prioritizing real-world builds, in-camera effects and site-specific worlds. That interplay gives 2026 a strong blend of comfort and shock, which is what works overseas.

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

Paramount fires first with two spotlight moves that run the tonal gamut. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the director seat and Neve Campbell back at the forefront, marketing it as both a lineage transfer and a back-to-basics character-forward chapter. The film is shooting in Atlanta, and the creative stance signals a legacy-leaning approach without repeating the last two entries’ core arc for the Carpenter sisters. Count on a promo wave anchored in heritage visuals, initial cast looks, and a teaser-to-trailer rhythm timed to late fall. Distribution is Paramount in theaters.

Paramount also reboots a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are joining up again, with the Wayans brothers involved as creative contributors for the first time since the early 2000s, a hook the campaign will foreground. As a counterweight in summer, this one will drive mass reach through share-ready beats, with the horror spoof format inviting quick redirects to whatever rules the meme cycle that spring.

Universal has three separate releases. SOULM8TE rolls out January 9, 2026, a technology-driven offshoot from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The hook is simple, loss-driven, and premise-first: a grieving man onboards an virtual partner that becomes a deadly partner. The date puts it at the front of a competition-heavy month, with Universal’s team likely to mirror creepy live activations and bite-size content that fuses companionship and creep.

On May 8, 2026, the studio schedules an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely rumored as the feature developed under development titles in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The public release grid currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which reserves space for a public title to become an teaser payoff closer to the early tease. The timing gives the studio a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles crowd different corridors.

Finishing the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film grabs October 23, 2026, a slot he has worked well before. Peele titles are framed as must-see filmmaker statements, with a concept-forward tease and a subsequent trailers that establish tone without plot reveals the concept. The spooky-season slot affords Universal to fill 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, joins with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček steers, with Souheila Yacoub leading. The franchise has proven that a blood-soaked, practical-effects forward mix can feel prestige on a mid-range budget. Expect a gore-forward summer horror hit that maximizes international markets, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most offshore territories.

Sony’s horror bench is surprisingly deep. The studio deploys two marquee IP entries in the back half. An untitled Insidious film premieres August 21, 2026, preserving a steady supernatural brand on the board while the spin-off branch advances. The studio has repositioned on this title before, but the current plan locks it in late summer, where Insidious has traditionally delivered.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil steps back in what the studio is billing as a reimagined restart for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a core part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a explicit mandate to serve both franchise faithful and newcomers. The fall slot lets Sony to build campaign pieces around canon, and creature work, elements that can increase premium format interest and fan-culture participation.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, sets a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Robert Eggers’ Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film extends Eggers’ run of period horror grounded in historical precision and archaic language, this time circling werewolf lore. Focus’s team has already staked the slot for a holiday release, a clear message in Eggers as a specialty play that can broaden if early reception is enthusiastic.

Streaming windows and tactics

Platform tactics for 2026 run on tested paths. Universal’s genre slate move to copyright after a theatrical-first then PVOD phase, a structure that expands both launch urgency and viewer acquisition in the later window. Prime Video pairs catalogue additions with international acquisitions and small theatrical windows when the data signals it. Max and Hulu work their edges in library pulls, using prominent placements, holiday hubs, and programmed rows to extend momentum on the 2026 genre total. Netflix retains agility about in-house releases and festival grabs, timing horror entries closer to drop and framing as events go-lives with condensed plans. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, deploys a hybrid of limited theatrical footprints and prompt platform moves that turns chatter to conversion. That will prove important for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before working direct-to-fan channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ keeps a case-by-case stance on horror on a per-project basis. The platform has exhibited willingness to secure select projects with award winners or name-led packages, then give them a boutique theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet qualification bars or to build credibility before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still leans on the 20th Century Studios slate, a major factor for platform stickiness when the genre conversation peaks.

The specialty lanes and indie surprises

Cineverse is curating a 2026 slate with two name-brand moves. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The promise is uncomplicated: the same brooding, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a diehard favorite, refined for modern mix and image. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a fall corridor, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. The distributor has hinted a traditional cinema play for the title, an healthy marker for fans of the ferocious series and for exhibitors seeking adult skew in the October weeks.

Focus will lean into the auteur lane with Werwulf, curating the horror rollout through a fall festival swing if the cut is ready, then using the Christmas corridor to widen. That positioning has proved effective for filmmaker-first 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 commonly finalize after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A safe bet is a brace of late-summer and fall platformers that can go wider if reception merits. Do not be surprised by an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that premieres at Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work in tandem, using targeted theatrical to seed evangelism that fuels their paid base.

Brands and originals

By number, 2026 tilts in favor of the brand-heavy side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all harness brand equity. The risk, as ever, is fatigue. The standing approach is to market each entry as a renewed feel. Paramount is elevating character and continuity in Scream 7, Sony is signaling a clean restart for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is leaning into a French sensibility from a new voice. Those choices register when the audience has so many options and social sentiment tilts quickly.

Originals and filmmaker-centric entries add air. Jordan Peele’s October film will be presented as a brand unto itself. Sam Raimi’s Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, puts Rachel McAdams into 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 a property, the assembly is anchored enough to accelerate early sales and preview-night crowds.

Rolling three-year comps announce the method. In 2023, a big-screen-first plan that maintained windows did not obstruct a same-day experiment from winning when the brand was potent. In 2024, meticulous-craft horror surged in big-format auditoriums. In 2025, a reawakened chapter of a beloved infection saga made clear that global horror franchises can still feel recharged when they rotate perspective and widen scale. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which carries on January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The linked-chapter plan, with chapters lensed sequentially, enables marketing to interlace chapters through protagonists and motifs and to keep assets in-market without doldrums.

Behind-the-camera trends

The filmmaking conversations behind the year’s horror foreshadow a continued tilt toward tactile, place-driven craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not repeat any recent iteration of the property, a stance that reinforces the prosthetic-forward taste he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film finished filming and is tracking toward its April 17, 2026 date. Expect a campaign that spotlights atmosphere and fear rather than CG roller-coasters, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership supporting financial discipline.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has described Werwulf as the grimmest project he has tackled, which tracks with a 13th-century milieu and historically accurate language, a combination that can make for wraparound sound and a cold, elemental mood on the big screen. Focus will likely seed this aesthetic in long-lead press and craft features before rolling out a initial teaser that leans on mood over plot, a move that has clicked for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is aimed at gristle and gore, a signature of the series that exports well in red-band trailers and gathers shareable reaction videos from early screenings. Scream 7 positions a meta recalibration that returns to the core star. Resident Evil will rise or fall on creature work and production design, which match well with fan conventions and timed asset drops. Insidious tends to be a theatrical sound showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the cinema value feel definitive. Look for trailers that highlight surgical sound design, deep-bass stingers, and dead-air cuts that benefit on big speakers.

Release calendar overview

January is full. Universal’s 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 somber counterpoint amid heftier brand moves. The month finishes with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival-and-paranoia piece from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is meaningful, but the range of tones affords lanes to each, and the five-week structure hands each a runway for each if word of mouth spreads.

Winter into spring stage summer. Paramount’s Scream 7 rolls out February 27 with heritage buzz. In April, New Line’s The Mummy reawakens a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once was aligned with genre counterprogramming and now can handle 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 jokier and broader, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 unleashes ferocious intensity. The counterprogramming logic is workable. The spoof can connect next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest satisfies older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have run their PLF course.

Late summer into fall leans recognizable. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously thrived. Resident Evil steps in after September 18, a pre-October slot that still steps into Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event occupies October 23 and will captivate cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely driven by a mystery-driven teaser strategy and limited previews that center concept over reveals.

Prestige-horror at year-end. Werwulf on December 25 is a marker that genre can thrive over the holidays when packaged as filmmaker-driven prestige horror. Focus has done this before, platforming with care, then working critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to stay top of mind into January. If the film scores with critics, the studio can broaden in the first week of 2027 while enjoying holiday hold and 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 continuing to be revealed as production continues. Logline: Sidney returns to counter a new Ghostface while the narrative reorients around the original film’s DNA. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: roots reset with a contemporary edge.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A devastated man’s artificial companion becomes something deadly romantic. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming finished for an early-year bow. Positioning: AI chiller with a human heart.

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 widens the scope beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult hardens in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Double-shot with the first film. Positioning: prestige survival-horror continuation.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man finds his way back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to encounter a altering reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed production with U.S. distribution. Positioning: fog-and-fear 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 scramble to survive on a cut-off island as the power dynamic inverts and suspicion grows. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished. Positioning: star-front survival film from a master.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles not yet announced in official materials. Logline: A modern reimagining that returns the monster to nightmare, shaped by Cronin’s material craft and rising dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Wrapped. Positioning: classic monster revival with auteur stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A domestic haunting setup that explores the panic of a child’s wobbly POV. Rating: forthcoming. Production: finished. Positioning: studio-backed, star-driven paranormal suspense.

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 needles today’s horror trends and true crime preoccupations. Rating: not yet rated. Production: shoot planned for fall 2025. Positioning: big-tent summer spoof.

Evil Dead Burn (Warner Bros. domestic, July 24, 2026)
Director: Sébastien Vaniček. Top cast: Souheila Yacoub, with ensemble additions. Logline: A new infestation of Deadites surges, with an globe-spanning 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: pending. Logline: The Further widens again, with a different family bound to lingering terrors. Rating: TBA. Production: slated for summer production leading to late-summer release. Positioning: reliable supernatural IP in a date that favors the brand.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: to be disclosed. Top cast: unrevealed. Logline: A ground-up reset designed to rebuild the franchise from the ground up, with an lean toward survival-driven horror over action-forward bombast. Rating: pending. Production: dev phase with date secured. Positioning: fidelity-minded reboot with crossover prospects.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: TBA. Logline: intentionally withheld. Rating: not yet rated. Production: moving forward. 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 era-faithful speech and raw menace. Rating: forthcoming. Production: in preparation with Christmas frame locked. Positioning: filmmaker-driven holiday release with craft awards runway.

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

Why 2026 and why now

Three hands-on forces structure this lineup. First, production that paused or recalendared in 2024 required runway on the datebook. Horror can move in swiftly because scripts often use fewer locations, fewer large-scale effects sequences, and shorter schedules. Second, studios have become more orderly 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 launches. Third, digital word of mouth converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will leverage turnkey scare beats from test screenings, controlled scare clips launched on Thursday previews, and experiential pop-ups that double as influencer content. It is a repeatable playbook because it performs.

Programming arithmetic plays a role. Early-year family and superhero blocks are thinner in 2026, freeing space for genre entries that can control a weekend or operate as the older-skew option. January is the prime example. Four horror lanes will share space across five weekends, which keeps buzz lanes tidy. Summer provides the other window. The spoof can draft behind animation and action in early summer, then the hard-R entry can take advantage of a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Business outlook: budgets, ratings, and the sleeper hunt

Budgets remain in the Goldilocks zone. Most of the films above will fit below the $40–$50 million line, with many far below. That allows for robust premium-format allocation 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 breakout hunt continues in Q1, where cost-efficient 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 dark-horse hit 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. Look for a strong PVOD phase overall, since horror fans have shown a willingness to pay for convenience after an opening weekend, especially when word of mouth is strong.

The moviegoer’s year in horror

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers beat and breadth. January is a array, February delivers a legacy slasher, April restores a Universal monster, May and June provide a back-to-back supernatural punch for date nights and group outings, July goes for the throat, 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 preserve buzz while driving admissions without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can sequence upward, using earlier releases to warm up the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors value the spacing. Horror delivers reliable Thursday lifts, right-sized allotments, 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 tactility, aural design, 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 Robust 2026 On Deck

Dates shift. Ratings change. Casts adjust. But the spine of 2026 horror is intact. There is brand power where it counts, distinct vision where it matters, and a calendar that shows studios read audience appetite for 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 movies job is simple, produce clean trailers, keep secrets, and let the gasps sell the seats.