Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed summons ancient dread, a bone chilling horror feature, rolling out October 2025 across top streaming platforms

This chilling spectral terror film from literary architect / auteur Andrew Chiaramonte, evoking an mythic entity when newcomers become tools in a satanic ceremony. Available October 2, 2025, on Prime Video, YouTube streaming, Google’s Play platform, Apple’s iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango on-demand.

Hollywood, CA (August 8th, 2025) – get ready for *Young & Cursed*, a gut-wrenching journey of struggle and archaic horror that will reimagine terror storytelling this cool-weather season. Realized by rising filmmaking talent Andrew Chiaramonte, this psychological and immersive motion picture follows five people who come to locked in a far-off structure under the aggressive will of Kyra, a female lead possessed by a timeless biblical force. Steel yourself to be absorbed by a cinematic outing that combines deep-seated panic with arcane tradition, streaming on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Possession by evil has been a long-standing concept in genre filmmaking. In *Young & Cursed*, that pattern is flipped when the presences no longer develop from beyond, but rather from within. This suggests the malevolent layer of every character. The result is a bone-chilling moral showdown where the intensity becomes a constant fight between purity and corruption.


In a remote terrain, five friends find themselves confined under the fiendish control and grasp of a haunted spirit. As the companions becomes helpless to fight her command, cut off and pursued by forces inconceivable, they are pushed to acknowledge their core terrors while the hours relentlessly draws closer toward their expiration.


In *Young & Cursed*, fear amplifies and bonds break, prompting each survivor to reconsider their personhood and the principle of volition itself. The risk escalate with every short lapse, delivering a fear-soaked story that harmonizes spiritual fright with soulful exposure.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my vision was to evoke primitive panic, an force before modern man, working through our weaknesses, and confronting a darkness that threatens selfhood when will is shattered.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Transforming into Kyra needed manifesting something outside normal anguish. She is in denial until the evil takes hold, and that evolution is gut-wrenching because it is so internal.”

Rollout & Launch

*Young & Cursed* will be aired for audience access beginning October 2, 2025, on Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home—so that customers worldwide can watch this chilling supernatural event.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just published a new trailer update for *Young & Cursed*, online to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a follow up to its release of trailer #1, which has earned over strong viewer count.


In addition to its initial rollout, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has publicized that *Young & Cursed* will also be shared across borders, bringing the film to thrill-seekers globally.


Make sure to see this gripping ride through nightmares. Confront *Young & Cursed* this All Hallows’ kickoff to confront these fearful discoveries about inner darkness.


For sneak peeks, production insights, and news straight from the filmmakers, follow @YoungCursedOfficial across your favorite networks and visit the official digital haunt.





Today’s horror Turning Point: the 2025 cycle U.S. calendar fuses ancient-possession motifs, underground frights, together with franchise surges

From pressure-cooker survival tales grounded in scriptural legend and onward to installment follow-ups together with sharp indie viewpoints, 2025 is coalescing into the most complex in tandem with blueprinted year in recent memory.

The 2025 horror calendar reads less like chaos, more like a plan. top-tier distributors plant stakes across the year through proven series, even as SVOD players saturate the fall with discovery plays in concert with old-world menace. In parallel, festival-forward creators is riding the kinetic energy of a banner 2024 fest year. Since Halloween is the prized date, the other windows are mapped with care. The fall stretch is the proving field, and now, players are marking January, spring, and mid-summer. Fans are ravenous, studios are intentional, which means 2025 might go down as horror’s most intentional year yet.

Major and Mini-Major Maneuvers: Prestige fear returns

The majors are assertive. If 2024 set the base, 2025 presses the advantage.

Universal’s schedule begins the calendar with a risk-forward move: a reimagined Wolf Man, not returning to the Gothic European hamlet, but a sharp contemporary setting. Under director Leigh Whannell with Christopher Abbott alongside Julia Garner, this iteration anchors the lycanthropy in a domestic breakdown. The arc is bodily and domestic, about marriage, caregiving, and fragile humanity. set for mid January, it advances a tactic to control the winter valley through premium horror, not dumps.

In spring, Clown in a Cornfield lands, a YA slasher port tuned to austere horror. Helmed by Eli Craig anchored by Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it functions as blood smeared American gothic with snark. Under the costume, it needles small town fear, cross generational rifts, and crowd punishment. Festival whispers say it is sharp.

At summer’s close, Warner Bros. Pictures drops the final chapter of its most reliable horror franchise: The Conjuring: Last Rites. With Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson back as Ed and Lorraine Warren, the film signals catharsis as it engages a widely cited real case. Though the outline is tried, Chaves is guiding toward a solemn, meditative finish. It posts in early September, creating cushion before October load.

Then comes The Black Phone 2. First targeted at early summer, the move into October reads bullish. Derrickson re teams, and the tone that worked before is intact: retrograde shiver, trauma as narrative engine, with spooky supernatural reasoning. The stakes escalate here, 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 second outing goes deeper into backstory, stretches the animatronic parade, and targets both teens and thirtysomething fans of the original game. It lands in December, pinning the winter close.

Platform Plays: Tight funds, wide impact

With theaters prioritizing brand safety, platforms are greenlighting boldly, and the needle moves.

A flagship risky title is Weapons, a cold file multi story chiller stitching three periods attached to a mass disappearance. From Zach Cregger with turns by Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the entry marries dread with character weight. Arriving to cinemas late summer then to streamers in fall, it is poised to inspire think pieces and forums, echoing Barbarian.

On the minimalist axis arrives Together, a sealed box body horror arc with Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Fixed in a remote let as a weekend curdles, the story examines love plus envy plus self disgust as flesh ruin. It toggles from love to slime, a staged slide into codependent hell. Although a platform date is not yet posted, it is a near certain autumn drop.

Then there is Sinners, a thirties set vampire folk saga starring Michael B. Jordan. Shot in rich sepia tones and drenched in 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. First test passes flag it as highly discussable at debut.

Extra indies bide their time on platforms: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper each threads grief and absence and identity, mapping allegory to dread.

The Possession Runs Deep: Young & Cursed

Dropping October 2 across all major streaming platforms, Young & Cursed arrives as a rare marriage, contained in staging yet mythic in effect. 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. As dusk gives way to night, Kyra’s grip intensifies, a violating force plundering fears, vulnerabilities, and regrets.

The chill is psyche led, anchored in primal myth. Skipping the exorcism norm of Catholic rite and Latin line, this one digs into something older, something darker. Lilith ignores rite, she wells up from trauma, quietude, and human weakness. 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 overinflated mythology. No continuity burden. Only psychological menace, compressed and taut, tuned to binge and gasp cycles online. In a spectacle stack, Young & Cursed could be the hush before the shriek.

Festival Launchpads, Market Engines

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF act as proving grounds for the next waves. They serve less as display cases, more as runways.

Fantastic Fest’s horror bench is deep this year. Primate opens the fest with tropical body horror and critics cite Cronenberg and Herzog. Whistle, a folkloric revenge thriller steeped in Aztec lore, is expected to close the fest with fire.

Midnight fare like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You rides on craft as well as title. With A24 behind it, the satire of toxic fandom under a convention lockdown seems breakout bound.

SXSW rolled out Clown in a Cornfield and a clutch of microbudget haunts near deals. Sundance is on track for grief tuned elevated horror, where Tribeca’s genre program draws urban, social, and surreal.

This cycle, festival strategy pivots from discovery toward branding. That wreath is now a starting gun, not the finish.

Heritage 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. Unlike earlier entries, this leans camp and prom night melodrama. Think tiaras, stage blood, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 bows late June, aiming to expand its techno horror mythology with new characters and new AI generated terrors. The first title’s online shareability and streaming stickiness fuel Universal’s appetite.

The Long Walk arrives off an early Stephen King survival piece, Directed by Francis Lawrence, it functions as a harsh dystopian fable encased in survival horror, a children’s march that ends in death. With sharp marketing, it could translate to The Hunger Games for horror adults.

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

Myth turns mainstream
From Lilith in Young & Cursed across to Aztec curses in Whistle, slates mine ancient texts and symbols. It is not nostalgia, it is re owning pre Christian archetypes. Horror exceeds jolts, it insists evil is ancient.

Body horror swings back
Projects including Together, Weapons, and Keeper re center the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation, these are the new metaphors for heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streamer originals stiffen their spine
The era of filler horror on streamers is ending. Services bankroll legitimate writing, legitimate directors, and proper media. Entries like Weapons and Sinners get event treatment, not inventory.

Badges become bargaining chips
Festival laurels are no longer ornamental, they are leverage for theatrical release, premium placement, and media cycles. In 2025, a horror film lacking festival plan may fade.

Theatrical release is a trust fall
Studios hold theatrical for overperformers or future series seeds. All others choose PVOD or hybrid. Horror still lives in theaters, more curated than broad.

Season Ahead: Fall stack and winter swing card

Stacking Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons in September and October yields saturation. Indies like Bone Lake and Keeper will scrap for air. Some may slide to early 2026 or switch platform lanes.

December is anchored by Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, but do not rule out a surprise streamer drop in the final weeks. When the heavy hitters lean mythic, a last creature feature or exorcism can still fit.

The hinge is broad reach to atomized viewers, not single tentpoles. The assignment is not to chase the next Get Out, it is to build horror that endures beyond box office.



The 2026 terror release year: installments, standalone ideas, and also A Crowded Calendar aimed at nightmares

Dek: The current scare cycle stacks immediately with a January glut, thereafter rolls through the summer months, and pushing into the festive period, fusing legacy muscle, new concepts, and calculated counter-scheduling. Studios and streamers are betting on efficient budgets, theatrical leads, and platform-native promos that pivot these films into all-audience topics.

Where horror stands going into 2026

This space has solidified as the bankable move in release strategies, a pillar that can scale when it resonates and still limit the liability when it under-delivers. After 2023 demonstrated to greenlighters that cost-conscious shockers can lead social chatter, the following year kept the drumbeat going with high-profile filmmaker pieces and surprise hits. The energy fed into the 2025 frame, where resurrections and elevated films showed there is capacity for several lanes, from legacy continuations to one-and-done originals that translate worldwide. The aggregate for 2026 is a run that presents tight coordination across the field, with clear date clusters, a combination of marquee IP and original hooks, and a re-energized priority on box-office windows that amplify PVOD and streaming on premium digital and platforms.

Buyers contend the horror lane now operates like a flex slot on the slate. Horror can debut on a wide range of weekends, furnish a grabby hook for teasers and social clips, and outperform with audiences that appear on previews Thursday and sustain through the second weekend if the movie fires. On the heels of a strike-driven backlog, the 2026 plan reflects trust in that model. The calendar opens with a front-loaded January corridor, then leans on spring and early summer for genre counterpoints, while making space for a fall cadence that runs into All Hallows period and beyond. The grid also highlights the expanded integration of specialized labels and SVOD players that can build gradually, fuel WOM, and roll out at the right moment.

Another broad trend is brand curation across interlocking continuities and veteran brands. Distribution groups are not just releasing another return. They are shaping as lore continuity with a heightened moment, whether that is a brandmark that flags a reframed mood or a ensemble decision that ties a latest entry to a first wave. At the very same time, the writer-directors behind the headline-grabbing originals are embracing real-world builds, makeup and prosthetics and site-specific worlds. That blend offers the 2026 slate a robust balance of home base and invention, which is what works overseas.

Major-player strategies for 2026

Paramount establishes early momentum with two front-of-slate titles that sit at tonal extremes. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the lead and Neve Campbell back at the core, setting it up as both a relay and a heritage-centered character-forward chapter. Production is underway in Atlanta, and the narrative stance announces a heritage-honoring approach without looping the last two entries’ sisters thread. Count on a promo wave centered on recognizable motifs, character spotlights, and a teaser-to-trailer rhythm slated for late fall. Distribution is Paramount theatrical.

Paramount also revives 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 creatively for the first time since the early 2000s, a centerpiece the campaign will feature. As a summer relief option, this one will seek general-audience talk through viral-minded bites, with the horror spoof format fitting quick updates to whatever dominates the conversation that spring.

Universal has three discrete projects. SOULM8TE bows January 9, 2026, a technology-driven offshoot from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The hook is elegant, grief-rooted, and big-hook: a grieving man onboards an intelligent companion that mutates into a perilous partner. The date lines it up at the front of a competition-heavy month, with the marketing arm likely to renew viral uncanny stunts and micro spots that melds love and fear.

On May 8, 2026, the studio slots an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely interpreted as the feature developed under working titles in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The official release calendar currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which sets up a official title to become an PR pop closer to the initial tease. The timing offers Universal a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles circle other weekends.

Capping the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film books October 23, 2026, a slot he has commanded before. Peele’s pictures are positioned as filmmaker events, with a mystery-first teaser and a next wave of trailers that shape mood without giving away the concept. The holiday-adjacent corridor creates space for Universal to saturate pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then leverage the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, teams with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček helms, with Souheila Yacoub in the lead. The franchise has consistently shown that a raw, physical-effects centered style can feel cinematic on a middle budget. Position this as a splatter summer horror surge that embraces foreign markets, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most non-U.S. markets.

Sony’s horror bench is notably deep. The studio deploys two marquee IP entries in the back half. An untitled Insidious film bows August 21, 2026, holding a bankable supernatural brand on the board while the spin-off branch builds quietly. Sony has changed the date on this title before, but the current plan keeps it in late summer, where Insidious has long performed.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil re-enters in what the studio is presenting as a ground-zero restart for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a key part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a focus to serve both longtime followers and general audiences. The fall slot provides the studio time to build materials around setting detail, and monster craft, elements that can fuel deluxe auditorium demand and fandom activation.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, books a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Robert Eggers’ Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film extends the filmmaker’s run of period horror characterized by careful craft and archaic language, this time set against lycan legends. The imprint has already reserved the holiday for a holiday release, a public confidence in the auteur as a specialty play that can build and expand if early reception is supportive.

Digital platform strategies

Windowing plans in 2026 run on tested paths. Universal’s releases move to copyright after a theatrical-first then PVOD phase, a cadence that maximizes both first-week urgency and viewer acquisition in the late-window. Prime Video will mix library titles with world buys and small theatrical windows when the data backs it. Max and Hulu work their edges in library pulls, using in-app campaigns, holiday hubs, and collection rows to stretch the tail on 2026 genre cume. Netflix retains agility about Netflix originals and festival snaps, slotting horror entries near launch and eventizing releases with quick-run campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, operates a laddered of limited theatrical footprints and fast windowing that translates talk to trials. That will play for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before pressing fan funnels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ cherry-picks horror on a title-by-title basis. The platform has indicated interest to acquire select projects with recognized filmmakers or star-led packages, then give them a boutique theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet Oscar thresholds or to gather buzz before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still benefits from the 20th Century Studios slate, a key factor for platform stickiness when the genre conversation peaks.

Specialized lanes

Cineverse is putting together a 2026 lane 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 uncomplicated: 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 fall corridor, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. The distributor has hinted a big-screen first plan for the title, an constructive signal for fans of the ferocious series and for exhibitors hungry for R material in the autumn stretch.

Focus will favor the auteur track with Werwulf, stewarding the film through autumn festivals if the cut is ready, then deploying the holiday frame to go wider. That positioning has been successful for filmmaker-first horror with award possibilities. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not released many dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines tend to converge after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A likely scenario is a brace of late-summer and fall platformers that can surge if reception warrants. Watch for 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 membership.

Series vs standalone

By tilt, 2026 leans toward the franchise column. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all harness cultural cachet. The potential drawback, as ever, is overexposure. The workable fix is to pitch each entry as a new angle. Paramount is emphasizing character and lineage in Scream 7, Sony is positioning a ground-zero restart for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is leaning into a European tilt from a rising filmmaker. Those choices make a difference when the audience has so many options and social sentiment turns quickly.

Originals and talent-first projects supply the oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be framed as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, anchors on Rachel McAdams in a survival chiller premise with the director’s playful dread. SOULM8TE offers a precise, unnerving tech hook. Werwulf rests on period texture and an unsparing tone. Even when the title is not based on a brand, the package is known enough to accelerate early sales and early previews.

The last three-year set frame the logic. In 2023, a exclusive cinema model that held distribution windows did not foreclose a simultaneous release test from hitting when the brand was trusted. In 2024, art-forward horror over-performed in PLF. In 2025, a reawakened chapter of a beloved infection saga made clear that global horror franchises can still feel new when they angle differently and grow scope. 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 shot back-to-back, permits marketing to interlace chapters through protagonists and motifs and to leave creative active without extended gaps.

Technique and craft currents

The creative meetings behind the 2026 slate suggest a continued shift toward hands-on, location-grounded craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not imitate any recent iteration of the property, a stance that echoes the physical-effects bias he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film finished filming and is aimed at its April 17, 2026 date. The push will likely that highlights unease and texture rather than VFX blitz, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership sustaining tight cost control.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has outlined Werwulf as the most forbidding project he has tackled, which tracks with a historical setting 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 preview this aesthetic in trade spotlights and craft spotlights before rolling out a atmospheric tease that prioritizes vibe over plot, a move that has clicked for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is designed for gross-out texture, a signature of the series that lands overseas in red-band trailers and sparks shareable reaction clips from early screenings. Scream 7 targets a meta recalibration that brings back the core lead. Resident Evil will rise or fall on monster realization and design, which work nicely for expo activations and curated leaks. Insidious tends to be a audio showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the theatrical pitch feel compelling. Look for trailers that underscore fine-grain sound, deep-bass stingers, and quiet voids that land in big rooms.

Calendar cadence

January is busy. Universal’s SOULM8TE opens January 9, 2026, then Sony returns a week later with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple on January 16. Return to Silent Hill follows on January 23, a gloomy counterbalance amid larger brand plays. The month concludes with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a island survival chiller from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is legit, but the range of tones creates a lane for each, and the five-week structure gives each runway for each if word of mouth holds.

Post-January through spring tee up summer. Scream 7 comes February 27 with nostalgia energy. In April, The Mummy resurrects 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 lighter and broader, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 brings ferocious intensity. The counterprogramming logic is solid. The spoof can thrive next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest caters to older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have cycled through premium screens.

Late-season stretch leans IP. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously excelled. Resident Evil rolls in after September 18, a shoulder-season slot that still steps into Halloween marketing beats. Jordan Peele’s untitled film books October 23 and will dominate cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely backed his comment is here by a shroud-first teaser rhythm and limited plot reveals that lean on concept not plot.

December specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a line in sand that genre can work in holiday corridor when packaged as filmmaker-first prestige. 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 clicks critically, the studio can go wider in the first week of 2027 while using holiday momentum and holiday card usage.

Project briefs

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting rolling out as production carries on. Logline: Sidney returns to take on a new Ghostface while the narrative revisits the original film’s DNA. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: legacy-forward with modern snap.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A heartbroken man’s virtual companion turns into something fatal and romantic. Rating: TBA. Production: Wrapped principal for an early-year bow. Positioning: tech shocker with 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 enlarges the frame beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult forms in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Filmed consecutively with the first film. Positioning: next step of a prestige infection saga.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man finds his way back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to meet a unstable reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished with U.S. theatrical locked. Positioning: gothic-game adaptation.

Send Help (20th Century Studios, January 30, 2026)
Director: Sam Raimi. Top cast: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Dennis Haysbert, Chris Pang. Logline: After a plane crash, an employee and her difficult boss try to survive on a uninhabited island as the power balance of power swivels and unease intensifies. Rating: TBA. Production: Locked. Positioning: star-led survival piece from a genre icon.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles in the vault in official materials. Logline: A contemporary retelling that returns the monster to chill, based on Cronin’s material craft and creeping dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed. Positioning: iconic monster return with auteur mark.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A home-set haunting scenario that manipulates the fright of a child’s fragile POV. Rating: pending. Production: picture-locked. Positioning: studio-built and star-fronted spirit-world suspense.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers returning creatively. Logline: {A send-up revival that lampoons current genre trends and true-crime crazes. Rating: not yet rated. Production: filming slated for fall 2025. Positioning: wide-appeal summer alternative.

Evil Dead Burn (Warner Bros. domestic, July 24, 2026)
Director: Sébastien Vaniček. Top cast: Souheila Yacoub, with ensemble additions. Logline: A new infestation of Deadites flares, with an transnational twist in tone and setting. Rating: pending. Production: on location in New Zealand. Positioning: R-forward continuation crafted for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: awaiting reveal. Top cast: unrevealed. Logline: The Further widens again, with a fresh family anchored to residual nightmares. Rating: TBD. Production: on track for summer lensing before late-summer rollout. Positioning: stalwart franchise piece in a friendly frame.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: to be announced publicly. Top cast: unrevealed. Logline: A re-seeded launch designed to re-establish the franchise from the ground up, with an lean toward survival-core horror over set-piece spectacle. Rating: not yet rated. Production: advancing in development with date locked. Positioning: IP-accurate revival with mainstream runway.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: awaiting confirmation. Logline: closely held. Rating: TBA. 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 primal menace. Rating: pending. Production: gearing up with December 25 frame. 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 theaters-first plan ahead of platforming. Status: date in flux, fall expected.

Why the moment is 2026

Three pragmatic forces frame this lineup. First, production that slowed or re-sequenced in 2024 required schedule breathing room. Horror can bridge those gaps quickly because scripts often need fewer locations, fewer large-scale effects set pieces, and pared-down timelines. Second, studios have become more disciplined about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently outpaced straight-to-streaming launches. Third, platform buzz converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will activate shareable moments from test screenings, curated scare clips dropping on Thursday previews, and experiential pop-ups that power influencer posts. It is a repeatable playbook because it wins.

Calendar math also matters. Early 2026 is less crowded with family and superhero corridors, leaving useful real estate for genre entries that can dominate a weekend or position as the older-lean choice. January is the prime example. Four genre tones will jostle 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 make hay in a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Budget discipline, rating paths, sleeper math

Budgets remain in the ideal band. Most of the films above will land under the $40–$50 million mark, with many far below. That allows for wide PLF deployment without needing superhero-level volume to break even. news The most likely R ratings include Evil Dead Burn, Werwulf, and possibly Resident Evil depending on the final cut. Scream 7, Insidious, and SOULM8TE can plausibly land PG-13 to maximize reach, though each franchise has toggled between ratings in the past. Specialty plays tend to lean R to preserve tone and intensity.

The search for sleepers continues in Q1, where lean-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 work those windows. January could easily deliver the first quiet breakout 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 great post to read 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. Anticipate a robust PVOD phase across the board, 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 cadence and diversity. January is a buffet, February delivers a legacy slasher, April reintroduces a Universal monster, May and June provide a one-two spectral pairing 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 maintain buzz and butts in seats without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can gain momentum, using earlier releases to prep the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors favor the spacing. Horror delivers preview-night pops, optimized footprints, 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 tactility, acoustics, and camera work that benefit from larger formats. The calendar also leaves room for specialty platformers to open in New York and Los Angeles, build reviews, and slide into national conversation as the fall progresses.

2026 Shapes Up Strong

Slots move. Ratings change. Casts adjust. But the spine of 2026 horror is set. There is name recognition where it counts, new vision where it lands, and a calendar that shows studios get how and when audiences want scares. The awards and festival pipeline into 2027 will come into focus once the fall festivals lock, and it would not be surprising to see at least one closing-window arthouse pickup join the party. For now, the job is simple, produce clean trailers, lock the reveals, and let the gasps sell the seats.