Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed releases mythic darkness, a fear soaked shocker, streaming October 2025 across major platforms

A eerie occult suspense film from dramatist / visionary Andrew Chiaramonte, unbinding an prehistoric curse when strangers become subjects in a hellish ritual. Launching this October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon’s Prime Video, the YouTube platform, Google’s digital store, iTunes Movies, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango’s digital service.

Hollywood, CA (August 8, 2025) – Brace yourselves for *Young & Cursed*, a gut-wrenching episode of staying alive and primeval wickedness that will transform horror this cool-weather season. Guided by rising director to watch Andrew Chiaramonte, this pressure-packed and atmospheric fearfest follows five characters who emerge locked in a secluded dwelling under the sinister power of Kyra, a young woman inhabited by a prehistoric sacrosanct terror. Be warned to be captivated by a cinematic event that combines bone-deep fear with legendary tales, streaming on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Cursed embodiment has been a long-standing theme in the movies. In *Young & Cursed*, that framework is reimagined when the fiends no longer emerge beyond the self, but rather inside them. This represents the malevolent shade of the protagonists. The result is a intense mental war where the events becomes a unyielding struggle between good and evil.


In a haunting backcountry, five campers find themselves imprisoned under the ghastly influence and overtake of a unknown female figure. As the youths becomes defenseless to reject her dominion, severed and preyed upon by evils inconceivable, they are pushed to face their raw vulnerabilities while the timeline brutally ticks onward toward their destruction.


In *Young & Cursed*, unease intensifies and ties implode, compelling each soul to evaluate their values and the foundation of conscious will itself. The cost amplify with every passing moment, delivering a horror experience that marries ghostly evil with psychological weakness.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my desire was to draw upon pure dread, an force before modern man, feeding on psychological breaks, and testing a being that challenges autonomy when agency is lost.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Performing as Kyra was about accessing something beyond human emotion. She is innocent until the haunting manifests, and that transition is emotionally raw because it is so close.”

Viewing Options

*Young & Cursed* will be unleashed for audiences beginning on October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon’s platform, YouTube, Google Play, Apple iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango on-demand—allowing watchers worldwide can enjoy this paranormal experience.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just unveiled a new extended look for *Young & Cursed*, published to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a second look to its first trailer, which has seen over notable views.


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


Make sure to see this visceral descent into darkness. Stream *Young & Cursed* this fall premiere to face these haunting secrets about the mind.


For film updates, on-set glimpses, and news from inside the story, follow @YoungAndCursedMovie across social media and visit our film’s homepage.





Contemporary horror’s Turning Point: 2025 across markets domestic schedule blends Mythic Possession, underground frights, together with Franchise Rumbles

Beginning with pressure-cooker survival tales infused with legendary theology as well as brand-name continuations set beside focused festival visions, 2025 is lining up as horror’s most layered and carefully orchestrated year since the mid-2010s.

Call it full, but it is also focused. leading studios set cornerstones via recognizable brands, as streaming platforms prime the fall with new voices and ancestral chills. Across the art-house lane, the micro-to-mid budget ranks is carried on the momentum from a high-water 2024 festival stretch. Given Halloween is the centerpiece, the non-October slots are tuned with exactness. That late Q3 to mid Q4 lane is the crucible, notably this year, strategies include January, spring, and mid-summer. Audiences are leaning in, studios are targeted, accordingly 2025 may be recorded as the genre’s most deliberate campaign.

Studio Playbook and Mini-Major Tactics: Premium genre swings back

The studios are not sitting idle. If 2024 set the stage for reinvention, 2025 deepens the push.

the Universal camp lights the fuse with a headline swing: a refashioned Wolf Man, avoiding the standard nineteenth century European backdrop, but a sharp contemporary setting. From director Leigh Whannell fronted by Christopher Abbott with Julia Garner, this take locates the lycanthropy inside home disintegration. The transformation is not just physical, it is marital, parental, and painfully human. arriving mid January, it helps remake the winter trough with prestige offerings, not discard thrillers.

The spring frame introduces Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher adaptation reframed as lean dread. From director Eli Craig and featuring Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it feels like crimson splashed Midwest menace with winked critique. Beneath the facade, it probes hometown suspicion, boomer to zoomer divides, and mob retribution. Early festival buzz suggests it has teeth.

As summer winds down, Warner’s schedule delivers the closing chapter of its most reliable horror franchise: The Conjuring: Last Rites. With Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson returning as Ed and Lorraine Warren, the chapter points to emotional capstone while addressing a headline case. Although the framework is familiar, Michael Chaves is rumored to steer toward a somber, reflective register for the close. It lands in early September, carving air ahead of October’s stack.

The Black Phone 2 steps in next. Once set for early summer, the October pivot signals belief. Derrickson returns to the helm, and those signature textures resurface: 70s style chill, trauma as narrative engine, and a cold supernatural calculus. Here the stakes rise, with a deeper exploration into the “grabber” mythology and how grief haunts generations.

Capping the big ticket run is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a franchise that brings its own crowd. The second outing goes deeper into backstory, expands its animatronic nightmare roster, courting teens and the thirty something base. It posts in December, pinning the winter close.

Streamer Exclusives: Modest spend, serious shock

While theaters lean on names and sequels, platforms are wagering boldly, and results are there.

One standout ambitious title is Weapons, a long shadow anthology of dread knitting three time bands around a mass vanishing. With Zach Cregger directing fronted by Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the movie mixes chill with dramatic weight. Opening theatrically late summer ahead of fall SVOD, it seems set to fuel decode culture and breakdowns, in the Barbarian lane.

More contained by design is Together, a sealed box body horror arc with Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Fixed in a remote let as a weekend curdles, the narrative traces love and jealousy and self contempt into body collapse. It reads tender, repulsive, and intensely uneasy, a three act churn into codependent hell. Despite no official platform date, it is destined for a fall landing.

One more platform talker is Sinners, a thirties set vampire folk saga headlined by Michael B. Jordan. Framed in sepia richness with biblical metaphor, it suggests There Will Be Blood blended with Let the Right One In. The project looks at American religious trauma under a supernatural allegory. Early test screenings have marked it as one of the year’s most talked about streaming debuts.

A handful of other streaming indies hover in the wings: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper each threads grief and absence and identity, mapping allegory to dread.

Possession Beneath the Skin: Young & Cursed

Rolling out October 2 across streaming, Young & Cursed emerges as a rare mix, tight in frame and epic in resonance. Authored and directed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the arc centers on five strangers who wake inside a backcountry cabin, beneath Kyra’s command, 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 dread here runs psychological, charged by primal myth. Instead of another exorcism piece centered on Catholic rites or Latin incantations, this one reaches back to something older, something darker. Lilith is not conjured by ritual, she surfaces 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.

Across Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home, the film stands as Halloween counterprogramming to sequel glut and monster revivals. It reads as sharp positioning. No overinflated mythology. No brand fatigue. Only psychological menace, compressed and taut, tuned to binge and gasp cycles online. Amid spectacle, Young & Cursed can distinguish itself by whispering, then howling.

Festival Heat to Market Leverage

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’s Fantastic Fest has already confirmed a strong horror lineup. 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 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 appears set for grief threaded elevated horror once more, as Tribeca’s genre wing angles urban, social, and surreal.

This cycle, festival strategy pivots from discovery toward branding. Festival laurels are opening moves, not closing notes.

Franchise Horror: Sequels and Reboots, Reinvention Included

The franchise bench is sturdier and more targeted than lately.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, set for July, reanimates the 90s series with a new lead and nostalgia tone. Rather than prior modes, it goes camp and prom night melodrama. Imagine tiaras, smeared red, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 bows late June, seeking to build out techno horror lore using new characters and AI born frights. That first run’s social and SVOD traction lets Universal push further.

Next comes The Long Walk, adapting one of Stephen King’s earliest, most harrowing works, with Francis Lawrence directing, it is a brutal dystopian allegory wrapped in survival horror, a kids walking until they die competition with no real winners. Marketed correctly, it could be The Hunger Games for horror adults.

Across the board, reboots and sequels such as Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda fill gaps, most looking for tactical dates or fast pickups.

Trends Worth Watching

Mythic currents go mainstream
From Lilith in Young & Cursed to Aztec curses in Whistle, horror is turning to ancient texts and symbols. Not nostalgia, a reclaim of pre Christian archetypes. Horror reaches past fear, it states evil is old.

Body horror resurges
With Together, Weapons, and Keeper, the genre goes back to the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation, these are the new metaphors for heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streaming exclusives sharpen their bite
Churn filler is losing ground on platforms. Streamers back real writing, real filmmakers, and genuine marketing. Drops such as Weapons and Sinners arrive as events, not as catalog.

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

Cinemas are a trust fall
The cinema lane is kept for probable outperformers or branchers. Everything else is PVOD or hybrid. Horror stays in theaters, in chosen pockets.

What’s Next: Fall stack and winter swing card

With Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons all stacked across September and October, the fall is downright saturated. Indies like Bone Lake and Keeper must claw for air. Some may slide to early 2026 or switch platform lanes.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 locks December, while a late surprise on a platform remains possible. As mythic runs hot, a closing creature or exorcism could still arrive.

The genre’s success in 2025 will hinge not on any one title, but on how well its diverse slate reaches its scattered, increasingly segmented audience. The plan is not to clone Get Out, it is to craft horror that lives on beyond box office.



The forthcoming 2026 scare calendar year ahead: next chapters, fresh concepts, and also A packed Calendar Built For Scares

Dek The emerging horror slate builds from day one with a January glut, subsequently rolls through the summer months, and deep into the holiday stretch, balancing brand equity, creative pitches, and well-timed offsets. Studios and platforms are focusing on smart costs, theater-first strategies, and buzz-forward plans that position these offerings into cross-demo moments.

Where horror stands going into 2026

Horror filmmaking has become the consistent move in studio slates, a lane that can lift when it resonates and still insulate the exposure when it under-delivers. After 2023 demonstrated to leaders that efficiently budgeted pictures can drive social chatter, the following year continued the surge with visionary-driven titles and under-the-radar smashes. The trend pushed into 2025, where returns and elevated films proved there is an opening for diverse approaches, from ongoing IP entries to director-led originals that scale internationally. The sum for the 2026 slate is a schedule that appears tightly organized across the market, with purposeful groupings, a spread of legacy names and new pitches, and a reinvigorated strategy on cinema windows that feed downstream value on premium rental and digital services.

Studio leaders note the horror lane now works like a schedule utility on the calendar. The genre can debut on open real estate, furnish a tight logline for marketing and reels, and overperform with demo groups that turn out on early shows and keep coming through the next pass if the picture pays off. Following a strike-delayed pipeline, the 2026 configuration underscores assurance in that logic. The slate begins with a busy January window, then leans on spring and early summer for counterprogramming, while reserving space for a September to October window that connects to the fright window and beyond. The grid also highlights the continuing integration of indie arms and OTT outlets that can build gradually, fuel WOM, and roll out at the proper time.

An added macro current is brand management across brand ecosystems and storied titles. Distribution groups are not just pushing another chapter. They are looking to package story carry-over with a must-see charge, whether that is a title treatment that indicates a fresh attitude or a casting pivot that connects a latest entry to a heyday. At the parallel to that, the filmmakers behind the most anticipated originals are championing hands-on technique, special makeup and grounded locations. That combination delivers the 2026 slate a solid mix of comfort and newness, which is what works overseas.

Studios and mini-majors: what the big players are doing

Paramount defines the early cadence with two centerpiece projects that span tone from serious to silly. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the director seat and Neve Campbell back at the lead, positioning the film as both a relay and a classic-mode character piece. Production is underway in Atlanta, and the creative posture signals a heritage-honoring strategy without repeating the last two entries’ core arc for the Carpenter sisters. Watch for a push driven by signature symbols, intro reveals, and a tiered teaser plan landing toward late fall. Distribution is Paramount theatrical.

Paramount also brings back a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are back together, with the Wayans brothers involved on the creative side for the first time since the early 2000s, a campaign lever the campaign will foreground. As a counterweight in summer, this one will chase general-audience talk through viral-minded bites, with the horror spoof format lending itself to quick turns to whatever owns the meme cycle that spring.

Universal has three differentiated strategies. SOULM8TE opens January 9, 2026, a connected offshoot from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The story engine is clean, sorrow-tinged, and concept-forward: a grieving man onboards an machine companion that grows into a dangerous lover. The date positions it at the front of a front-loaded month, with Universal’s team likely to reprise uncanny-valley stunts and short-form creative that interlaces attachment and chill.

On May 8, 2026, the studio slots an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely read as the feature developed under code names in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The listed schedule currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which sets up a final title to become an headline beat closer to the teaser. The timing hands the studio a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles stack elsewhere.

Finishing the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film takes October 23, 2026, a slot he has thrived in before. Peele’s pictures are treated as must-see filmmaker statements, with a teaser with minimal detail and a second trailer wave that set the tone without spoiling the concept. The Halloween runway affords Universal to lead pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then capitalize on the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, works with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček heads, with Souheila Yacoub starring. The franchise has proven that a blood-soaked, on-set effects led approach can feel deluxe on a controlled budget. Position this as a blood-and-grime summer horror charge that maximizes international play, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most world markets.

Sony’s horror bench is impressively deep. The studio books two series moves in the back half. An untitled Insidious film premieres August 21, 2026, extending a consistent supernatural brand in play while the spin-off branch evolves. Sony has adjusted timing on this title before, but the current plan locks it in late summer, where the brand has shown strength.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil reappears in what Sony is presenting as a clean-slate approach for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now imp source a central part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a directive to serve both diehards and novices. The fall slot lets Sony to build marketing units around mythos, and monster aesthetics, elements that can boost deluxe auditorium demand and cosplay-friendly fan engagement.

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 builds on Eggers’ run of period horror driven by immersive craft and period language, this time driven by werewolf stories. Focus’s team has already claimed the date for a holiday release, a public confidence in Eggers as a specialty play that can platform wide if early reception is strong.

How the platforms plan to play it

Digital strategies for 2026 run on well-known grooves. Universal’s releases land on copyright after a exclusive run then PVOD, a sequence that optimizes both first-week urgency and trial spikes in the tail. Prime Video pairs outside acquisitions with global originals and qualifying theatrical engagements when the data signals it. Max and Hulu lean on their strengths in catalog engagement, using timely promos, Halloween hubs, and collection rows to maximize the tail on overall cume. Netflix keeps options open about first-party entries and festival snaps, locking in horror entries toward the drop and making event-like launches with quick-run campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, deploys a paired of limited theatrical footprints and rapid platforming that funnels enthusiasm into trials. That will be key for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before leaning on niche channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ cherry-picks horror on a title-by-title basis. The platform has been willing to invest in select projects with acclaimed directors or A-list packages, then give them a modest theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet eligibility thresholds or to create word of mouth before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still draws on the 20th Century Studios slate, a core piece for monthly engagement when the genre conversation heats up.

Indie and specialty outlook

Cineverse is engineering a 2026 arc 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 offer is uncomplicated: the same mist-blanketed, 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 cinema-first plan for the title, an good sign for fans of the hard-edged series and for exhibitors needing R-rated alternatives in the late-season weeks.

Focus will operate the filmmaker lane with Werwulf, escorting the title through a fall festival swing if the cut is ready, then pressing the year-end corridor to scale. That positioning has proved effective for director-led genre with mainstream crossovers. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not released many dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines commonly finalize after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A credible outlook is a cluster of late-summer and fall platformers that can break out if reception supports. Keep an eye on 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 as partners, using boutique theatrical to kindle evangelism that fuels their subs.

Known brands versus new stories

By number, 2026 tips toward the franchise column. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all draw on household recognition. The watch-out, as ever, is brand wear. The workable fix is to market each entry as a renewed feel. Paramount is leading with character-first legacy in Scream 7, Sony is signaling a ground-zero restart for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is pushing a French-accented approach from a ascendant talent. Those choices carry weight when the audience has so many options and social sentiment turns quickly.

Originals and filmmaker-centric entries deliver oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be positioned as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, sets Rachel McAdams in a stranded survival premise with the filmmaker’s mischievous menace. SOULM8TE offers a tight, eerie tech hook. Werwulf grounds itself in period and an flinty tone. Even when the title is not based on familiar IP, the configuration is steady enough to translate curiosity into advance sales and Thursday-night crowds.

Three-year comps make sense of the logic. In 2023, a theater-first model that kept clean windows did not foreclose a same-day experiment from winning when the brand was potent. In 2024, craft-forward auteur horror punched above its weight in premium large format. In 2025, a resuscitation of a beloved infection saga broadcast that global horror franchises can still feel revitalized when they shift POV and raise the stakes. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which advances January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The dual-chapter plan, with chapters filmed in sequence, lets marketing to link the films through relationships and themes and to keep materials circulating without hiatuses.

Creative tendencies and craft

The craft rooms behind this slate forecast a continued bias toward in-camera, locale-specific craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not echo any recent iteration of the property, a stance that echoes the in-camera lean he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film completed filming and is tracking toward its April 17, 2026 date. Promo should that elevates texture and dread rather than roller-coaster spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership supporting budget rigor.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has said Werwulf as the most shadowed project he has tackled, which tracks with a historical setting and era-correct language, a combination that can make for 3D sound and a austere, elemental atmosphere on the big screen. Focus will likely tease this aesthetic in craft profiles and craft spotlights before rolling out a tone piece that centers atmosphere over story, a move that has played for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is aimed at gross-out texture, a signature of the series that sells overseas in red-band trailers and creates shareable crowd-reaction snippets from early screenings. Scream 7 delivers a meta reframe that re-anchors on the original star. Resident Evil will thrive or struggle on monster aesthetics and world-building, which work nicely for convention activations and staggered reveals. Insidious tends to be a theatrical sound showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the premium-screen pitch feel definitive. Look for trailers that highlight surgical sound design, deep-bass stingers, and held silences that shine in top rooms.

Calendar cadence

January is heavy. 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 foggy reset amid headline IP. The month caps with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival-horror from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is stiff, but the range of tones ensures lanes for each, and the five-week structure enables clean play for each if word of mouth holds.

Q1 into Q2 stage summer. Scream 7 bows February 27 with brand warmth. In April, The Mummy restores a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once belonged to genre counterprogramming and now accommodates big openers. The untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 steps into summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer heightens the contrast. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is light and four-quadrant, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 delivers blood-heavy intensity. The counterprogramming logic is tight. The spoof can win next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest scratches the itch for older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have cycled through premium screens.

End of summer through fall leans IP. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously excelled. Resident Evil comes after September 18, a transitional slot that still bridges into Halloween marketing beats. Jordan Peele’s untitled film locks October 23 and will command cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely reinforced by a tease-and-hold strategy and limited plot reveals that trade in concept over detail.

Awards-adjacent specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a position that genre can compete at Christmas when packaged as filmmaker prestige. Focus has done this before, rolling out carefully, then leaning on critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to ride the cycle into January. If the film hits with critics, the studio can scale in the first week of 2027 while building on holiday impulse and holiday card usage.

Title snapshots

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting continuing to be revealed as production rolls. Logline: Sidney returns to counter a new Ghostface while the narrative resurfaces the original film’s essence. 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 intelligent companion escalates into something lethally affectionate. Rating: TBA. Production: Principal is complete for an early-year bow. Positioning: tech thriller with grief spine.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (Sony, January 16, 2026)
Director: Nia DaCosta. Writer: Alex Garland. Top cast: Cillian Murphy, Jack O’Connell, and additional ensemble tied to a new antagonist faction. Logline: The second chapter in a trilogy grows the world beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult hardens in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Double-shot 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 heads back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to meet a changing reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Done with U.S. run set. 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 push to survive on a lonely island as the hierarchy flips and fear crawls. Rating: TBA. Production: Locked. 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 disclosed in official materials. Logline: A modern reimagining that returns the monster to dread, shaped by Cronin’s practical effects and suffocating dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished. Positioning: legendary monster re-up with auteur hand.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A household haunting piece that frames the panic through a child’s shifting perspective. Rating: pending. Production: locked. Positioning: studio-grade and celebrity-led supernatural mood piece.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers reuniting creatively. Logline: {A comic send-up that needles present-day genre chatter and true-crime manias. Rating: to be announced. Production: production booked for fall 2025. Positioning: four-quadrant summer counterplay.

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 erupts, with an multinational twist in tone and setting. Rating: pending. Production: shooting in New Zealand. Positioning: R-rated franchise charge tuned for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: unrevealed for now. Top cast: TBD. Logline: The Further ripples again, with a fresh family entangled with older hauntings. Rating: to be announced. Production: on track for summer lensing before late-summer rollout. Positioning: durable spectral IP in a late-summer sweet spot.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: TBD publicly. Top cast: pending. Logline: A restart designed to recreate the franchise from the ground up, with an stress on true survival horror over action pyrotechnics. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: advancing in development with date locked. Positioning: game-rooted reset with broad potential.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: undisclosed. Logline: tightly guarded. Rating: undetermined. Production: ongoing. Positioning: filmmaker showcase with teaser-first cadence.

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 antique diction and primal 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 theaters-first plan ahead of platforming. Status: schedule in motion, fall targeted.

Why the moment is 2026

Three operational forces organize this lineup. First, production that eased or migrated in 2024 needed slack in the schedule. Horror can plug those gaps fast because scripts often are set in fewer locales, fewer large-scale visual effects runs, and leaner schedules. Second, studios have become more strategic 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 lean on repeatable beats from test screenings, carefully timed scare clips calibrated to Thursday preview timing, and experiential pop-ups that double as influencer content. It is a repeatable playbook because it delivers.

Factor four is the scheduling calculus. Early-2026 family and superhero concentrations ease, clearing runway for genre entries that can lead a weekend or position as the older-lean choice. January is the prime example. Four genre tones will jostle across five weekends, which keeps buzz lanes tidy. Summer provides the other window. The parody leverages early family and action lifts, then the hard-R entry can exploit a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Business outlook: budgets, ratings, and the sleeper hunt

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

The surprise-hit pursuit continues in Q1, where disciplined-budget genre can own weekends with minimal competition, and again in late summer, where horror often becomes the conversation when tentpoles tire. The 2026 slate is set up to maximize those pockets. January could easily deliver the first sleeper overperformer 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. Expect a healthy 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 pace and range. January is a feast, February delivers a legacy slasher, April returns a Universal monster, May and June provide a ghostly double-hit 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 cold, literate nightmare. That is how you keep the discourse going and the seats filled without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can scale over time, using earlier releases to seed the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors respond well to the spacing. Horror delivers reliable Thursday lifts, lean footprints, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can qualify for PLF, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing texture, soundcraft, and visual design 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

Calendars slide. Ratings change. Casts adjust. But the spine of 2026 horror is set. There is brand heft where it matters, distinct vision where it matters, and a calendar that shows studios know when and how to deliver 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, shape lean trailers, keep the curtain closed, and let the screams sell the seats.