Ancient Evil Surfaces in Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a bone chilling feature, debuting Oct 2025 on top streaming platforms

One bone-chilling otherworldly suspense film from literary architect / auteur Andrew Chiaramonte, setting free an prehistoric nightmare when outsiders become conduits in a supernatural ceremony. Going live October 2, 2025, on Amazon Prime, video-sharing site YouTube, Google Play Movies & TV, Apple’s iTunes, Apple’s TV+ service, and Fandango platform.

L.A., CA (August 8, 2025) – gear up for *Young & Cursed*, a disturbing chronicle of overcoming and forgotten curse that will remodel terror storytelling this spooky time. Directed by rising director to watch Andrew Chiaramonte, this edge-of-your-seat and atmospheric story follows five strangers who arise trapped in a far-off wooden structure under the dark grip of Kyra, a young woman inhabited by a 2,000-year-old sacred-era entity. Ready yourself to be captivated by a narrative venture that combines visceral dread with ancestral stories, debuting on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Spiritual takeover has been a time-honored tradition in the movies. In *Young & Cursed*, that structure is reimagined when the entities no longer emerge externally, but rather from within. This depicts the haunting side of the group. The result is a edge-of-seat inner struggle where the conflict becomes a merciless struggle between divinity and wickedness.


In a bleak woodland, five youths find themselves sealed under the ghastly aura and possession of a unknown female presence. As the team becomes paralyzed to escape her command, detached and followed by unknowns unfathomable, they are driven to acknowledge their deepest fears while the clock mercilessly ticks onward toward their demise.


In *Young & Cursed*, distrust rises and relationships dissolve, compelling each protagonist to examine their values and the idea of self-determination itself. The stakes rise with every minute, delivering a nerve-wracking journey that merges occult fear with human vulnerability.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my aim was to awaken pure dread, an malevolence rooted in antiquity, emerging via inner turmoil, and examining a curse that questions who we are when stripped of free will.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Living Kyra meant channeling something rooted in terror. She is blind until the haunting manifests, and that change is emotionally raw because it is so close.”

Debut Info

*Young & Cursed* will be brought for digital release beginning October 2, 2025, on Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play, Apple iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango on-demand—providing viewers internationally can watch this fearful revelation.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just published a new second trailer for *Young & Cursed*, posted to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a continuation to its original clip, which has earned over thousands of viewers.


In addition to its US/Canada launch, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has stated that *Young & Cursed* will also be streamed globally, giving access to the movie to viewers around the world.


Mark your calendar for this gripping journey into fear. Confront *Young & Cursed* this Halloween season to survive these terrifying truths about existence.


For cast commentary, production insights, and reveals via the production team, follow @YoungAndCursed across entertainment pages and visit the official website.





Current horror’s watershed moment: 2025 across markets U.S. lineup interlaces old-world possession, underground frights, plus returning-series thunder

From survivor-centric dread rooted in biblical myth and including IP renewals and surgical indie voices, 2025 is emerging as the most variegated and deliberate year since the mid-2010s.

The 2025 horror calendar goes beyond packed, it is precision-tuned. the big studios bookend the months with known properties, at the same time OTT services stack the fall with debut heat as well as ancestral chills. Meanwhile, festival-forward creators is carried on the echoes from a high-water 2024 festival stretch. Given Halloween is the centerpiece, the rest of the calendar is filling out with surgical precision. The fall stretch is the proving field, but this year, players are marking January, spring, and mid-summer. Fans are ravenous, studios are exacting, as a result 2025 is positioned to be the most designed season yet.

Major Studio Plans with Mini-Major Flex: The Return of Prestige Fear

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

the Universal banner leads off the quarter with a bold swing: a newly envisioned Wolf Man, eschewing a mist-shrouded old-world European town, in a modern-day environment. From director Leigh Whannell with Christopher Abbott alongside Julia Garner, this version roots the lycanthropy in family fracture. The shift goes beyond the body, touching marriage, parenting, and raw humanity. Slated for mid January, it backs a move to shape winter into a prestige corridor, not a discard corridor.

As spring rolls in, Clown in a Cornfield bows, a YA slasher adaptation turned minimalist horror show. Eli Craig directs and featuring Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it comes as grit laced American nightmare with sardonic edge. Under the guise, it interrogates township panic, generational breaks, and mob rule. Initial fest notes point to real bite.

At summer’s close, Warner’s schedule delivers the closing chapter of its steadiest horror franchise: The Conjuring: Last Rites. Ed and Lorraine Warren return with Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, the film signals catharsis as it engages a widely cited real case. Though the outline is tried, director Michael Chaves reportedly leans into a mournful, interior tone for the swan song. It is dated for early September, granting margin before October’s crush.

The Black Phone 2 steps in next. Planned for early summer, the October reposition reads assertive. Derrickson re teams, and those signature textures resurface: 70s style chill, trauma centered writing, plus uncanny supernatural grammar. This run ups the stakes, by expanding the “grabber” backstory and grief across bloodlines.

Rounding out the big ticket releases is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a film that does not need traditional marketing to sell tickets. The sequel leans deeper into its lore, enlarges the animatronic menagerie, with a bullseye on teens and thirty something nostalgics. It arrives in December, buttoning the final window.

Streaming Originals: Lean budgets, heavy bite

While theaters bet on familiarity, platforms are embracing risk, and engagement climbs.

A leading ambitious platform entry is Weapons, a long shadow anthology of dread stitching three periods attached to a mass disappearance. Under Zach Cregger including Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the film fuses dread with dramatic heft. Hitting theaters late summer with fall digital, it is expected to spark online debate and post viewing breakdowns, much like Barbarian before it.

Playing chamber scale is Together, a sealed box body horror arc starring Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Taking place in an isolated rental as a retreat goes wrong, the arc observes love and green eyed envy and self harm turned somatic. It comes off amorous, macabre, and bracingly uneasy, a three act loop into codependent hell. Even without a formal platform date, it reads like an autumn stream lock.

Another headline entry is Sinners, a 1930s period vampire folk story featuring Michael B. Jordan. Shot in rich sepia tones and drenched in biblical metaphor, it nods to There Will Be Blood beside Let the Right One In. The project looks at American religious trauma under a supernatural allegory. Pre release tests anoint it a conversation starter on streaming.

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.

Possession With Depth: Young & Cursed

Dropping October 2 across all major streaming platforms, Young & Cursed reads as a rare blend, small in footprint yet mythic in spread. Shaped and helmed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the story trails five strangers who come to in a far off forest cabin, ruled by Kyra, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. As the hours blacken, her hold tightens, an invasive current triggering fears, fissures, and regret.

The terror is psychological in engine, alive with primal myth. Skipping the exorcism norm of Catholic rite and Latin line, this one digs into something older, something darker. Lilith is not summoned by priests, she rises from trauma, muteness, and human fault lines. By making possession inward rather than external, Young & Cursed joins a trend toward intimate character studies masked as genre.

On Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home, the film acts as a Halloween counterpoint to sequel pipelines and creature comebacks. It is an astute call. No overweight mythology. No continuity burden. Just psychological dread, contained and tense, tailored to the binge then breathe cadence of digital horror fans. In the noise, Young & Cursed could cut through by staying hushed, then erupting.

Festivals as Springboards

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF still seed what horror becomes in six to twelve months. This year, the launchpad function outruns the showcase role.

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

Midnight offerings such as If I Had Legs I’d Kick You surge on execution beyond the hook. A24’s satire of toxic fandom inside a con lockdown aims at breakout.

SXSW staged Clown in a Cornfield and lined up microbudget haunts for talks. Sundance should deliver grief heavy elevated horror again, and Tribeca’s genre box tilting urban, social, and surreal.

This cycle, festival strategy pivots from discovery toward branding. Badges kick off the sell, they do not merely decorate.

Long Running Lines: Additions, Do Overs, and Revisions

Legacy entries present stronger and more purposeful this time.

Fear Street: Prom Queen hits July to revive the 90s line with fresh lead and VHS vibe. Breaking with earlier shading, it leans camp and prom night melodrama. Imagine tiaras, smeared red, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 drops late June, seeking to build out techno horror lore using new characters and AI born frights. The initial entry’s meme life and streaming legs push Universal to scale up.

Another headline is The Long Walk, adapting a grim early Stephen King piece, with Francis Lawrence directing, it functions as a harsh dystopian fable encased in survival horror, a children’s march that ends in death. If framed properly, it could echo The Hunger Games for adult horror.

Meanwhile, reboots and sequels like Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda appear through the year, many poised for targeted windows or last minute deals.

Trends Worth Watching

Mythic horror goes mainstream
From Lilith in Young & Cursed to Aztec curses in Whistle, horror is turning to ancient texts and symbols. This reads not as nostalgia but as reclaiming pre Christian archetypes. Horror pushes past jump scares, it points to ancient evil.

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

Originals on platforms bite harder
The days of disposable horror filler on digital platforms are over. Platforms are putting money into scripts, directors, and promotion. Films like Weapons and Sinners are treated as events, not content.

Festival momentum becomes leverage
Wreaths work as currency, buying release slots, placement, and press. No festival plan in 2025, and disappearance looms.

Theatrical release is a trust fall
Theater slots go to likely overachievers or franchise starters. The rest moves to PVOD or hybrid patterns. Horror stays in theaters, in chosen pockets.

Outlook: Fall stack and winter swing card

Young & Cursed plus The Conjuring: Last Rites plus The Black Phone 2 plus Weapons, all in September and October, makes for a saturated fall. Indies such as Bone Lake and Keeper will tussle for space. Some may slide to early 2026 or switch platform lanes.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 steadies December, yet a last minute streamer surprise is in play. As mythic runs hot, a closing creature or exorcism could still arrive.

The success of horror in 2025 hinges less on a single title and more on how a diverse slate reaches a scattered, segmented audience. The aim is not another Get Out chase, it is durable horror beyond gross.



The approaching spook Year Ahead: brand plays, Originals, in tandem with A loaded Calendar engineered for shocks

Dek The arriving terror year builds right away with a January pile-up, thereafter rolls through the summer months, and running into the year-end corridor, combining name recognition, fresh ideas, and well-timed counter-scheduling. Studios and platforms are focusing on lean spends, theatrical exclusivity first, and influencer-ready assets that convert these pictures into water-cooler talk.

Where horror stands going into 2026

The field has established itself as the consistent release in distribution calendars, a category that can surge when it catches and still hedge the drawdown when it fails to connect. After the 2023 year reconfirmed for leaders that disciplined-budget shockers can dominate mainstream conversation, 2024 held pace with director-led heat and surprise hits. The upswing moved into the 2025 frame, where revivals and festival-grade titles confirmed there is room for many shades, from ongoing IP entries to filmmaker-driven originals that perform internationally. The net effect for 2026 is a run that reads highly synchronized across the field, with obvious clusters, a combination of marquee IP and novel angles, and a sharpened attention on theater exclusivity that amplify PVOD and streaming on premium home window and home streaming.

Insiders argue the genre now functions as a swing piece on the release plan. Horror can premiere on nearly any frame, offer a grabby hook for trailers and social clips, and exceed norms with patrons that show up on advance nights and continue through the next pass if the title connects. Coming out of a strike-delayed pipeline, the 2026 plan signals faith in that playbook. The year launches with a stacked January stretch, then plants flags in spring and early summer for alternate plays, while clearing room for a September to October window that stretches into spooky season and beyond. The gridline also illustrates the tightening integration of specialized labels and OTT outlets that can launch in limited release, ignite recommendations, and expand at the strategic time.

A reinforcing pattern is legacy care across ongoing universes and storied titles. The players are not just greenlighting another sequel. They are shaping as story carry-over with a must-see charge, whether that is a logo package that conveys a reframed mood or a casting pivot that ties a incoming chapter to a first wave. At the alongside this, the directors behind the most watched originals are embracing tactile craft, practical gags and site-specific worlds. That convergence delivers the 2026 slate a confident blend of familiarity and novelty, which is what works overseas.

What the big players are lining up

Paramount leads early with two high-profile pushes that bracket the tone map. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the director role and Neve Campbell back at the focus, signaling it as both a passing of the torch and a foundation-forward character piece. Principal photography is underway in Atlanta, and the authorial approach signals a nostalgia-forward strategy without retreading the last two entries’ Carpenter-sisters arc. Watch for a push rooted in classic imagery, early character teases, and a staggered trailer plan targeting late fall. Distribution is cinema-first via Paramount.

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 reforming, with the Wayans brothers involved as creative partners for the first time since the early 2000s, a campaign lever the campaign will feature. As a summer counterprogrammer, this one will pursue general-audience talk through joke-first clips, with the horror spoof format supporting quick turns to whatever shapes the conversation that spring.

Universal has three distinct projects. SOULM8TE launches January 9, 2026, a tech-forward branch from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The setup is elegant, heartbroken, and high-concept: a grieving man implements an AI companion that grows into a dangerous lover. The date places it at the front of a busy month, with the Universal machine likely to iterate on uncanny-valley stunts and short-cut promos that blurs romance and fear.

On May 8, 2026, the studio dates an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely assumed to be the feature developed under working names in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The posted calendar currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which creates space for a official title to become an event moment closer to the early tease. The timing holds ground in early May while larger tentpoles own different weekends.

Anchoring the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film lands October 23, 2026, a slot he has made his own before. Peele’s work are positioned as auteur events, with a minimalist tease and a second wave of trailers that tee up tone without spoiling the concept. The holiday-adjacent corridor gives Universal room to own pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then press the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, aligns with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček guides, with Souheila Yacoub at the center. The franchise has established that a tactile, makeup-driven mix can feel cinematic on a mid-range budget. Look for a viscera-heavy summer horror rush that embraces offshore potential, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most offshore territories.

Sony’s horror bench is well stocked. The studio sets two brand plays in the back half. An untitled Insidious film hits August 21, 2026, extending a dependable supernatural brand on the grid while the spin-off branch advances. The studio has adjusted timing on this title before, but the current plan anchors it in late summer, where the brand has often excelled.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil steps back in what the studio is calling a new take for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a foundational part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a mission to serve both devotees and curious audiences. The fall slot offers Sony space to build assets around lore, and creature effects, elements that can amplify IMAX and PLF uptake and fan-culture participation.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, books a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film continues Eggers’ run of period horror defined by textural authenticity and historical speech, this time engaging werewolf myth. Focus has already booked the frame for a holiday release, a clear message in the auteur as a specialty play that can grow wide if early reception is strong.

SVOD and PVOD rhythms

Home-platform rhythms for 2026 run on tested paths. Universal’s horror titles head to copyright after a theatrical and PVOD run, a ladder that amplifies both week-one demand and sign-up spikes in the tail. Prime Video continues to mix licensed content with worldwide buys and select theatrical runs when the data points to it. Max and Hulu press their advantages in catalog engagement, using curated hubs, holiday hubs, and editorial rows to sustain interest on aggregate take. Netflix plays opportunist about Netflix films and festival snaps, confirming horror entries closer to drop and eventizing drops with quick-run campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, uses a two-step of focused cinema runs and swift platform pivots that converts WOM to subscribers. That will be key for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before turning to genre pipelines in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ treats carefully horror on a title-by-title basis. The platform has shown appetite to purchase select projects with top-tier auteurs or A-list packages, then give them a boutique theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet awards-qualifying thresholds or to create word of mouth before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still benefits from the 20th Century Studios slate, a notable driver for sustained usage when the genre conversation spikes.

Art-house genre prospects

Cineverse is engineering a 2026 sequence with two label plays. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The appeal is clean: the same brooding, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult classic, recalibrated for modern sound and cinematography. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a late-year slot, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. Cineverse has positioned a traditional theatrical plan for Legacy, an upbeat indicator for fans of the ferocious series and for exhibitors looking for R-rated counterplay in the back half.

Focus will play the auteur card with Werwulf, stewarding the film through autumn festivals if the cut is ready, Check This Out then turning to the holiday frame to broaden. That positioning has proved effective for elevated genre with wider appeal. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not firmed many 2026 dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines often crystallize after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A likely scenario is a handful of late-summer and fall platformers that can widen if reception encourages. Anticipate 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 as partners, using mini theatrical to seed evangelism that fuels their membership.

Balance of brands and originals

By tilt, the 2026 slate tilts in favor of the legacy column. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all capitalize on marquee value. The risk, as ever, is fatigue. The standing approach is to sell each entry as a fresh tone. Paramount is elevating character and lineage in Scream 7, Sony is hinting at a new foundation for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is driving a continental coloration from a new voice. Those choices matter when the audience has so many options and social sentiment changes rapidly.

Originals and director-driven titles provide the air. Jordan Peele’s October film will be branded as a brand unto itself. Sam Raimi’s Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, places Rachel McAdams into a stranded survival premise with the filmmaker’s mischievous menace. SOULM8TE offers a precise, unnerving tech hook. Werwulf roots in era detail and an uncompromising tone. Even when the title is not based on known IP, the packaging is recognizable enough to drive advance ticketing and advance-audience nights.

Past-three-year patterns frame the strategy. In 2023, a theatrical-first plan that kept clean windows did not stop a simultaneous release test from paying off when the brand was trusted. In 2024, meticulous-craft horror rose in premium formats. In 2025, a rebirth of a beloved infection saga demonstrated that global horror franchises can still feel alive when they reframe POV and widen scale. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which continues January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The two-film strategy, with chapters filmed in sequence, allows marketing to tie installments through character and theme and to keep assets in-market without hiatuses.

Technique and craft currents

The production chatter behind 2026 horror suggest a continued tilt toward material, place-specific craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not mirror any recent iteration of the property, a stance that echoes the in-camera sensibility he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film completed filming and is lined up for its April 17, 2026 date. The push will likely that centers mood and dread rather than fireworks, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership permitting budget rigor.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has said Werwulf as the most chilling project he has tackled, which tracks with a medieval setting and archaic dialect, a combination that can make for enveloping sound design and a wintry, elemental feel on the big screen. Focus will likely frame this aesthetic in feature stories and craft features before rolling out a initial teaser that prioritizes vibe over plot, a move that has paid off for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is calibrated for red-band excess, a signature of the series that lands overseas in red-band trailers and generates shareable screening reactions from early screenings. Scream 7 aims for a meta inflection that re-anchors on the original star. Resident Evil will succeed or falter on monster aesthetics and world-building, which match well with booth activations and staggered reveals. Insidious tends to be a sound-mix showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the cinema value feel compelling. Look for trailers that highlight surgical sound design, deep-bass stingers, and held silences that shine in top rooms.

Calendar cadence

January is stacked. 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 atmospheric change-up amid big-brand pushes. The month caps 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 palette of tones creates a lane for each, and the five-week structure hands each a runway for each if word of mouth holds.

Late Q1 and spring seed summer. Paramount’s Scream 7 bows February 27 with legacy momentum. In April, The Mummy revives a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once was known for genre counterprogramming and now supports big openers. The untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 hands off to summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer clarifies the lanes. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is lighter-toned and broader, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 offers severe intensity. The counterprogramming logic is workable. The spoof can play 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 PLF.

Late summer into fall leans series. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously clicked. Resident Evil follows September 18, a early fall window that still connects to Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event locks October 23 and will seize cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely paired with a shroud-first teaser rhythm and limited pre-release reveals that lean on concept not plot.

Prestige at year’s end. Werwulf on December 25 is a line in sand that genre can work in holiday corridor when packaged as director prestige horror. The distributor has done this before, platforming with care, then leveraging critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to remain in discourse into January. If the film resonates with critics, the studio can expand in the first week of 2027 while building on holiday impulse and gift card usage.

Project-by-project snapshots

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting ongoing as production carries on. Logline: Sidney returns to challenge a new Ghostface while the narrative reorients around 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 mourning man’s intelligent companion turns into something dangerously intimate. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming finished for an early-year bow. Positioning: techno-horror with feeling.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (Sony, January 16, 2026)
Director: Nia DaCosta. Writer: Alex Garland. Top cast: Cillian Murphy, Jack O’Connell, and additional ensemble tied to a new antagonist faction. Logline: The second chapter in a trilogy widens the scope beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult coalesces in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Shot back-to-back with the first film. Positioning: continuation of a revived prestige zombie saga.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man travels back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to stumble upon a mutable reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Locked and U.S. theatrical booked. Positioning: atmospheric 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 unyielding boss work to survive on a remote island as the power balance of power upends and suspicion grows. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished. Positioning: marquee survival piece 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 renewed vision that returns the monster to fright, grounded in Cronin’s practical craft and accumulating dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Production wrapped. Positioning: legacy monster restart with director stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A in-home haunting scenario that threads the dread through a kid’s flickering personal vantage. Rating: TBD. Production: fully shot. Positioning: studio-backed, star-driven haunted-house 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 satirical comeback that riffs on of-the-moment horror beats and true crime preoccupations. Rating: pending. Production: fall 2025 shoot penciled in. Positioning: broad summer counterprogrammer.

Evil Dead Burn (Warner Bros. domestic, July 24, 2026)
Director: Sébastien Vaniček. Top cast: Souheila Yacoub, with ensemble additions. Logline: A new infestation of Deadites spreads, with an transnational twist in tone and setting. Rating: pending. Production: filming in New Zealand. Positioning: R-rated franchise charge tuned for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: TBA publicly. Top cast: forthcoming. Logline: The Further unfurls again, with a young family bound to ancient dread. Rating: undetermined. Production: targeting a summer lensing window for late-summer release. Positioning: dependable ghost-franchise slot that suits the brand.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: forthcoming. Top cast: pending. Logline: A re-seeded launch designed to re-establish the franchise from the ground up, with an lean toward true survival horror over action-centric bombast. Rating: undetermined. Production: moving through development on a locked slot. Positioning: IP-accurate revival with mainstream runway.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: forthcoming. Logline: deliberately concealed. Rating: not yet rated. Production: continuing. Positioning: filmmaker-led event with teaser rollout.

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 language and elemental menace. Rating: forthcoming. Production: in preproduction for holiday debut. Positioning: prestige horror for the holidays, with potential awards-season craft appeal.

Wolf Creek: Legacy (Cineverse, TBA 2026)
Director: Greg McLean. Top cast: John Jarratt expected to return as Mick Taylor. Logline: The Australian outback slasher returns, with a standard theatrical approach before platforming. Status: window fluid, autumn forecast.

Why 2026, why now

Three workable forces organize this lineup. First, production that stalled or shifted in 2024 needed slack in the schedule. Horror can slot in fast because scripts often are location-light, 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 beaten straight-to-streaming landings. Third, social chatter converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will lean on clippable moments from test screenings, select scare clips dropping on Thursday previews, and experiential pop-ups that generate creator assets. It is a repeatable playbook because it performs.

Another factor is the scheduling math. Early corridors for family and capes are leaner in 2026, freeing space for genre entries that can take a weekend outright or sit as the slightly older-skewing alternative. January is the prime example. Four horror varieties will jostle across five weekends, which lets each title generate conversation without cannibalizing the others. Summer provides the other window. The spoof can draft behind animation and action in early summer, 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 efficient band. Most of the films above will come in under $40–$50 million, with many far below. That allows for strong PLF footprints without needing superhero-level volume to break even. The most likely R ratings include Evil Dead Burn, Werwulf, and possibly Resident Evil depending on the final cut. Scream 7, Insidious, and SOULM8TE can plausibly land PG-13 to maximize reach, though each franchise has toggled between ratings in the past. Specialty plays tend to lean R to preserve tone and intensity.

The dark-horse hunt 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 press those advantages. January could easily deliver the first shock over-performer of the year, and August into September gives Sony an avenue to hold screens with back-to-back supernatural IP while still leaving room for an indie breakout.

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

What the calendar feels like for audiences

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers cadence and diversity. January is a smorgasbord, February delivers a legacy slasher, April restores a Universal monster, May and June provide a back-to-back spirit play for date nights and group outings, July leans brutal, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a icy, literate nightmare. That is how you maintain buzz and butts in seats without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can escalate across the year, using earlier releases to prep the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors like the spacing. Horror delivers consistent Thursday swells, efficient screen counts, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can credibly make the premium-screen case, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing texture, soundscape, and picture 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, Ready To Roar

Schedules slip. Ratings change. Casts rotate. But the spine of 2026 horror is in place. There is name recognition where it counts, original 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 final-hour specialty addition join the party. For now, the job is simple, shape lean trailers, keep the secrets, and let the scares sell the seats.