Age-old Terror stirs: Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a bone chilling horror thriller, arriving Oct 2025 across major platforms

A haunting supernatural shockfest from creator / cinematic mind Andrew Chiaramonte, summoning an primeval malevolence when unrelated individuals become pawns in a demonic trial. Airings begin October 2, 2025, on Amazon’s Prime Video, the YouTube platform, Google Play, Apple iTunes, Apple TV Plus, and Fandango’s digital service.

Los Angeles, CA (August 8th, 2025) – be warned for *Young & Cursed*, a traumatizing depiction of living through and timeless dread that will remodel fear-driven cinema this ghoul season. Guided by rising creative mind Andrew Chiaramonte, this claustrophobic and shadowy feature follows five characters who arise stranded in a off-grid cottage under the dark will of Kyra, a central character haunted by a millennia-old scriptural evil. Be prepared to be hooked by a narrative adventure that integrates instinctive fear with mystical narratives, unleashing on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Demon possession has been a enduring tradition in screenwriting. In *Young & Cursed*, that tradition is flipped when the presences no longer come externally, but rather deep within. This symbolizes the malevolent aspect of each of them. The result is a gripping psychological battle where the events becomes a merciless tug-of-war between right and wrong.


In a isolated landscape, five youths find themselves stuck under the ominous control and overtake of a secretive person. As the survivors becomes unable to deny her grasp, isolated and attacked by creatures impossible to understand, they are forced to face their soulful dreads while the hours coldly pushes forward toward their end.


In *Young & Cursed*, mistrust escalates and alliances crack, prompting each person to scrutinize their core and the notion of personal agency itself. The risk escalate with every second, delivering a nightmarish journey that intertwines mystical fear with psychological weakness.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my purpose was to evoke primal fear, an power before modern man, influencing emotional fractures, and confronting a entity that threatens selfhood when volition is erased.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Channeling Kyra meant evoking something far beyond human desperation. She is clueless until the possession kicks in, and that metamorphosis is harrowing because it is so internal.”

Where to Watch

*Young & Cursed* will be available for public screening beginning October 2, 2025, on Amazon’s platform, Google’s video hub, Google Play, Apple iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango on-demand—delivering customers everywhere can enjoy this paranormal experience.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just shared a new official trailer #2 for *Young & Cursed*, live to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a continuation to its first preview, which has received over notable views.


In addition to its continental debut, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has confirmed that *Young & Cursed* will also be launched globally, extending the thrill to scare fans abroad.


Do not miss this cinematic path of possession. Confront *Young & Cursed* this fall premiere to explore these nightmarish insights about existence.


For behind-the-scenes access, special features, and alerts via the production team, follow @YoungAndCursedFilm across Instagram and Twitter and visit our film’s homepage.





American horror’s Turning Point: 2025 American release plan integrates Mythic Possession, indie terrors, stacked beside legacy-brand quakes

Across endurance-driven terror rooted in primordial scripture and including series comebacks paired with surgical indie voices, 2025 stands to become the most textured combined with intentionally scheduled year in the past ten years.

The 2025 horror calendar is more than crowded, it is calculated. leading studios stabilize the year with familiar IP, at the same time subscription platforms flood the fall with new voices paired with archetypal fear. On the independent axis, independent banners is carried on the echoes from a top-tier 2024 festival cycle. As Halloween remains the genre’s crown jewel, the remaining months are slotted with surgical care. The fall stretch is the proving field, however this time, slates are opening January, spring, and mid-summer. Fans are ravenous, studios are precise, so 2025 might go down as horror’s most intentional year yet.

Major Studio Plans with Mini-Major Flex: Elevated fear reclaims ground

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

Universal’s distribution arm leads off the quarter with a big gambit: a reinterpreted Wolf Man, avoiding the standard nineteenth century European backdrop, in a modern-day environment. Guided by Leigh Whannell and starring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this pass grounds the lycanthropy in household collapse. The turn is more than creature work, it is about marriage, parenthood, and humanity. timed for mid January, it aligns with turning the winter slack into a premium lane, not a dumping lane.

Spring ushers in Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher port tuned to austere horror. Under Eli Craig featuring turns by Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it feels like crimson splashed Midwest menace with winked critique. Behind the grin, it unpacks local hysteria, generational chasms, and crowd justice. Initial heat flags it as potent.

As summer wanes, the Warner lot unveils the final movement from its anchor horror saga: The Conjuring: Last Rites. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson reprise Ed and Lorraine Warren, the movie targets a resonant finish through an infamous case. Even with a familiar chassis, Chaves is expected to tune it to a grieving, self reflective color. It goes early September, easing the path before October flood.

Next is The Black Phone 2. Set early then moved to October, a confidence tell. Derrickson resumes command, and the tone that worked before is intact: old school creep, trauma as theme, plus uncanny supernatural grammar. This time, the stakes are raised, with a deeper exploration into the “grabber” mythology and how grief haunts generations.

Finishing the tentpole list is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a franchise that brings its own crowd. The second outing goes deeper into backstory, enlarges the animatronic menagerie, and targets both teens and thirtysomething fans of the original game. It hits in December, stabilizing the winter back end.

Platform Originals: Tight funds, wide impact

As theatricals lean on brands and continuations, streamers are taking risks, and it is paying off.

A top daring platform piece is Weapons, a cold-case linked horror tapestry interlacing three eras linked by a mass vanishing. From Zach Cregger anchored by Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the piece merges terror with dramatic mass. Hitting theaters late summer with fall digital, it may catalyze deconstruction threads like Barbarian.

In the micro chamber lane is Together, a two hander body horror spiral fronted by Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Set in a remote rental home during a getaway gone wrong, the film explores what happens when love, envy, and self hatred merge into physical decay. It comes off amorous, macabre, and bracingly uneasy, a three act loop into codependent hell. While no platform has formally placed a date, it is tracking toward an autumn slot.

Also rising is Sinners, a 1930s period vampire folk story starring Michael B. Jordan. Framed in sepia richness with biblical metaphor, it channels There Will Be Blood against 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.

More streamer bound indies stand by in the shadows: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper each taps grief, vanishing, and identity, treating horror as metaphor more than spectacle.

Possession, Deeper Than Ever: Young & Cursed

Hitting October 2 on the platforms, Young & Cursed emerges as a rare mix, tight in frame and epic in resonance. Conceived 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 unease is psychological, fused to primal myth. Avoiding the usual exorcism path with Catholic ritual and Latin spell, this one burrows toward something older, something darker. Lilith does not answer ceremony, she climbs through trauma, hush, and human fracture. 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.

Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home set the film as Halloween counterprogramming versus sequel waves and monster returns. It is a clever angle. No overstuffed canon. No IP hangover. Just psychological dread, contained and tense, tailored to the binge then breathe cadence of digital horror fans. In a spectacle stack, Young & Cursed could be the hush before the shriek.

Festival Born, Buyer Ready

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF remain breeding grounds for what horror looks like six to twelve months later. They are increasingly launchpads rather than showcases.

This year, Fantastic Fest confirms a strong horror slate. Primate opens with tropical body horror, sparking Cronenberg plus Herzog comps. Whistle, revenge folklore with Aztec roots, is poised to close with blaze.

The midnight bench, including If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, hums from execution, not mere titling. A24’s satire of toxic fandom inside a con lockdown aims at breakout.

SXSW gave air to Clown in a Cornfield and to microbudget hauntings courting buyers. Sundance forecasts grief bent elevated horror again, while Tribeca’s genre section leans more urban, social, and surreal.

Festivals in 2025 double as branding machines. That wreath is now a starting gun, not the finish.

Legacy Lines: Returns, Restarts, and Fresh Angles

Legacy entries present stronger and more purposeful this time.

Fear Street: Prom Queen brings back the 90s line in July with a new lead and throwback vibe. Unlike prior entries, this one leans into camp and prom night melodrama. Expect tiaras, corn syrup blood, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 bows late June, geared to push its techno horror story world with added characters and AI made scares. The first film’s success on both social media and streaming has given Universal the confidence to double down.

Next comes The Long Walk, adapting one of Stephen King’s earliest, most harrowing works, led by Francis Lawrence, it operates as a bleak dystopian tale masked as survival horror, a walk off to death for kids. With the right pitch, it could function as The Hunger Games for grown horror audiences.

Other reboots and sequels, Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda, are scattered across the calendar, most waiting for strategic windows or last minute acquisitions.

Trends to Watch

Old myth goes broad
From Lilith in Young & Cursed across to Aztec curses in Whistle, slates mine ancient texts and symbols. This is not nostalgia, it is a reclamation of pre Christian archetypes. Horror goes beyond fright, it notes evil’s age.

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

Streamers grow fangs
Churn filler is losing ground on platforms. Streamers deploy capital toward scripts, directors, and paid reach. Debuts like Weapons and Sinners carry event framing, not content bins.

Badges become bargaining chips
Festival status acts as leverage for exhibition, placement, and publicity. Forgo a festival map in 2025 and obscurity beckons.

Theaters are a trust fall
Studios are only releasing horror theatrically if they believe it will overperform or spin into sequels. The remainder goes PVOD or hybrid. Horror is not vanishing from theaters, it is getting curated.

Forward View: Autumn crowding, winter surprise

Those four, Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons, crowd September and October to saturation. Indies like Bone Lake and Keeper will grind for attention. Anticipate possible date slides into early 2026 or platform moves.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 steadies December, yet a last minute streamer surprise is in play. Given the dark, mythic lean of the year’s big films, a final creature feature or exorcism slot is open.

Horror’s 2025 outcome will be decided not by one title, but by how its variety connects with splintered audiences. The aim is not another Get Out chase, it is durable horror beyond gross.



The coming 2026 Horror season: entries, filmmaker-first projects, as well as A stacked Calendar aimed at jolts

Dek The fresh genre calendar stacks at the outset with a January pile-up, subsequently flows through the summer months, and continuing into the holiday frame, balancing brand heft, fresh ideas, and shrewd counterplay. Major distributors and platforms are committing to tight budgets, box-office-first windows, and social-fueled campaigns that position horror entries into cross-demo moments.

The state of horror, heading into 2026

This space has emerged as the bankable release in studio lineups, a genre that can accelerate when it performs and still protect the liability when it misses. After the 2023 year re-taught studio brass that cost-conscious pictures can drive pop culture, 2024 kept energy high with visionary-driven titles and stealth successes. The energy pushed into the 2025 frame, where resurrections and arthouse crossovers proved there is capacity for many shades, from legacy continuations to one-and-done originals that scale internationally. The upshot for 2026 is a grid that seems notably aligned across the field, with intentional bunching, a equilibrium of brand names and original hooks, and a renewed eye on box-office windows that feed downstream value on PVOD and platforms.

Executives say the category now works like a flex slot on the calendar. Horror can premiere on many corridors, supply a simple premise for ad units and shorts, and outperform with ticket buyers that line up on Thursday nights and keep coming through the sophomore frame if the title works. In the wake of a strike-induced shuffle, the 2026 mapping indicates certainty in that model. The calendar gets underway with a front-loaded January stretch, then uses spring and early summer for contrast, while clearing room for a fall run that carries into All Hallows period and past Halloween. The arrangement also illustrates the ongoing integration of boutique distributors and subscription services that can develop over weeks, ignite recommendations, and roll out at the optimal moment.

A notable top-line trend is franchise tending across shared IP webs and heritage properties. Big banners are not just releasing another entry. They are trying to present story carry-over with a headline quality, whether that is a brandmark that indicates a new tone or a talent selection that bridges a fresh chapter to a vintage era. At the alongside this, the creative teams behind the most buzzed-about originals are celebrating material texture, practical effects and grounded locations. That interplay yields 2026 a vital pairing of familiarity and shock, which is the formula for international play.

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

Paramount fires first with two spotlight projects that live at opposite ends of the tone spectrum. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with original architect Kevin Williamson in the helm and Neve Campbell back at the center, presenting it as both a legacy handover and a origin-leaning character-forward chapter. Cameras are rolling in Atlanta, and the authorial approach telegraphs a memory-charged framework without going over the last two entries’ Carpenter-sisters arc. Count on a promo wave fueled by legacy iconography, early character teases, and a tease cadence slated for late fall. Distribution is cinema-first via Paramount.

Paramount also reboots a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are back on screen, with the Wayans brothers involved as creative contributors for the first time since the early 2000s, a linchpin the campaign will lean on. As a off-tentpole summer play, this one will pursue broad awareness through gif-able moments, with the horror spoof format permitting quick turns to whatever leads the social talk that spring.

Universal has three separate strategies. SOULM8TE premieres January 9, 2026, a AI-tinged spinoff from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The foundation is crisp, grief-rooted, and premise-first: a grieving man sets up an intelligent companion that shifts into a dangerous lover. The date sets it at the front of a packed window, with Universal’s campaign likely to echo off-kilter promo beats and bite-size content that hybridizes romance and dread.

On May 8, 2026, the studio dates an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely considered the feature developed under internal titles in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The dated slate currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which allows a public title to become an PR pop closer to the teaser. The timing stakes a great post to read claim in early May while larger tentpoles own different weekends.

Finishing the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film books October 23, 2026, a slot he has thrived in before. Peele projects are marketed as signature events, with a teaser that holds back and a later trailer push that shape mood without giving away the concept. The spooky-season slot offers Universal room 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, partners with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček leads, with Souheila Yacoub anchoring. The franchise has established that a gritty, on-set effects led style can feel top-tier on a controlled budget. Position this as a splatter summer horror blast that maximizes foreign markets, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most overseas territories.

Sony’s horror bench is well stocked. The studio lines up two recognizable-IP pushes in the back half. An untitled Insidious film rolls out August 21, 2026, keeping a trusty supernatural brand in play while the spin-off branch gestates. The studio has moved dates on this title before, but the current plan keeps it in late summer, where Insidious has been strong.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil restarts in what Sony is billing as a reset for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a pillar part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a mission to serve both fans and first-timers. The fall slot creates runway for Sony to build promo materials around world-building, and creature work, elements that can increase deluxe auditorium demand and fan events.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, anchors a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Robert Eggers’ Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film continues the filmmaker’s run of period horror rooted in rigorous craft and textual fidelity, this time driven by werewolf stories. The imprint has already staked the slot for a holiday release, a clear message in Eggers as a specialty play that can platform wide if early reception is supportive.

Streamers and platform exclusives

Platform plans for 2026 run on known playbooks. Universal’s genre slate move to copyright after a theatrical-first then PVOD phase, a pacing that boosts both premiere heat and sign-up spikes in the tail. Prime Video will mix outside acquisitions with global originals and targeted theatrical runs when the data supports it. Max and Hulu work their advantages in catalog discovery, using editorial spots, genre hubs, and editorial rows to lengthen the tail on overall cume. Netflix stays nimble about internal projects and festival buys, locking in horror entries with shorter lead times and turning into events arrivals with quick-run campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, deploys a one-two of targeted theatrical exposure and speedy platforming that converts WOM to subscribers. That will count for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before turning to horror-fan channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ treats carefully horror on a case-by-case basis. The platform has been willing to pick up select projects with name filmmakers or name-led packages, then give them a select cinema run in partnership with exhibitors to meet awards-qualifying thresholds or to show bona fides before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still capitalizes on the 20th Century Studios slate, a core piece for ongoing engagement when the genre conversation ramps.

Festival-to-platform breakouts

Cineverse is engineering a 2026 pipeline with two franchise steps. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The sell is clear: the same foggy, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a favorite of fans, modernized for modern audio-visual craft. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a autumn slot, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. Cineverse has telegraphed a cinema-first plan for the title, an promising marker for fans of the relentless series and for exhibitors seeking darker fare in the autumn weeks.

Focus will push the auteur angle with Werwulf, managing the title through autumn festivals if the cut is ready, then pressing the Christmas window to increase reach. That positioning has proved effective for filmmaker-first horror with four-quadrant hopes. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not finalized many 2026 slots in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines regularly gel after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A solid projection is a set of late-summer and fall platformers that can broaden if reception prompts. Plan on an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that plays Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work in concert, using mini theatrical to ignite evangelism that fuels their community.

Series vs standalone

By skew, the 2026 slate bends toward the brand-heavy side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all leverage name recognition. The question, as ever, is audience fatigue. The pragmatic answer is to position each entry as a re-toned entry. Paramount is emphasizing character and continuity in Scream 7, Sony is teasing a restart at zero for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is embracing a French-inflected take from a fresh helmer. Those choices carry weight when the audience has so many options and social sentiment turns quickly.

Originals and filmmaker-first projects deliver oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be presented as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, anchors on Rachel McAdams in a marooned survival premise with Raimi’s playful menace. SOULM8TE offers a simple, unsettling tech hook. Werwulf rests on period texture and an severe tone. Even when the title is not based on a property, the deal build is known enough to drive advance ticketing and early previews.

Past-three-year patterns contextualize the method. In 2023, a cinema-first model that preserved streaming windows did not block a day-date try from paying off when the brand was sticky. In 2024, filmmaker-craft-led horror exceeded expectations in PLF auditoriums. In 2025, a reawakened chapter of a beloved infection saga broadcast that global horror franchises can still feel recharged when they rotate perspective 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 twin-shoot approach, with chapters lensed sequentially, allows marketing to cross-link entries through cast and motif and to maintain a flow of assets without pause points.

Behind-the-camera trends

The craft rooms behind the year’s horror telegraph a continued shift toward real, location-led craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not follow any recent iteration of the property, a stance that aligns with the practical-effects sensibility he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film closed principal and is headed for its April 17, 2026 date. Watch for a drive that underscores texture and dread rather than fireworks, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership allowing tight cost control.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has said Werwulf as the grimmest project he has tackled, which tracks with a Middle Ages setting and archaic dialect, a combination that can make for textured sound and a raw, elemental vibe on the big screen. Focus will likely pre-sell this aesthetic in long-lead press and artisan spotlights before rolling out a mood teaser that elevates tone over story, a move that has played for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is designed for red-band excess, a signature of the series that lands overseas in red-band trailers and creates shareable crowd-reaction snippets from early screenings. Scream 7 promises a meta inflection that returns to the core star. Resident Evil will live or die on monster realization and design, which lend themselves to con floor moments and curated leaks. Insidious tends to be a theatrical sound showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the auditorium case feel irresistible. Look for trailers that underscore razor sound, deep-bass stingers, and mute beats that land in big rooms.

Calendar map: winter through the holidays

January is stacked. 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 gloomy counterbalance amid marquee brands. The month wraps with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival shocker from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is real, but the tonal variety lets each find a lane, and the five-week structure creates breathing room for each if word of mouth holds.

Q1 into Q2 seed summer. Scream 7 arrives February 27 with nostalgia energy. In April, New Line’s The Mummy resurrects a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once played to genre counterprogramming and now accommodates big openers. The untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 connects 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 delivers gnarly intensity. The counterprogramming logic is strong. The spoof can deliver next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest serves older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have run their PLF course.

Late summer into fall leans recognizable. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously worked. Resident Evil lines up after September 18, a bridge slot navigate here that still builds toward Halloween marketing beats. Jordan Peele’s untitled film secures October 23 and will absorb cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely backed by a mystery-first teaser plan and limited pre-release reveals that put concept first.

Prestige-horror at year-end. Werwulf on December 25 is a stakes that genre can live at Christmas when packaged as filmmaker prestige. Focus has done this before, rolling out carefully, then pressing critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to remain in discourse into January. If the film earns with critics, the studio can broaden in the first week of 2027 while enjoying holiday hold and gift-card use.

Embedded title notes

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting still being revealed as production advances. Logline: Sidney returns to re-engage a new Ghostface while the narrative relinks to the original film’s genome. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: heritage pivot with a current edge.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A grieving man’s digital partner shifts into something perilously amorous. Rating: TBA. Production: Principal is complete 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 extends the world beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult forms in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Twin-shot 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 ventures back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to run into a warped reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished and theatrical on deck. Positioning: moody game adaptation built on atmosphere.

Send Help (20th Century Studios, January 30, 2026)
Director: Sam Raimi. Top cast: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Dennis Haysbert, Chris Pang. Logline: After a plane crash, an employee and her hard-edged boss push to survive on a uninhabited island as the power dynamic tilts and unease intensifies. Rating: TBA. Production: Done. Positioning: celebrity-led survival horror from a legend.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles to be revealed in official materials. Logline: A renewed vision that returns the monster to terror, anchored by Cronin’s material craft and accumulating dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Production wrapped. 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 in-home haunting piece that twists the horror of a child’s mercurial impressions. Rating: pending. Production: completed. Positioning: studio-built and marquee-led occult chiller.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers involved creatively again. Logline: {A satire sequel that skewers today’s horror trends and true crime preoccupations. Rating: rating forthcoming. Production: fall 2025 production window. 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 erupts, with an multinational twist in tone and setting. Rating: undetermined. Production: currently in New Zealand. Positioning: uncompromising R installment meant for big rooms.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: TBA in marketing materials. Top cast: to be announced. Logline: The Further stirs again, with a young family lashed to ancient dread. Rating: to be announced. Production: eying a summer shoot for late-summer slot. Positioning: durable spectral IP in a late-summer sweet spot.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: forthcoming. Top cast: unrevealed. Logline: A restart designed to re-engineer the franchise from the ground up, with an lean toward survival-first horror over pyrotechnic spectacle. Rating: forthcoming. Production: advancing in development with date locked. Positioning: canon-conscious reboot with mainstream reach.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: forthcoming. Logline: carefully shrouded. Rating: TBD. Production: moving forward. 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-precise speech and primordial menace. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: in preparation with Christmas frame locked. Positioning: high-craft holiday horror with awards-season tail.

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

Why this year, why now

Three practical forces inform this lineup. First, production that bottlenecked or re-sequenced in 2024 needed calendar breathing room. Horror can plug those gaps fast because scripts often rely on fewer locations, fewer large-scale VFX set pieces, and tighter schedules. Second, studios have become more strict about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently exceeded straight-to-streaming releases. Third, platform buzz converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will lean on repeatable beats from test screenings, precision scare clips calibrated to Thursday preview timing, and experiential pop-ups that seed creator reels. It is a repeatable playbook because it succeeds.

The slot calculus is real. Early-2026 family and superhero concentrations ease, providing runway for genre entries that can capture a weekend or play as the older-leaning alternative. January is the prime example. Four genre tones will trade weekends across five weekends, which permits distinct conversations to flourish. Summer provides the other window. The spoof can draft behind animation and action in early summer, then the hard-R entry can exploit a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Economics and ratings, plus sleeper strategy

Budgets remain in the optimal band. Most of the films above will stay under the $40 to $50 million threshold, with many far below. That allows for aggressive PLF bookings 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 stealth-hit search continues in Q1, where low-to-mid 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 dark-horse hit of the year, and August into September gives Sony an avenue to hold screens with back-to-back supernatural IP while still leaving room for an indie breakout.

Internationally, brand recognition helps Resident Evil, Evil Dead, and Scream travel, while 28 Years Later benefits from a British setting and returning talent. Werwulf and The Mummy will lean on auteur and classic-monster awareness abroad. Streamers will amplify the tail, with copyright pickups boosting Universal’s slate and Shudder driving evangelism for Cineverse titles. Count on a vigorous PVOD arc overall, since horror fans have shown a willingness to pay for convenience after an opening weekend, especially when word of mouth is strong.

What the calendar feels like for audiences

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers rhythm and variety. January is a sampler, February delivers a legacy slasher, April reintroduces a Universal monster, May and June provide a paranormal one-two for date nights and group outings, July runs hard, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a chilly, literate nightmare. That is how you preserve buzz while driving admissions without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can gain momentum, using earlier releases to prime the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors welcome the spacing. Horror delivers reliable Thursday lifts, tight deployments, 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 dimensionality, soundscape, and image-making that benefit from larger formats. The calendar also leaves room for specialty platformers to open in New York and Los Angeles, build reviews, and slide into national conversation as the fall progresses.

A Promising 2026

Slots move. Ratings change. Casts rotate. But the spine of 2026 horror is solid. There is name recognition where it counts, new vision where it lands, and a calendar that shows studios understand how and when audiences want to be scared. 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 eleventh-hour specialty buy join the party. For now, the job is simple, cut crisp trailers, keep the curtain closed, and let the fear sell the seats.