Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed confronts primordial evil, a hair raising feature, bowing October 2025 on global platforms

This bone-chilling metaphysical thriller from cinematographer / creative lead Andrew Chiaramonte, awakening an ancient malevolence when strangers become vehicles in a cursed maze. Releasing on October 2, 2025, on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google’s Play platform, Apple’s iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango platform.

L.A., CA (August 8th, 2025) – Prepare yourselves for *Young & Cursed*, a disturbing journey of survival and ancient evil that will transform terror storytelling this harvest season. Visualized by rising master of suspense Andrew Chiaramonte, this claustrophobic and immersive cinema piece follows five individuals who wake up imprisoned in a secluded shelter under the malignant control of Kyra, a troubled woman consumed by a two-thousand-year-old Old Testament spirit. Get ready to be shaken by a screen-based adventure that harmonizes soul-chilling terror with arcane tradition, dropping on Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Malevolent takeover has been a recurring narrative in film. In *Young & Cursed*, that formula is radically shifted when the entities no longer appear from an outside force, but rather from within. This suggests the grimmest shade of the protagonists. The result is a gripping emotional conflict where the events becomes a relentless confrontation between righteousness and malevolence.


In a remote woodland, five campers find themselves cornered under the evil control and curse of a obscure apparition. As the group becomes unable to fight her dominion, detached and targeted by spirits indescribable, they are forced to wrestle with their raw vulnerabilities while the moments coldly winds toward their fate.


In *Young & Cursed*, paranoia amplifies and alliances crack, prompting each soul to doubt their core and the concept of independent thought itself. The threat accelerate with every minute, delivering a cinematic nightmare that marries demonic fright with emotional fragility.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my purpose was to explore pure dread, an power from ancient eras, influencing psychological breaks, and challenging a evil that redefines identity when autonomy is removed.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Performing as Kyra involved tapping into something darker than pain. She is unseeing until the haunting manifests, and that conversion is deeply unsettling because it is so private.”

Streaming Info

*Young & Cursed* will be released for audience access beginning October 2, 2025, on Amazon’s platform, Google’s video hub, Google’s store, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango on-demand—ensuring subscribers no matter where they are can witness this unholy film.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just unveiled a new video trailer for *Young & Cursed*, debuted to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a follow-through to its release of trailer #1, which has gathered over a viral response.


In addition to its first availability, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has stated that *Young & Cursed* will also be launched globally, making the film to global fright lovers.


Join this mind-warping voyage through terror. Explore *Young & Cursed* this fall premiere to acknowledge these chilling revelations about the human condition.


For exclusive trailers, set experiences, and promotions from the story's source, follow @YACMovie across media channels and visit the official digital haunt.





Current horror’s pivotal crossroads: the year 2025 U.S. release slate interlaces Mythic Possession, festival-born jolts, together with IP aftershocks

Moving from endurance-driven terror suffused with primordial scripture to legacy revivals in concert with cutting indie sensibilities, 2025 is coalescing into the most textured in tandem with calculated campaign year in a decade.

The 2025 horror calendar is not merely full, it is methodical. top-tier distributors hold down the year by way of signature titles, concurrently OTT services front-load the fall with fresh voices paired with ancient terrors. At the same time, indie storytellers is catching the afterglow from a high-water 2024 festival stretch. Because Halloween continues as the prize window, the schedule beyond October is tightly engineered. That late Q3 to mid Q4 lane is the crucible, distinctly in 2025, strategies include January, spring, and mid-summer. Audiences are eager, studios are surgical, therefore 2025 could be the most carefully plotted year to date.

What Studios and Mini-Majors Are Doing: Premium dread reemerges

No one at the top is standing still. If 2024 laid the groundwork for a horror reinvention, 2025 deepens the push.

Universal’s pipeline kicks off the frame with an audacious swing: a refashioned Wolf Man, avoiding the standard nineteenth century European backdrop, in a modern-day environment. From director Leigh Whannell and starring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this approach fixes the lycanthropy within intimate rupture. The transformation is not just physical, it is marital, parental, and painfully human. set for mid January, it helps remake the winter trough with prestige offerings, not discard thrillers.

As spring rolls in, Clown in a Cornfield bows, a YA slasher conversion presented as stripped terror. Guided by Eli Craig and featuring Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it feels like crimson splashed Midwest menace with winked critique. Behind the greasepaint sits a critique of small town suspicion, generational fracture, and vigilante justice. Festival whispers say it is sharp.

By late summer, the WB camp releases the last chapter inside its trusty horror universe: The Conjuring: Last Rites. The Warrens are back with Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, the finale seeks an emotional close via a signature case. Even if the pattern is recognizable, Chaves seems to angle for a plaintive, inward final note. It is dated for early September, granting margin before October’s crush.

The Black Phone 2 follows. Set early then moved to October, a confidence tell. Derrickson resumes command, and the DNA that clicked last time remains: 70s style chill, trauma as narrative engine, plus uncanny supernatural grammar. This time, the stakes are raised, with more excavation of the “grabber” canon and family hauntings.

Rounding the tentpole corner is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a release that travels on brand alone. The return delves further into myth, enlarges the animatronic menagerie, courting teens and the thirty something base. It hits in December, pinning the winter close.

Streaming Offerings: Slim budgets, major punch

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

Among the most ambitious streaming plays is Weapons, a multi timeline cold-case dread piece threading three timelines via a mass disappearance. Directed by Zach Cregger and featuring Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the film fuses dread with dramatic heft. Opening theatrically late summer ahead of fall SVOD, it should ignite online discourse and post viewing breakdowns, much like Barbarian.

At the smaller scale sits Together, an intimate body horror unraveling with Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Taking place in an isolated rental as a retreat goes wrong, the piece probes how love, envy, and self loathing become bodily rot. It reads tender, repulsive, and intensely uneasy, a three act churn into codependent hell. With no dated platform window yet, it is a near certain autumn drop.

Then there is Sinners, a Depression era vampire folk fable starring Michael B. Jordan. Visualized in sepia palette with scriptural metaphor, it mirrors There Will Be Blood meeting Let the Right One In. The narrative analyzes American religious trauma through a ghostly allegory. Initial test audience notes point to a buzzy streaming debut.

Additional platform indies hold in reserve: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper each taps grief, vanishing, and identity, treating horror as metaphor more than spectacle.

Possession From Within: Young & Cursed

Going live October 2 on major services, Young & Cursed positions itself as a rare hybrid, intimate in scope and mythic in reach. From writer director Andrew Chiaramonte, the release shadows five strangers waking in a hidden woods cabin, bound to Kyra, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. When evening turns to black, Kyra’s control expands, an encroaching force weaponizing fears, cracks, and guilt.

This fear is psychologically driven, pulsing with primal myth. Ducking the exorcism default of Catholic ritual and Latin text, this piece touches something older, something darker. Lilith is not conjured by ritual, she surfaces through trauma, silence, and human fragility. Turning possession inward syncs Young & Cursed to the trend of character led dramas draped in genre.

The platforms, including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home, angle the film as Halloween counterprogramming to sequel load and monster re ups. It is an astute call. No overstuffed canon. No canon weight. Sheer psychological unease, compact and taut, calibrated to digital binge beats. Inside spectacle, Young & Cursed may separate by silence, then rupture.

Festival Born and Buyer Ready

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF function as launch beds for the coming year’s horror. This cycle, they are launchpads first and showcases second.

Fantastic Fest posts a muscular horror lineup this year. Primate opens with tropical body horror, sparking Cronenberg plus Herzog comps. Whistle, a revenge folktale steeped in Aztec myth, is tapped to close with fire.

Those midnight titles, including If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, buzz from delivery as much as naming. That title, with A24 backing, satirizes toxic fandom during a convention lockdown and is set to pop.

SXSW staged Clown in a Cornfield and lined up microbudget haunts for talks. Sundance is expected to unspool a familiar crop of grief steeped elevated horror, with Tribeca’s genre lane skewing urban, social, and surreal.

The festival game increasingly values branding over mere discovery. A badge from Fantastic Fest or TIFF is now the first phase of marketing, not the last.

Heritage Horror: Reups, Reboots, and Rethinks

Legacy entries present stronger and more purposeful this time.

Fear Street: Prom Queen comes in July with franchise revival, new lead, retro styling. Compared to earlier parts, it tilts camp and prom night melodrama. Cue tiaras, phony blood, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 hits 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 operates as a bleak dystopian tale masked as survival horror, a walk off to death for kids. With sharp marketing, it could translate to The Hunger Games for horror adults.

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

What to Watch

Old myth goes broad
Young & Cursed with Lilith and Whistle with Aztec curses both signal ancient texts and symbols. It is not nostalgia, it is re owning pre Christian archetypes. Horror is not just scaring us, it is reminding us that evil is older than we are.

Body horror retakes ground
With films like Together, Weapons, and Keeper, horror is going back to the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation serve as metaphors for heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streaming Originals Grow Teeth
Junk fill horror on platforms is receding. Platforms are putting money into scripts, directors, and promotion. Works such as Weapons and Sinners are positioned as events, not filler.

Badges become bargaining chips
Festival status acts as leverage for exhibition, placement, and publicity. A film minus festival planning in 2025 risks getting lost.

Theatrical Is Now a Trust Fall
Studios hold theatrical for overperformers or future series seeds. Most others angle PVOD or hybrid. Horror continues in theaters, in narrower curated lanes.

Forward View: Autumn density and winter pivot

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 including Bone Lake and Keeper will wrestle for room. Some may slide to early 2026 or switch platform lanes.

December is anchored by Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, but do not rule out a surprise streamer drop in the final weeks. Because major titles skew dark and mythic, a late creature feature or exorcism could slide in.

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 mission is not a new Get Out, it is sustained horror beyond tickets.



The forthcoming 2026 scare release year: Sequels, universe starters, and also A loaded Calendar engineered for goosebumps

Dek: The incoming terror year builds up front with a January glut, before it runs through the mid-year, and far into the December corridor, combining franchise firepower, novel approaches, and well-timed calendar placement. Studios and streamers are doubling down on mid-range economics, theatrical-first rollouts, and viral-minded pushes that position horror entries into cross-demo moments.

Horror momentum into 2026

The horror sector has established itself as the consistent swing in programming grids, a segment that can scale when it clicks and still buffer the drawdown when it under-delivers. After the 2023 year reminded top brass that modestly budgeted pictures can steer the national conversation, 2024 extended the rally with auteur-driven buzzy films and sleeper breakouts. The momentum pushed into the 2025 frame, where reboots and elevated films made clear there is a market for several lanes, from franchise continuations to standalone ideas that perform internationally. The aggregate for the 2026 slate is a grid that shows rare alignment across the field, with clear date clusters, a balance of brand names and new pitches, and a sharpened stance on exhibition windows that drive downstream revenue on premium video on demand and streaming.

Executives say the category now operates like a utility player on the programming map. Horror can open on many corridors, deliver a quick sell for teasers and TikTok spots, and exceed norms with audiences that line up on first-look nights and sustain through the week two if the entry delivers. After a strike-impacted pipeline, the 2026 layout indicates comfort in that setup. The slate opens with a stacked January stretch, then primes spring and early summer for alternate plays, while saving space for a September to October window that pushes into All Hallows period and past the holiday. The program also highlights the increasing integration of boutique distributors and streaming partners that can grow from platform, fuel WOM, and move wide at the strategic time.

A parallel macro theme is brand management across shared IP webs and established properties. The companies are not just releasing another entry. They are moving to present connection with a heightened moment, whether that is a title design that broadcasts a new tone or a star attachment that ties a new installment to a initial period. At the very same time, the helmers behind the most anticipated originals are celebrating physical effects work, real effects and specific settings. That blend delivers 2026 a lively combination of home base and unexpected turns, which is the formula for international play.

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

Paramount plants an early flag with two headline plays that live at opposite ends of the tone spectrum. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the director slot and Neve Campbell back at the core, positioning the film as both a lineage transfer and a back-to-basics character-driven entry. Production is underway in Atlanta, and the story approach indicates a classic-referencing framework without repeating the last two entries’ Carpenter-sisters arc. The studio is likely to mount a drive rooted in legacy iconography, character spotlights, and a trailer cadence landing toward late fall. Distribution is theatrical through Paramount.

Paramount also relaunches a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are paired again, 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 summer relief option, this one will pursue four-quadrant chatter through remixable clips, with the horror spoof format lending itself to quick redirects to whatever drives the social Get More Info talk that spring.

Universal has three specific pushes. SOULM8TE launches January 9, 2026, a tech-horror spinoff from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The logline is efficient, tragic, and commercial: a grieving man installs an intelligent companion that becomes a lethal partner. The date puts it at the front of a heavy month, with the marketing arm likely to replay uncanny-valley stunts and snackable content that melds romance and terror.

On May 8, 2026, the studio books an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely believed to be the feature developed under working titles in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The public calendar currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which allows a title drop to become an marketing beat closer to the first look. The timing gives Universal a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles crowd different corridors.

Finishing the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film grabs October 23, 2026, a slot he has worked well before. Peele titles are branded as event films, with a teaser with minimal detail and a subsequent trailers that shape mood without giving away the concept. The Halloween runway opens a lane to saturate pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then use 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 heads, with Souheila Yacoub leading. The franchise has long shown that a raw, practical-first strategy can feel big on a efficient spend. Frame it as a red-band summer horror hit that centers global traction, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most non-U.S. markets.

Sony’s horror bench is robust. The studio rolls out two brand-forward plays in the back half. An untitled Insidious film arrives August 21, 2026, maintaining a evergreen supernatural brand on the grid while the spin-off branch moves forward. Sony has reslotted on this title before, but the current plan sticks it in late summer, where the brand has found success.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil reappears in what the studio is presenting as a reset for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a vital part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a charge to serve both fans and new audiences. The fall slot affords Sony time to build materials around mythos, and creature work, elements that can boost PLF interest and fan-forward engagement.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, places a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film carries forward Eggers’ run of period horror built on obsessive craft and archaic language, this time driven by werewolf stories. The company has already set the date for a holiday release, a promissory note in Eggers as a specialty play that can move wide if early reception is favorable.

Streamers and platform exclusives

Windowing plans in 2026 run on known playbooks. Universal’s slate shift to copyright after a box-office phase then PVOD, a sequence that boosts both debut momentum and viewer acquisition in the after-window. Prime Video stitches together acquired titles with worldwide buys and small theatrical windows when the data signals it. Max and Hulu work their advantages in deep cuts, using timely promos, October hubs, and featured rows to stretch the tail on the horror cume. Netflix stays nimble about own-slate titles and festival buys, locking in horror entries toward the drop and staging as events premieres with surge campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, works a laddered of limited theatrical footprints and prompt platform moves that funnels enthusiasm into trials. That will be meaningful for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before leaning on fan pipelines in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ continues to evaluate horror on a bespoke basis. The platform has proven amenable to acquire select projects with prestige directors or A-list packages, then give them a qualifying theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet awards-qualifying thresholds or to earn receipts before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney domestic still leans on the 20th Century Studios slate, a major factor for retention when the genre conversation swells.

Indie and specialty outlook

Cineverse is steadily assembling a 2026 pipeline with two recognizable titles. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The sell is straightforward: the same mist-blanketed, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a diehard favorite, upgraded for modern sonics and picture. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a autumn frame, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. The distributor has indicated a traditional theatrical plan for the title, an upbeat indicator for fans of the ferocious series and for exhibitors hungry for R material in the autumn stretch.

Focus will lean into the auteur lane with Werwulf, managing the title through select festivals if the cut is ready, then turning to the Christmas corridor to go wider. That positioning has helped for director-led genre with four-quadrant hopes. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not posted many 2026 dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines tend to converge after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A solid projection is a brace of late-summer and fall platformers that can grow if reception drives. Watch for an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that screens at Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work in tandem, using targeted theatrical to jump-start evangelism that fuels their community.

Balance of brands and originals

By count, the 2026 slate leans in favor of the recognizable IP side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all activate fan equity. The potential drawback, as ever, is diminishing returns. The practical approach is to position each entry as a renewed feel. Paramount is underscoring relationship and legacy in Scream 7, Sony is floating a fresh ground-up build for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is driving a French sensibility from a ascendant talent. Those choices have impact when the audience has so many options and social sentiment changes rapidly.

Originals and filmmaker-led entries bring the oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be pitched as a brand unto itself. Sam Raimi’s Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, casts Rachel McAdams in a survival chiller premise with Raimi’s playful menace. SOULM8TE offers a simple, unsettling tech hook. Werwulf anchors in period detail and an uncompromising tone. Even when the title is not based on legacy IP, the assembly is known enough to drive advance ticketing and Thursday-night crowds.

Past-three-year patterns announce the plan. In 2023, a theatrical-first plan that kept streaming intact did not preclude a day-date move from thriving when the brand was potent. In 2024, filmmaker-craft-led horror hit big in premium formats. In 2025, a reawakened chapter of a beloved infection saga signaled that global horror franchises can still feel alive when they change perspective and expand the canvas. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which proceeds 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 consecutively, creates space for marketing to thread films through protagonists and motifs and to hold creative in the market without pause points.

How the films are being made

The shop talk behind the upcoming entries foreshadow a continued move toward hands-on, location-grounded craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not resemble any recent iteration of the property, a stance that squares with the in-camera sensibility he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film wrapped production and is moving toward its April 17, 2026 date. Watch for a drive that highlights tone and tension rather than VFX blitz, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership supporting tight cost control.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has spoken of Werwulf as the bleakest project he has tackled, which tracks with a 13th-century milieu and historically accurate language, a combination that can make for wraparound sound and a earthy, elemental chill on the big screen. Focus will likely highlight this aesthetic in behind-the-scenes pieces and craft features before rolling out a mood teaser that elevates tone over story, a move that has clicked for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is engineered for visceral gnarl, a signature of the series that works internationally in red-band trailers and gathers shareable reaction videos from early screenings. Scream 7 offers a meta recalibration that refocuses on the original lead. Resident Evil will win or lose on creature craft and set design, which play well in fan-con activations and managed asset releases. Insidious tends to be a audio showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the theater case feel key. Look for trailers that elevate surgical sound design, deep-bass stingers, and sudden silences that land in big rooms.

Calendar cadence

January is busy. Universal’s SOULM8TE opens January 9, 2026, then Sony returns a week later with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple on January 16. Return to Silent Hill follows on January 23, a moody palate cleanser amid heavier IP. The month finishes with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival thriller from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is legit, but the range of tones ensures lanes for each, and the five-week structure allows a clean run for each if word of mouth sticks.

Early-year through spring build the summer base. Scream 7 debuts February 27 with brand warmth. In April, The Mummy restores a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once was aligned with genre counterprogramming and now sustains big openers. Universal’s untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 feeds 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 light and four-quadrant, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 delivers gnarly intensity. The counterprogramming logic is smart. The spoof can succeed next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest serves older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have rolled through premiums.

Late-season stretch leans series. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously performed. Resident Evil lands after September 18, a transitional slot that still feeds into Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event holds October 23 and will own cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely reinforced by a opaque tease strategy and limited advance reveals that trade in concept over detail.

Holiday corridor prestige. Werwulf on December 25 is a line in sand that genre can win the holiday when packaged as director prestige horror. Focus has done this before, platforming carefully, then leaning on critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to keep the film in the conversation into January. If the film scores with critics, the studio can increase count in the first week of 2027 while carrying holiday turnout and gift-card redemption.

One-sentence dossiers

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting continuing to be revealed as production moves. Logline: Sidney returns to meet a new Ghostface while the narrative revisits the original film’s genetic code. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: legacy reset with a modern edge.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A grieving man’s synthetic partner grows into something deadly romantic. Rating: TBA. Production: Photography complete 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 expands the scope beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult hardens in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Shot sequentially with the first film. Positioning: prestige survival-horror continuation.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man goes back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to encounter a unsettled reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed with U.S. theatrical distribution secured. 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 demanding boss battle to survive on a cut-off island as the control dynamic turns and unease intensifies. Rating: TBA. Production: In the can. Positioning: star-led survival piece from a genre icon.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles kept quiet in official materials. Logline: A modern reimagining that returns the monster to fear, founded on Cronin’s hands-on craft and creeping dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Production wrapped. 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 in-home haunting story that pipes the unease through a young child’s volatile personal vantage. Rating: pending. Production: finished. Positioning: studio-supported and celebrity-led supernatural suspense.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers rejoining on the creative side. Logline: {A parody reboot that needles in-vogue horror tropes and true crime fixations. Rating: to be announced. Production: fall 2025 production window. Positioning: broad-lane summer entry.

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 ignites, with an cross-border twist in tone and setting. Rating: forthcoming. Production: filming in New Zealand. Positioning: R-rated franchise charge tuned for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: to be confirmed in marketing. Top cast: unrevealed. Logline: The Further unfurls again, with a fresh family bound to ancient dread. Rating: pending. Production: eying a summer shoot for late-summer slot. Positioning: dependable ghost-franchise slot that suits the brand.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: TBA publicly. Top cast: undisclosed. Logline: A ground-up reset designed to reconstruct the franchise from the ground up, with an preference for classic survival-horror tone over action-heavy spectacle. Rating: TBA. Production: dev phase with date secured. Positioning: game-rooted reset with broad potential.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: to be announced. Logline: closely held. Rating: to be announced. Production: proceeding. 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 elemental dread. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: building toward Christmas Day opening. Positioning: auteur prestige horror aimed at holiday corridor with crafts prospects.

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 theatrical-first route ahead of platforming. Status: date variable, fall window probable.

Why 2026, why now

Three hands-on forces organize this lineup. First, production that decelerated or re-slotted in 2024 called for breathing room in the schedule. Horror can backfill quickly because scripts often need fewer locations, fewer large-scale VFX set pieces, and condensed timelines. Second, studios have become more methodical about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently overdelivered vs. straight-to-streaming releases. Third, social conversation converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will harvest shareable moments from test screenings, select scare clips launched on Thursday previews, and experiential pop-ups that seed creator reels. It is a repeatable playbook because it holds up.

A fourth element is the programming calculus. Early corridors for family and capes are leaner in 2026, freeing space for genre entries that can capture a weekend or act as the older-tilt option. January is the prime example. Four varied shades of horror will coexist 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 pounce on a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Budgets and certifications, sleeper calculus

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

The breakout hunt continues in Q1, where lower and 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 work those windows. 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. 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.

How the viewing year plays

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers beat and breadth. January is a spread, February delivers a legacy slasher, April brings back a Universal monster, May and June provide a two-beat supernatural run for date nights and group outings, July gets visceral, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a icy, literate nightmare. That is how you preserve buzz while driving admissions without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can compound over time, using earlier releases to condition the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors respond well to the spacing. Horror delivers preview-night pops, right-sized allotments, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can justify premium screens, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing dimensionality, audio design, 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.

A Strong 2026 Horizon

Frames adjust. Ratings change. Casts update. But the spine of 2026 horror is sturdy. There is name recognition where it counts, distinct vision where it matters, and a calendar that shows studios grasp the timing of 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, craft precise trailers, hold the mystery, and let the chills sell the seats.