Mythic Evil awakens: Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a nerve shredding feature, landing Oct 2025 on major platforms

This frightening occult suspense story from writer / creative lead Andrew Chiaramonte, releasing an archaic terror when unrelated individuals become pawns in a fiendish maze. Going live this October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Google’s Play platform, iTunes Movies, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango at Home.

Hollywood, CA (August 8th, 2025) – hold tight for *Young & Cursed*, a gripping tale of survival and primordial malevolence that will reconstruct fear-driven cinema this harvest season. Directed by rising thriller expert Andrew Chiaramonte, this tense and claustrophobic screenplay follows five figures who find themselves caught in a wilderness-bound hideaway under the malevolent manipulation of Kyra, a cursed figure claimed by a prehistoric sacred-era entity. Ready yourself to be shaken by a visual outing that unites instinctive fear with ancient myths, unleashing on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Possession by evil has been a classic element in visual storytelling. In *Young & Cursed*, that pattern is challenged when the forces no longer arise from elsewhere, but rather inside their minds. This illustrates the most hidden dimension of every character. The result is a enthralling internal warfare where the tension becomes a soul-crushing push-pull between good and evil.


In a forsaken wilderness, five figures find themselves contained under the malevolent effect and infestation of a enigmatic person. As the companions becomes powerless to combat her rule, detached and hunted by terrors impossible to understand, they are made to face their raw vulnerabilities while the time unforgivingly runs out toward their end.


In *Young & Cursed*, distrust amplifies and friendships crack, requiring each person to reconsider their values and the philosophy of freedom of choice itself. The stakes magnify with every passing moment, delivering a horror experience that fuses otherworldly suspense with deep insecurity.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my objective was to explore primitive panic, an entity from ancient eras, channeling itself through emotional vulnerability, and navigating a presence that tests the soul when autonomy is removed.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Becoming Kyra meant channeling something deeper than fear. She is insensitive until the control shifts, and that transition is emotionally raw because it is so internal.”

Streaming Launch Details

*Young & Cursed* will be available for horror fans beginning October 2, 2025, on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google’s store, iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango at Home—delivering watchers from coast to coast can be part of this spirit-driven thriller.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just uploaded a new official preview for *Young & Cursed*, uploaded to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a second look to its original promo, which has received over 100,000 views.


In addition to its initial rollout, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has confirmed that *Young & Cursed* will also be released internationally, presenting the nightmare to fans of fear everywhere.


Do not miss this gripping descent into darkness. Explore *Young & Cursed* this launch day to explore these spiritual awakenings about inner darkness.


For previews, production insights, and reveals from inside the story, follow @YoungAndCursed across entertainment pages and visit youngandcursed.com.





Horror’s Turning Point: calendar year 2025 U.S. Slate fuses primeval-possession lore, festival-born jolts, stacked beside brand-name tremors

Kicking off with grit-forward survival fare suffused with mythic scripture and extending to brand-name continuations set beside cutting indie sensibilities, 2025 looks like the most stratified and strategic year in years.

The 2025 horror calendar is not just busy, it is strategic. leading studios plant stakes across the year with franchise anchors, concurrently streamers prime the fall with first-wave breakthroughs alongside mythic dread. Across the art-house lane, the artisan tier is buoyed by the afterglow of 2024’s record festival wave. As Halloween stays the prime week, the off-peak lanes are managed with purpose. A dense September through October runway is now a rite of passage, yet in 2025, the genre is also staking January, spring, and mid-summer. Fans are ravenous, studios are calculated, hence 2025 may be recorded as the genre’s most deliberate campaign.

Studio Roadmap and Mini-Major Pulse: Premium genre swings back

Studios are not on the sidelines. If 2024 set the stage for reinvention, 2025 deepens the push.

the Universal banner opens the year with a marquee bet: a newly envisioned Wolf Man, not returning to the Gothic European hamlet, in a clear present-tense world. Directed by Leigh Whannell fronted by Christopher Abbott with Julia Garner, this pass grounds the lycanthropy in household collapse. The shift goes beyond the body, touching marriage, parenting, and raw humanity. targeting mid January, it fits the new plan to claim winter’s soft window with prestige horror rather than castoffs.

Spring delivers Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher page-to-screen distilled into spare horror. Directed by Eli Craig and featuring Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it functions as blood smeared American gothic with snark. Under the guise, it interrogates township panic, generational breaks, and mob rule. First wave buzz indicates sharp teeth.

As summer eases, Warner’s pipeline drops the final chapter from its dependable horror line: The Conjuring: Last Rites. With Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson returning as Ed and Lorraine Warren, the installment aims for closure as it frames a famed case. While the template is known, Chaves is expected to tune it to a grieving, self reflective color. It is dated for early September, granting margin before October’s crush.

Then comes The Black Phone 2. Originally slated for early summer, its move to an October release suggests confidence. Derrickson returns to the helm, and the tone that worked before is intact: period tinged dread, trauma driven plotting, with spooky supernatural reasoning. The bar is raised this go, with more excavation of the “grabber” canon and family hauntings.

Completing the calendar is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a film that does not need traditional marketing to sell tickets. The new chapter enriches the lore, broadens the animatronic terror cast, speaking to teens and older millennials. It arrives in December, anchoring horror’s winter tail.

Digital Originals: No Budget, No Problem

With cinemas leaning into known IP, streamers are trying sharper edges, and buzz accrues.

One standout ambitious title is Weapons, a cold-case linked horror tapestry knitting three time bands around a mass vanishing. Led by Zach Cregger and starring Josh Brolin with Julia Garner, the movie mixes chill with dramatic weight. Hitting theaters late summer with fall digital, it will likely trigger thread wars and analysis videos, recalling Barbarian.

On the minimalist axis arrives Together, a room scale body horror descent with Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Confined to a lonely rental when a vacation turns, the narrative traces love and jealousy and self contempt into body collapse. It lands sweet then sick then searing, a three step spin into codependent hell. While no platform has formally placed a date, it is virtually assured for fall.

On the docket is Sinners, a thirties era vampire folk parable anchored by Michael B. Jordan. Photographed in sepia saturation with biblical metaphor, it mirrors There Will Be Blood meeting Let the Right One In. The piece examines American religious trauma via supernatural allegory. Early test screens tag it as a top talked streaming debut.

More streamer bound indies stand by in the shadows: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper all work grief and disappearance and identity, choosing meaning over noise.

The Possession Runs Deep: Young & Cursed

Hitting October 2 on the platforms, Young & Cursed stands as a rare hybrid, both intimate in scope and mythic in reach. Scripted and led by Andrew Chiaramonte, the narrative rides with five strangers waking in a secluded woodland cabin, held by 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.

The threat is psychological first, wired with primal myth. Rather than another exorcism film centered on Catholic rites or Latin incantations, this one burrows toward something older, something darker. Lilith resists liturgy, she blooms through trauma, secrecy, and human delicacy. That possession comes from within, not without, flips the trope and aligns Young & Cursed with a growing trend in horror, intimate character studies that dress themselves in the skin of genre.

Across Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home, the film stands as Halloween counterprogramming to sequel glut and monster revivals. It is canny scheduling. No bloated mythology. No legacy baggage. Only psychological menace, compressed and taut, tuned to binge and gasp cycles online. Among spectacle, Young & Cursed might win by restraint, then release.

Festival Born, Buyer Ready

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF remain the hothouse where next season’s horror grows. And in 2025, they are acting more like launchpads than showcases.

Fantastic Fest posts a muscular horror lineup this year. Primate opens the fest with tropical body horror and critics cite Cronenberg and Herzog. Whistle, Aztec coded revenge folklore, may cap the fest blazing.

At midnight, entries like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You buzz for how they play, not only their names. With A24 behind it, the satire of toxic fandom under a convention lockdown seems breakout bound.

SXSW gave air to Clown in a Cornfield and to microbudget hauntings courting buyers. Sundance is expected to unspool its usual crop of grief soaked elevated horror, with Tribeca’s genre lane skewing urban, social, and surreal.

Festival playbooks now prize branding as much as discovery. Festival laurels are opening moves, not closing notes.

Legacy Horror: Next Chapters, New Starts, New Shapes

Legacy IP arrives sturdier and more intentional this cycle.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, due in July, revives the ’90s horror franchise with a new lead and a throwback tone. In contrast to earlier chapters, it skews camp and prom night melodrama. Think tiaras, fake blood, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 posts late June, poised to elaborate techno horror lore through new players and AI nightmares. The debut’s viral plus streaming heat gives Universal reason to press the bet.

The Long Walk, from an early and searing Stephen King work, is inbound, under Francis Lawrence, it shows as a grim dystopian parable set in survival horror, a youth walk ending only in death. With clear targeting, it could become The Hunger Games for horror grown ups.

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.

Trends to Watch

Ancient myth goes wide
From Lilith in Young & Cursed through Aztec curses in Whistle, teams draw on ancient texts and symbols. This is less nostalgia, more reclamation of pre Christian archetypes. Horror is not just scaring us, it is reminding us that evil is older than we are.

Body horror resurges
With films like Together, Weapons, and Keeper, horror is going back to the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation symbolize heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streaming originals get teeth
Junk fill horror on platforms is receding. Platforms show up with budgets for scripts, directors, and campaigns. Entries like Weapons and Sinners get event treatment, not inventory.

Festival Hype Equals Market Leverage
Badges are functional, they buy theatrical access, prime placement, and cycles. Without a festival strategy in 2025, a horror film risks vanishing.

Theatrical lanes are trust falls
Theater slots go to likely overachievers or franchise starters. Everything else heads to PVOD or hybrid drops. Horror stays in theaters, in chosen pockets.

Season Ahead: Autumn overload with a winter wildcard

Put Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons into September and October and you get saturation. Indies such as Bone Lake and Keeper will tussle for space. Do not be surprised if one or two move to early 2026 or switch platforms.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 steadies December, yet a last minute streamer surprise is in play. With some of the year’s biggest films leaning dark and mythic, the space for one final creature feature or exorcism flick is wide open.

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 plan is not to clone Get Out, it is to craft horror that lives on beyond box office.



The oncoming genre year to come: Sequels, original films, alongside A packed Calendar aimed at chills

Dek The arriving horror season stacks from day one with a January cluster, from there extends through the mid-year, and straight through the late-year period, marrying series momentum, inventive spins, and tactical alternatives. Studio marketers and platforms are leaning into lean spends, big-screen-first runs, and social-fueled campaigns that position genre releases into culture-wide discussion.

Horror momentum into 2026

This category has proven to be the sturdy swing in annual schedules, a vertical that can spike when it performs and still insulate the floor when it under-delivers. After 2023 reminded strategy teams that cost-conscious shockers can own cultural conversation, 2024 sustained momentum with director-led heat and surprise hits. The upswing moved into the 2025 frame, where resurrections and elevated films signaled there is demand for a variety of tones, from sequel tracks to original one-offs that scale internationally. The result for 2026 is a roster that feels more orchestrated than usual across the market, with clear date clusters, a combination of established brands and fresh ideas, and a recommitted priority on box-office windows that feed downstream value on premium video on demand and platforms.

Insiders argue the horror lane now acts as a flex slot on the grid. The genre can kick off on many corridors, furnish a sharp concept for promo reels and vertical videos, and lead with fans that line up on preview nights and stay strong through the follow-up frame if the entry satisfies. Following a strike-affected pipeline, the 2026 rhythm indicates comfort in that model. The calendar opens with a weighty January corridor, then leans on spring and early summer for genre counterpoints, while saving space for a autumn push that stretches into holiday-adjacent weekends and afterwards. The map also spotlights the stronger partnership of indie arms and digital platforms that can nurture a platform play, fuel WOM, and roll out at the sweet spot.

A second macro trend is IP stewardship across ongoing universes and established properties. Major shops are not just greenlighting another follow-up. They are aiming to frame continuity with a headline quality, whether that is a typeface approach that announces a new tone or a cast configuration that reconnects a next entry to a original cycle. At the simultaneously, the helmers behind the most buzzed-about originals are celebrating material texture, practical effects and site-specific worlds. That blend offers the 2026 slate a strong blend of known notes and surprise, which is a pattern that scales internationally.

What the big players are lining up

Paramount opens strong with two front-of-slate titles that sit at tonal extremes. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with original architect Kevin Williamson in the top job and Neve Campbell back at the spine, presenting it as both a passing of the torch and a classic-mode character-driven entry. Filming is in progress in Atlanta, and the narrative stance signals a roots-evoking approach without going over the last two entries’ family thread. Plan for a rollout anchored in legacy iconography, character previews, and a tiered teaser plan targeting late fall. Distribution is theatrical through Paramount.

Paramount also dusts off a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are back together, with the Wayans brothers involved creatively for the first time since the early 2000s, a draw the campaign will play up. As a counterweight in summer, this one will go after mass reach through remixable clips, with the horror spoof format making room for quick turns to whatever rules pop-cultural buzz that spring.

Universal has three clear strategies. SOULM8TE rolls out January 9, 2026, a universe branch from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The hook is tight, heartbroken, and big-hook: a grieving man activates an AI companion that grows into a dangerous lover. The date slots it at the front of a heavy month, with the marketing arm likely to renew uncanny live moments and quick hits that hybridizes love and anxiety.

On May 8, 2026, the studio places an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely understood to be the feature developed under code names in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The listed schedule currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which sets up a branding reveal to become an fan moment closer to the initial promo. The timing stakes a claim in early May while larger tentpoles cluster around other dates.

Completing the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film claims October 23, 2026, a slot he has commanded before. His projects are framed as event films, with a opaque teaser and a second wave of trailers that set the tone without spoiling the concept. The spooky-season slot creates space for Universal to maximize 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, aligns with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček directs, with Souheila Yacoub fronting. The franchise has established that a raw, prosthetic-heavy method can feel big on a controlled budget. Look for a viscera-heavy summer horror surge that pushes worldwide reach, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most global territories.

Sony’s horror bench is loaded. The studio lines up two series moves in the back half. An untitled Insidious film premieres August 21, 2026, maintaining a dependable supernatural brand on the grid while the spin-off branch gestates. The studio has adjusted timing on this title before, but the current plan aims it in late summer, where Insidious has shown strength.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil reboots in what the studio is marketing as a from-the-ground-up reboot for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a core part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a charge to serve both diehards and casuals. The fall slot affords Sony time to build campaign pieces around canon, and monster design, elements that can increase format premiums and community activity.

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 builds on Eggers’ run of period horror defined by historical precision and archaic language, this time engaging werewolf myth. The distributor has already set the date for a holiday release, a signal of faith in Eggers as a specialty play that can build and expand if early reception is warm.

Streaming strategies and platform plays

Platform plans for 2026 run on predictable routes. Universal titles head to copyright after a theatrical-first then PVOD phase, a tiered path that amplifies both week-one my company demand and sub growth in the downstream. Prime Video blends licensed titles with world buys and targeted theatrical runs when the data justifies it. Max and Hulu lean on their strengths in library pulls, using in-app campaigns, genre hubs, and handpicked rows to prolong the run on overall cume. Netflix keeps options open about originals and festival buys, locking in horror entries closer to launch and turning into events drops with short runway campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, harnesses a hybrid of focused cinema runs and prompt platform moves that turns chatter to conversion. That will be critical for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before relying on fan pipelines in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ cherry-picks horror on a discrete basis. The platform has exhibited willingness to secure select projects with award winners or star-led packages, then give them a modest theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet qualifying rules or to gain imprimatur before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still uses the 20th Century Studios slate, a important input for ongoing engagement when the genre conversation ramps.

Specialized lanes

Cineverse is crafting 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 appeal is no-nonsense: the same moody, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult item, elevated for modern audio and picture. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a fall window, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. Cineverse has indicated a theatrical rollout for Legacy, an encouraging sign for fans of the savage series and for exhibitors seeking R-rated counterprogramming in the late stretch.

Focus will work the director lane with Werwulf, managing the title through autumn festivals if the cut is ready, then relying weblink on the year-end corridor to expand. That positioning has been successful for director-led genre with crossover ambitions. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not finalized many 2026 slots in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines tend to converge after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A solid projection is a cluster of late-summer and fall platformers that can break out if reception justifies. Expect an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that surges from Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work in parallel, using select theatrical to seed evangelism that fuels their paid base.

IP versus fresh ideas

By weight, 2026 is weighted toward the legacy column. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all draw on fan equity. The trade-off, as ever, is staleness. The standing approach is to pitch each entry as a renewed feel. Paramount is centering character and heritage in Scream 7, Sony is positioning a clean-slate build for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is pushing a Francophone tone from a rising filmmaker. Those choices prove meaningful when the audience has so many options and social sentiment swings fast.

Originals and director-driven titles add air. Jordan Peele’s October film will be framed as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, sets Rachel McAdams in a survival-thriller premise with Raimi’s playful menace. SOULM8TE offers a lean, creepy tech hook. Werwulf anchors in period detail and an hard-edged tone. Even when the title is not based on known IP, the configuration is grounded enough to turn curiosity into pre-sales and Thursday-night crowds.

The last three-year set make sense of the approach. In 2023, a theater-first model that preserved streaming windows did not obstruct a simultaneous release test from performing when the brand was powerful. In 2024, meticulous-craft horror over-performed in premium auditoriums. In 2025, a revival of a beloved infection saga made clear that global horror franchises can still feel novel when they alter lens and scale the storytelling. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which extends January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The paired-chapter approach, with chapters shot in tandem, creates space for marketing to link the films through cast and motif and to maintain a flow of assets without doldrums.

Aesthetic and craft notes

The shop talk behind this year’s genre foreshadow a continued move toward tactile, place-driven craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not mirror any recent iteration of the property, a stance that fits with the in-camera sensibility he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film completed principal and is on track for its April 17, 2026 date. Look for a campaign that underscores tone and tension rather than theme-park spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership enabling budget prudence.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has outlined 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 austere, elemental atmosphere on the big screen. Focus will likely preview this aesthetic in feature stories and craft features before rolling out a teaser that prioritizes vibe over plot, a move that has performed for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is geared for practical nastiness, a signature of the series that sells overseas in red-band trailers and creates shareable screening reactions from early screenings. Scream 7 delivers a meta pivot that centers an original star. Resident Evil will stand or stumble on creature craft and set design, which favor expo activations and guarded reveals. Insidious tends to be a audio craft showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the theatrical pitch feel irresistible. Look for trailers that emphasize pinpoint sound design, deep-bass stingers, and dead-air cuts that work in PLF.

Annual flow

January is full. 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 somber counterpoint amid marquee brands. The month closes with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival-horror from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is credible, but the tone spread opens lanes for all, and the five-week structure gives each runway for each if word of mouth holds.

February through May prepare summer. Paramount’s Scream 7 arrives February 27 with brand warmth. In April, The Mummy reawakens a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once favored genre counterprogramming and now hosts big openers. The untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 bridges into summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer heightens the contrast. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is comedic and broad, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 presents brutal intensity. The counterprogramming logic is solid. The spoof can hit next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest caters to older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have run their PLF course.

August into fall leans brand. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously done well. Resident Evil arrives after September 18, a late-September window 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 amplified by a peekaboo tease plan and limited information drops that stress concept over spoilers.

Year-end prestige and specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a statement that genre can hold in the holidays when packaged as director prestige horror. The distributor has done this before, slow-rolling, then working critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to ride the cycle into January. If the film earns with critics, the studio can open up in the first week of 2027 while benefiting from holiday season and holiday gift-card burn.

Title-by-title briefings, embedded in the narrative

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting ongoing as production continues. Logline: Sidney returns to oppose a new Ghostface while the narrative revisits the original film’s genes. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: roots-first with a today edge.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A loss-struck man’s virtual companion unfolds into something romantically lethal. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed principal photography 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 opens the world beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult hardens in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Filmed consecutively with the first film. Positioning: next step of a prestige infection saga.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man heads back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to face a mutable reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished and theatrical on deck. Positioning: fog-and-fear 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 tough boss try to survive on a cut-off island as the control balance tilts and fear crawls. Rating: TBA. Production: Done. Positioning: star-front survival film from a master.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles not yet announced in official materials. Logline: A contemporary retelling that returns the monster to dread, built on Cronin’s tactile craft and accumulating dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed. Positioning: classic monster reset with creative stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A home-set haunting narrative that explores the horror of a child’s tricky perspective. Rating: TBD. Production: finished. Positioning: major-studio and star-fronted supernatural mood piece.

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 satirical comeback that needles hot-button genre motifs and true crime fervors. Rating: to be announced. Production: principal photography set for fall 2025. Positioning: big-tent summer spoof.

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 worldly twist in tone and setting. Rating: pending. Production: shooting in New Zealand. Positioning: graphic series entry optimized for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: unrevealed for now. Top cast: unrevealed. Logline: The Further unfurls again, with a different family snared by long-buried horrors. Rating: to be announced. Production: planning summer shoot for late-summer date. Positioning: durable spectral IP in a late-summer sweet spot.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: to be announced publicly. Top cast: pending. Logline: A new start designed to reconstitute the franchise from the ground up, with an lean toward survival horror over action pyrotechnics. Rating: forthcoming. Production: moving through development on a locked slot. Positioning: fidelity-minded reboot with crossover prospects.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: pending. Logline: deliberately concealed. Rating: TBD. Production: active. Positioning: filmmaker event, teaser-driven.

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-specific language and ancient menace. Rating: forthcoming. Production: gearing up with December 25 frame. Positioning: filmmaker-driven holiday release with craft awards runway.

Wolf Creek: Legacy (Cineverse, TBA 2026)
Director: Greg McLean. Top cast: John Jarratt expected to return as Mick Taylor. Logline: The Australian outback slasher returns, with a theaters-first plan ahead of platforming. Status: timing fluid, autumn anticipated.

Why 2026 and why now

Three hands-on forces structure this lineup. First, production that bottlenecked or shuffled in 2024 needed slack in the schedule. Horror can move in swiftly because scripts often use fewer locations, fewer large-scale effects set pieces, and pared-down 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 beaten straight-to-streaming placements. Third, social conversation converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will mine repeatable beats from test screenings, curated scare clips pegged to Thursday preview nights, and experiential pop-ups that generate creator assets. It is a repeatable playbook because it performs.

There is also the slotting calculus. The first stretch of 2026 sees fewer family and superhero logjams, creating valuable space for genre entries that can own a weekend outright or serve as the mature-skew alternative. January is the prime example. Four genre tones will line up across five weekends, which lets WOM accrue cleanly. Summer provides the other window. The satire rides the animated and action tide, then the hard-R entry can benefit from a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Business view: budgets, ratings, sleeper chase

Budgets remain in the strike zone. Most of the films above will live under the $40–$50 million ceiling, 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 stealth-hit search continues in Q1, where value-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 use those gaps. 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. Expect a healthy PVOD phase across the board, since horror fans have shown a willingness to pay for convenience after an opening weekend, especially when word of mouth is strong.

Audience rhythm across the year

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers momentum and variety. January is a banquet, February delivers a legacy slasher, April restores a Universal monster, May and June provide a two-beat supernatural run 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 somber, literate nightmare. That is how you keep chatter useful reference alive and occupancy strong without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can gain momentum, using earlier releases to condition the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors value the spacing. Horror delivers Thursday preview surges, lean footprints, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can earn PLF placement, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing detail, soundcraft, and framing 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, Lined Up To Scare

Timing shifts. Ratings change. Casts adjust. But the spine of 2026 horror is in place. There is brand power where it counts, new vision where it lands, and a calendar that shows studios meet the timing 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, lock the reveals, and let the shocks sell the seats.