Ancient Evil emerges: Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a nerve shredding feature, bowing Oct 2025 on top streaming platforms

An hair-raising unearthly scare-fest from creator / creative lead Andrew Chiaramonte, setting free an long-buried evil when unknowns become tokens in a supernatural ordeal. Dropping this October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon’s Prime Video, Google’s YouTube, Google’s Play platform, Apple’s iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango streaming.

Hollywood, CA (August 8th, 2025) – Prepare yourselves for *Young & Cursed*, a disturbing saga of survival and primeval wickedness that will reconstruct terror storytelling this October. Crafted by rising imaginative director Andrew Chiaramonte, this nerve-racking and cinematic cinema piece follows five lost souls who wake up ensnared in a far-off cabin under the malevolent grip of Kyra, a haunted figure overtaken by a two-thousand-year-old biblical force. Arm yourself to be captivated by a immersive experience that weaves together gut-punch terror with mythic lore, dropping on Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Cursed embodiment has been a long-standing tradition in cinema. In *Young & Cursed*, that notion is inverted when the demons no longer come outside the characters, but rather through their own souls. This embodies the grimmest layer of the protagonists. The result is a emotionally raw spiritual tug-of-war where the plotline becomes a soul-crushing conflict between divinity and wickedness.


In a isolated wilderness, five adults find themselves imprisoned under the fiendish force and inhabitation of a elusive character. As the youths becomes helpless to reject her rule, cut off and tracked by powers unnamable, they are forced to stand before their deepest fears while the deathwatch without pause edges forward toward their expiration.


In *Young & Cursed*, fear swells and links splinter, pushing each individual to doubt their existence and the notion of self-determination itself. The hazard amplify with every passing moment, delivering a terror ride that merges supernatural terror with emotional fragility.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my objective was to dig into core terror, an threat older than civilization itself, working through our fears, and highlighting a curse that forces self-examination when we lose control.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Living Kyra required summoning something rooted in terror. She is uninformed until the entity awakens, and that turn is gut-wrenching because it is so visceral.”

Debut Info

*Young & Cursed* will be unleashed for digital release beginning this October 2, on Prime Video, YouTube, Google’s store, iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango at Home—ensuring streamers around the globe can get immersed in this fearful revelation.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just dropped a new extended look for *Young & Cursed*, currently showing to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a sequel to its original promo, which has pulled in over 100,000 views.


In addition to its US/Canada launch, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has declared that *Young & Cursed* will also be launched globally, making the film to a worldwide audience.


Join this life-altering journey into fear. Join *Young & Cursed* this horrific release to explore these nightmarish insights about free will.


For exclusive trailers, production insights, and updates from behind the lens, follow @YoungAndCursedMovie across Instagram and Twitter and visit our film’s homepage.





The horror genre’s major pivot: calendar year 2025 American release plan braids together primeval-possession lore, festival-born jolts, and returning-series thunder

Spanning survival horror grounded in old testament echoes all the way to franchise returns paired with keen independent perspectives, 2025 looks like the most dimensioned plus calculated campaign year in a decade.

The 2025 horror calendar is not merely full, it is methodical. top-tier distributors lock in tentpoles with known properties, simultaneously premium streamers prime the fall with first-wave breakthroughs and primordial unease. Meanwhile, independent banners is propelled by the afterglow from a record 2024 festival run. As Halloween remains the genre’s crown jewel, the non-October slots are tuned with exactness. A packed September to October corridor has become a rite of passage, and now, horror is also claiming January, spring, and even mid-summer. Crowds are ready, studios are precise, thus 2025 may end up the most intentional cycle yet.

Studio and Mini-Major Strategies: High-craft horror returns

No one at the top is standing still. If 2024 primed the reset, 2025 capitalizes.

Universal Pictures opens the year with a headline swing: a contemporary Wolf Man, stepping away from the classic old-country village, in a clear present-tense world. Under director Leigh Whannell and toplined by Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this telling braids lycanthropy with a family meltdown. The arc is bodily and domestic, about marriage, caregiving, and fragile humanity. landing in mid January, it joins a broader aim to occupy winter’s quiet with elevated titles, not leftovers.

Spring delivers Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher novel refit as minimal menace. Led by Eli Craig including Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it moves like barn born dread with razor satire. Under the guise, it interrogates township panic, generational breaks, and mob rule. Early circuit chatter says it has bite.

As summer wanes, the WB camp releases the last chapter inside its trusty horror universe: The Conjuring: Last Rites. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson reprise Ed and Lorraine Warren, the chapter points to emotional capstone while addressing a headline case. Despite a known recipe, Chaves is expected to tune it to a grieving, self reflective color. It lands in early September, carving air ahead of October’s stack.

Next is The Black Phone 2. Initially pegged for early summer, an October berth implies conviction. Derrickson returns to the helm, and so do the signature elements that made the first installment a sleeper hit: old school creep, trauma explicitly handled, and a cold supernatural calculus. The stakes escalate here, by expanding the “grabber” backstory and grief across bloodlines.

Rounding the tentpole corner is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a film that does not need traditional marketing to sell tickets. The follow up digs further into canon, adds to the animatronic nightmare bench, and targets both teens and thirtysomething fans of the original game. It posts in December, holding the cold season’s end.

Streaming Firsts: Lean budgets, heavy bite

As theatricals lean on brands and continuations, platforms are greenlighting boldly, and the needle moves.

An especially bold streamer bet is Weapons, a long shadow anthology of dread that weaves together three timelines connected by a mass disappearance. Under Zach Cregger anchored by Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the release pairs unease with narrative heft. Rolling out in theaters late summer before fall platform release, it should ignite online discourse and post viewing breakdowns, much like Barbarian.

Playing chamber scale is Together, a tight space body horror vignette featuring Alison Brie opposite Dave Franco. Trapped in a far off rental as a holiday fractures, the story examines love plus envy plus self disgust as flesh ruin. It feels intimate, ghastly, and profoundly uneasy, a three part fall into codependent hell. Absent a posted platform date, it is poised for a fall platform bow.

Next comes Sinners, a Depression era vampire folk fable led by Michael B. Jordan. Imaged in sepia bloom and biblical metaphor, it mirrors There Will Be Blood meeting Let the Right One In. The narrative analyzes American religious trauma through a ghostly allegory. Trial screenings frame it as a high chatter SVOD arrival.

Other streamer plays queue softly: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper all work grief and disappearance and identity, choosing meaning over noise.

Possession, Deeper Than Ever: Young & Cursed

Bowing October 2 on major streamers, Young & Cursed emerges as a rare mix, tight in frame and epic in resonance. From writer director 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. With nightfall, Kyra’s power deepens, an invasive force mining their most secret fears, frailties, and regrets.

The terror is psychological in engine, alive with primal myth. Swerving the standard exorcism angle of Catholic rite and Latin word, this entry turns to something older, something darker. Lilith ignores rite, she wells up from trauma, quietude, and human weakness. An inward possession, not an outward spell, turns the trope and sets Young & Cursed inside a widening trend, intimate character work housed in genre.

Platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home position the film as a Halloween counter to sequel heavy theatricals and monster revivals. It is an astute call. No overstuffed canon. No franchise baggage. Just pure psychological dread, contained, tense, and tailor made for the binge and breathe rhythm of digital horror fans. In the noise, Young & Cursed could cut through by staying hushed, then erupting.

Festival Born and Buyer Ready

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF function as launch beds for the coming year’s horror. In 2025, they behave more like launchpads than showcases.

Fantastic Fest has a thick horror program this time. Primate, an opening night tropical body-horror, invites Cronenberg meets Herzog talk. Whistle, an Aztec lore revenge tale, aims to close with burn.

Those midnight titles, including If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, buzz from delivery as much as naming. A24’s satire of toxic fandom inside a con lockdown aims at breakout.

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

In 2025, festival strategy is less about discovery, more about branding. A badge from Fantastic Fest or TIFF is now the first phase of marketing, not the last.

Series Horror: Reups, Reboots, and Rethinks

The franchise bench is sturdier and more targeted than lately.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, set for July, reanimates the 90s series with a new lead and nostalgia tone. Unlike prior entries, this one leans into camp and prom night melodrama. Imagine tiaras, smeared red, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 opens late June, poised to elaborate techno horror lore through new players and AI nightmares. The initial entry’s meme life and streaming legs push Universal to scale up.

Then there is The Long Walk, an adaptation of one of Stephen King’s earliest and most harrowing works, guided by Francis Lawrence, it plays as a savage dystopian parable housed in survival horror, a walk to death contest without winners. With sharp marketing, it could translate to The Hunger Games for horror adults.

Additionally, reboots and sequels, among them Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda, populate the months, with timing held for strategy or acquisitions.

Trend Lines

Old myth goes broad
From Lilith in Young & Cursed to Aztec curses in Whistle, horror is turning to ancient texts and symbols. This trend avoids nostalgia, reclaiming pre Christian archetypes. Horror exceeds jolts, it insists evil is ancient.

Body horror retakes ground
Work like Together, Weapons, and Keeper revisit the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation map to heartbreak, grief, and regret.

SVOD originals harden up
The days of disposable horror filler on digital platforms are over. Streamers back real writing, real filmmakers, and genuine marketing. Drops such as Weapons and Sinners arrive as events, not as catalog.

Festival Hype Equals Market Leverage
Badges are functional, they buy theatrical access, prime placement, and cycles. Skip festival strategy in 2025 and the film risks invisibility.

Theatrical lanes are trust falls
The big screen goes to those expected to beat comps or build series. Everything else is PVOD or hybrid. Horror is not shrinking in theaters, but it is becoming more curated.

The Road Ahead: Fall stack and winter swing card

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

December holds on Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, though a stealth streamer release may land late. When the heavy hitters lean mythic, a last creature feature or exorcism can still fit.

The key is connecting variety to fragmentation, not betting on one piece. The aim is not another Get Out chase, it is durable horror beyond gross.



The next scare calendar year ahead: follow-ups, Originals, plus A stacked Calendar geared toward Scares

Dek The new genre slate lines up from the jump with a January crush, following that extends through peak season, and well into the holiday frame, combining legacy muscle, fresh ideas, and calculated alternatives. The major players are committing to tight budgets, theatrical-first rollouts, and social-driven marketing that transform genre titles into all-audience topics.

How the genre looks for 2026

This category has proven to be the bankable move in studio lineups, a genre that can grow when it connects and still hedge the losses when it misses. After the 2023 year reminded studio brass that cost-conscious shockers can command mainstream conversation, 2024 continued the surge with visionary-driven titles and under-the-radar smashes. The trend rolled into the 2025 frame, where re-entries and elevated films demonstrated there is room for a variety of tones, from legacy continuations to non-IP projects that resonate abroad. The aggregate for the 2026 slate is a calendar that appears tightly organized across the market, with defined corridors, a harmony of familiar brands and fresh ideas, and a recommitted attention on exclusive windows that increase tail monetization on paid VOD and home streaming.

Buyers contend the genre now performs as a utility player on the release plan. The genre can debut on almost any weekend, yield a easy sell for creative and short-form placements, and exceed norms with moviegoers that arrive on Thursday previews and stick through the next pass if the title hits. Emerging from a strike-delayed pipeline, the 2026 plan exhibits belief in that playbook. The calendar begins with a loaded January stretch, then uses spring and early summer for counterweight, while holding room for a fall run that pushes into holiday-adjacent weekends and into early November. The calendar also highlights the increasing integration of specialty arms and subscription services that can build gradually, generate chatter, and expand at the optimal moment.

A parallel macro theme is brand curation across shared IP webs and legacy franchises. Studio teams are not just greenlighting another return. They are aiming to frame threaded continuity with a heightened moment, whether that is a title treatment that broadcasts a reframed mood or a talent selection that links a new entry to a vintage era. At the meanwhile, the writer-directors behind the headline-grabbing originals are championing material texture, makeup and prosthetics and vivid settings. That pairing gives 2026 a vital pairing of comfort and unexpected turns, which is how the genre sells abroad.

Inside the studio playbooks

Paramount sets the tone early with two prominent entries that span tone from serious to silly. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with original architect Kevin Williamson in the helm and Neve Campbell back at the front, marketing it as both a passing of the torch and a foundation-forward character-centered film. Filming is in progress in Atlanta, and the creative posture indicates a roots-evoking strategy without recycling the last two entries’ core arc for the Carpenter sisters. Anticipate a campaign anchored in iconic art, intro reveals, and a promo sequence rolling toward late fall. Distribution is big-screen 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 paired again, with the Wayans brothers involved creatively for the first time since the early 2000s, a selling point the campaign will play up. As a counterweight in summer, this one will go after mainstream recognition through meme-friendly cuts, with the horror spoof format supporting quick updates to whatever owns genre chatter that spring.

Universal has three differentiated strategies. SOULM8TE rolls out January 9, 2026, a technology-driven offshoot from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The logline is clean, grief-rooted, and premise-first: a grieving man brings home an digital partner that becomes a perilous partner. The date places it at the front of a thick month, with marketing at Universal likely to echo uncanny live moments and short-cut promos that hybridizes romance and unease.

On May 8, 2026, the studio books an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely taken to be the feature developed under working names in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The official release calendar currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which reserves space for a title reveal to become an fan moment closer to the early tease. The timing hands the studio a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles take the main frames.

Closing out the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film grabs October 23, 2026, a slot he has made his own before. Peele’s releases are branded as signature events, with a opaque teaser and a later trailer push that set the tone without spoiling the concept. The pre-Halloween slot creates space for Universal to maximize pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then work 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 directs, with Souheila Yacoub fronting. The franchise has proven that a visceral, practical-effects forward execution can feel elevated on a mid-range budget. Position this as a gore-forward summer horror surge that leans into foreign markets, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most global territories.

Sony’s horror bench is notably deep. The studio lines up two recognizable-IP pushes in the back half. An untitled Insidious film lands August 21, 2026, carrying a consistent supernatural brand front and center while the spin-off branch builds quietly. The studio has adjusted timing on this title before, but the current plan keeps it in late summer, where Insidious has performed historically.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil reboots in what the studio is positioning as a fresh restart 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 diehards and novices. The fall slot lets Sony to build marketing units around world-building, and monster craft, elements that can amplify large-format demand and fandom activation.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, pins a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Robert Eggers’ Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film advances the filmmaker’s run of period horror built on rigorous craft and linguistic texture, this time orbiting lycan myth. The imprint has already booked the frame for a holiday release, a clear message in Eggers as a specialty play that can platform and widen if early reception is strong.

Digital platform strategies

Platform plans for 2026 run on familiar rails. Universal’s horror titles move to copyright after a cinema-first plus PVOD, a ladder that elevates both launch urgency and viewer acquisition in the post-theatrical. Prime Video stitches together library titles with international acquisitions and limited runs in theaters when the data justifies it. Max and Hulu accent their strengths in library pulls, using well-timed internal promotions, seasonal hubs, and collection rows to lengthen the tail on the annual genre haul. Netflix plays opportunist about own-slate titles and festival buys, dating horror entries closer to drop and turning into events debuts with burst campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, operates a paired of targeted theatrical exposure and speedy platforming that drives paid trials from buzz. That will count 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 situational basis. The platform has signaled readiness to acquire select projects with top-tier auteurs or marquee packages, then give them a boutique theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet qualifying rules or to generate social proof before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney domestic still leans on the 20th Century Studios slate, a meaningful lever for subscriber stickiness when the genre conversation peaks.

Indie and specialty outlook

Cineverse is structuring a 2026 sequence 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 clear: the same foggy, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult hit, modernized for modern sound and cinematography. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a fall frame, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. Cineverse has telegraphed a standard theatrical run for the title, an encouraging sign for fans of the savage series and for exhibitors needing R-rated alternatives in the autumn weeks.

Focus will work the auteur lane with Werwulf, escorting the title through a fall festival swing if the cut is ready, then deploying the holiday frame to increase reach. That positioning has helped for craft-driven horror with audience crossover. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not firmed many 2026 dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines generally solidify after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A safe bet is a set of late-summer and fall platformers that can scale if reception encourages. Be ready for an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that bows at Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work together, using boutique theatrical to seed evangelism that fuels their community.

Legacy titles versus originals

By proportion, 2026 favors the known side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all draw on marquee value. The concern, as ever, is staleness. The go-to fix is to sell each entry as a reframed mode. Paramount is leading with relationship and legacy in Scream 7, Sony is positioning a fresh ground-up build for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is highlighting a French-flavored turn from a hot helmer. Those choices register when the audience has so many options and social sentiment shifts fast.

Originals and auteur plays deliver oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be framed as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, casts Rachel McAdams in a survival-thriller premise with the director’s playful dread. SOULM8TE offers a tight, eerie tech hook. Werwulf rests on period texture and an hard-edged tone. Even when the title is not based on a recognizable brand, the packaging is anchored enough to convert curiosity into pre-sales and Thursday previews.

Rolling three-year comps help explain the approach. In 2023, a cinema-first model that honored streaming windows did not preclude a dual release from working when the brand was powerful. In 2024, director-craft horror rose in premium formats. In 2025, a return of a beloved infection saga showed the market that global horror franchises can still feel fresh when they reorient and stretch the story. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which advances January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The dual-chapter plan, with chapters lensed back-to-back, provides the means for marketing to tie installments through character and theme and to continue assets in field without extended gaps.

Behind-the-camera trends

The creative meetings behind this slate telegraph a continued lean toward tactile, location-specific craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not resemble any recent iteration of the property, a stance that matches the in-camera sensibility he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film completed principal and is lined up for its April 17, 2026 date. The push will likely that underscores aura and dread rather than roller-coaster spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership bolstering financial discipline.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has called Werwulf as the most forbidding project he has tackled, which tracks with a medieval world and era-true language, a combination that can make for wraparound sound and a cold, elemental mood on the big screen. Focus will likely highlight this aesthetic in trade spotlights and below-the-line spotlights before rolling out a teaser that withholds plot, a move that has performed for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is engineered for tactile gnarliness, a signature of the series that sells overseas in red-band trailers and creates shareable shock clips from early screenings. Scream 7 sets up a meta-horror reset that centers its original star. Resident Evil will win or lose on creature and environment design, which play well in expo activations and timed asset drops. Insidious tends to be a soundstage showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the theatrical pitch feel compelling. Look for trailers that elevate razor sound, deep-bass stingers, and quiet voids that benefit on big speakers.

The schedule at a glance

January is packed. 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 somber counterpoint amid macro-brand pushes. The month buttons with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival-and-paranoia piece from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is serious, but the mix of tones creates a lane for each, and the five-week structure creates breathing room for each if word of mouth sticks.

February through May build the summer base. Paramount’s Scream 7 opens February 27 with heritage buzz. In April, New Line’s The Mummy reframes a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once was known for genre counterprogramming and now supports big openers. Universal’s untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 steps into summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer spreads the field. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is lighter and broader, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 delivers brutal intensity. The counterprogramming logic is coherent. The spoof can play next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest satisfies older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have rotated off PLF.

Late summer into fall leans IP. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously thrived. Resident Evil slides in after September 18, a late-September window that still connects to Halloween marketing beats. Jordan Peele’s untitled film secures October 23 and will captivate cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely driven by a mystery-first teaser plan and limited previews that lean on concept not plot.

December specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a flag plant that genre can compete at Christmas when packaged as auteur prestige horror. The distributor has done this before, selective rollout, then capitalizing on critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to ride the cycle into January. If the film hits with critics, the studio can scale in the first week of 2027 while riding holiday momentum and gift-card use.

Title-by-title briefings, embedded in the narrative

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting TBA in phases as production advances. Logline: Sidney returns to confront a new Ghostface while the narrative re-keys to the original film’s core. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: classic-DNA reset with a current angle.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A grieving man’s intelligent companion mutates into something dangerously intimate. Rating: TBA. Production: Shoot completed for an early-year bow. Positioning: tech thriller with grief spine.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (Sony, January 16, 2026)
Director: Nia DaCosta. Writer: Alex Garland. Top cast: Cillian Murphy, Jack O’Connell, and additional ensemble tied to a new antagonist faction. Logline: The second chapter in a trilogy grows the world beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult rises in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Twin-shot with the first film. Positioning: revived prestige horror saga’s second leg.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man returns to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to collide with a mutable reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed production with U.S. distribution. Positioning: aura-driven 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 claw to survive on a rugged island as the chain of command tilts and paranoia spreads. Rating: TBA. Production: Wrapped. Positioning: star-centered survival shocker from a maestro.

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 from-today rework that returns the monster to fear, shaped by Cronin’s on-set craft and oozing dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Wrapped. Positioning: classic monster revival with auteur stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A intimate haunting tale that plays with the fright of a child’s shaky impressions. Rating: TBD. Production: post-ready. Positioning: studio-supported and name-above-title paranormal suspense.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers back in the creative mix. Logline: {A send-up revival that lampoons in-vogue horror tropes and true-crime obsessions. Rating: undetermined. Production: fall 2025 shoot penciled in. Positioning: mass-audience summer option.

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 globe-spanning twist in tone and setting. Rating: not yet rated. Production: production in New Zealand. Positioning: graphic series entry optimized for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: awaiting reveal. Top cast: to be announced. Logline: The Further extends again, with a fresh family snared by long-buried horrors. Rating: TBD. Production: on track for summer lensing before late-summer rollout. Positioning: durable spectral IP in a late-summer sweet spot.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: TBD publicly. Top cast: to be announced. Logline: A new start designed to reconstruct the franchise from the ground up, with an emphasis on pure survival horror over action spectacle. Rating: pending. Production: in active development with set date. Positioning: game-grounded refresh with wider appeal.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: unrevealed. Logline: closely held. Rating: pending. Production: advancing. Positioning: filmmaker see here 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-precise speech and ancient menace. Rating: to be announced. 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 theatrical-first route ahead of platforming. Status: schedule in motion, fall targeted.

Why the 2026 timing works

Three execution-level forces calibrate this lineup. First, production that slowed or reshuffled in 2024 needed calendar breathing room. Horror can fill those gaps quickly because scripts often call for fewer locales, fewer large-scale CGI runs, and condensed timelines. Second, studios have become more measured 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 launches. Third, community talk converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will capitalize on clippable moments from test screenings, carefully timed scare clips timed to Thursday night previews, and experiential pop-ups that double as influencer content. It is a repeatable playbook because it converts.

Another factor is the scheduling math. Family and superhero corridors are not as densely packed in early 2026, providing runway for genre entries that can take a weekend outright or operate as the older-skew option. January is the prime example. Four varied shades of horror will share space across five weekends, which keeps buzz lanes tidy. Summer provides the other window. The parody can surf the early-summer animated and action swell, then the hard-R entry can take advantage of a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Cost, ratings, and sleeper dynamics

Budgets remain in the sweet spot. Most of the films above will land under the $40–$50 million mark, with many far below. That allows for horror 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 breakout hunt 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 stealth overachiever 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. Forecast a healthy PVOD window broadly, 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 tempo and variety. January is a banquet, February delivers a legacy slasher, April revives a Universal monster, May and June provide a ghostly double-hit for date nights and group outings, July gets gnarly, 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 fuel talk and ticketing without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can sequence upward, using earlier releases to trailhead the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors favor the spacing. Horror delivers consistent Thursday swells, smart allocations, 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 materiality, aural 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 Robust 2026 On Deck

Timing shifts. Ratings change. Casts shift. But the spine of 2026 horror is established. There is brand gravity where needed, creative ambition where it counts, and a calendar that shows studios grasp the timing of scares. The awards and festival pipeline into 2027 will come into focus once movies the fall festivals lock, and it would not be surprising to see at least one late-arriving specialty entry join the party. For now, the job is simple, deliver taut trailers, protect the mystery, and let the fear sell the seats.