Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed unleashes antediluvian malevolence, a nightmare fueled horror thriller, debuting Oct 2025 on major streaming services

A chilling otherworldly horror tale from cinematographer / creative lead Andrew Chiaramonte, unbinding an age-old force when passersby become victims in a satanic ceremony. Premiering on October 2, 2025, on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV Plus, and Fandango on-demand.

L.A., CA (August 8, 2025) – hold tight for *Young & Cursed*, a disturbing episode of survival and timeless dread that will alter terror storytelling this spooky time. Created by rising genre visionary Andrew Chiaramonte, this tense and claustrophobic fearfest follows five people who regain consciousness ensnared in a isolated wooden structure under the unfriendly control of Kyra, a young woman inhabited by a legendary scriptural evil. Anticipate to be drawn in by a audio-visual journey that intertwines visceral dread with folklore, hitting on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Unholy possession has been a classic foundation in film. In *Young & Cursed*, that idea is twisted when the dark entities no longer descend externally, but rather from their psyche. This suggests the haunting side of each of them. The result is a gripping mental war where the intensity becomes a ongoing face-off between virtue and vice.


In a isolated wild, five teens find themselves trapped under the ominous aura and control of a elusive character. As the team becomes vulnerable to fight her command, disconnected and tracked by evils inconceivable, they are confronted to face their emotional phantoms while the hours unforgivingly ticks toward their dark fate.


In *Young & Cursed*, distrust grows and associations fracture, pushing each figure to contemplate their character and the structure of independent thought itself. The threat mount with every breath, delivering a nightmarish journey that marries paranormal dread with raw emotion.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my desire was to dig into ancestral fear, an threat beyond time, operating within mental cracks, and confronting a presence that threatens selfhood when agency is lost.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Becoming Kyra was about accessing something rooted in terror. She is in denial until the demon emerges, and that evolution is terrifying because it is so visceral.”

Where to Watch

*Young & Cursed* will be unleashed for audience access beginning from October 2, 2025, on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play, Apple iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango on-demand—guaranteeing watchers from coast to coast can engage with this terrifying film.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just published a new visual teaser for *Young & Cursed*, debuted to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a response to its intro video, which has pulled in over a hundred thousand impressions.


In addition to its US/Canada launch, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has revealed that *Young & Cursed* will also be delivered to global audiences, making the film to horror fans worldwide.


Mark your calendar for this heart-stopping descent into hell. Experience *Young & Cursed* this launch day to uncover these ghostly lessons about the human condition.


For bonus footage, set experiences, and alerts from Chiaramonte Films, follow @YoungAndCursedMovie across platforms and visit our horror hub.





Contemporary horror’s tipping point: 2025 across markets U.S. calendar braids together old-world possession, Indie Shockers, plus franchise surges

From fight-to-live nightmare stories grounded in mythic scripture through to franchise returns together with pointed art-house angles, 2025 stands to become the most variegated together with calculated campaign year since the mid-2010s.

The 2025 horror calendar is not just busy, it is strategic. leading studios bookend the months with familiar IP, concurrently SVOD players load up the fall with new perspectives and primordial unease. In the indie lane, horror’s indie wing is propelled by the echoes from a high-water 2024 festival stretch. Since Halloween is the prized date, the year beyond October is carefully apportioned. A fat September–October lane is customary now, notably this year, the genre is also staking January, spring, and mid-summer. Viewers are hungry, studios are surgical, thus 2025 could register as the most purpose-built year yet.

What Studios and Mini-Majors Are Doing: Elevated fear reclaims ground

The upper tier is moving decisively. If 2024 reset the chessboard, 2025 compounds the move.

Universal begins the calendar with a confident swing: a reinterpreted Wolf Man, eschewing a mist-shrouded old-world European town, in an immediate now. Steered by Leigh Whannell anchored by Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this approach fixes the lycanthropy within intimate rupture. The evolution surpasses the body, into spouses, parents, and bruised humanity. dated for mid January, it advances a tactic to control the winter valley through premium horror, not dumps.

In spring, Clown in a Cornfield lands, a YA slasher adaptation turned minimalist horror show. Helmed by Eli Craig featuring turns by Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it comes as grit laced American nightmare with sardonic edge. Behind the greasepaint sits a critique of small town suspicion, generational fracture, and vigilante justice. Early reactions hint at fangs.

When summer fades, the WB camp bows the concluding entry within its surest horror brand: The Conjuring: Last Rites. Farmiga and Wilson return as the Warrens, the chapter points to emotional capstone while addressing a headline case. Though the formula is familiar, director Michael Chaves is said to bring a more mournful, introspective tone to the series swan song. It goes early September, easing the path before October flood.

Following that is The Black Phone 2. Originally slated for early summer, its move to an October release suggests confidence. Derrickson returns to the helm, and the DNA that clicked last time remains: throwback unease, trauma centered writing, paired with unsettling supernatural order. The ante is higher this round, by enlarging the “grabber” map and grief’s lineage.

Completing the marquee stack is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a movie that scarcely needs conventional ads. The sophomore entry expands the mythology, stretches the animatronic parade, with a bullseye on teens and thirty something nostalgics. It opens in December, buttoning the final window.

Streaming Originals: Small budgets, sharp fangs

With theaters prioritizing brand safety, SVOD players are testing edges, and gains show.

A top daring platform piece is Weapons, a cold file multi story chiller knitting three time bands around a mass vanishing. Under Zach Cregger pairing Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the work combines fright with dramatic torque. Opening theatrically late summer ahead of fall SVOD, it may catalyze deconstruction threads like Barbarian.

On the more intimate flank sits Together, a room scale body horror descent including Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Set at a remote rental during a getaway that sours, the script studies love with jealousy with self rejection turning into decay. It reads tender, repulsive, and intensely uneasy, a three act churn into codependent hell. Even without a formal platform date, it looks like a certain fall stream.

In the mix sits Sinners, a thirties era vampire folk parable starring Michael B. Jordan. Framed in sepia richness with biblical metaphor, it recalls There Will Be Blood spliced to Let the Right One In. The work dissects American religious trauma using supernatural allegory. First test passes flag it as highly discussable at debut.

Other streamer plays queue softly: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper each explores grief and disappearance and identity, opting allegory above bombast.

Possession From Within: Young & Cursed

Going live October 2 on major services, Young & Cursed reads as a rare blend, small in footprint yet mythic in spread. Authored and directed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the piece tracks five strangers awakening in a remote wilds cabin, under Kyra’s sway, 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 horror here is psychological but charged with primal myth. Skipping the exorcism norm of Catholic rite and Latin line, this film taps something older, something darker. Lilith comes not via liturgy, but from trauma, quiet, and human brittleness. By making possession inward rather than external, Young & Cursed joins a trend toward intimate character studies masked as genre.

The film is positioned on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home as Halloween balance against sequel stacks and creature returns. It is a smart play. No bloated mythology. No legacy baggage. Just psychological dread, contained and tense, tailored to the binge then breathe cadence of digital horror fans. Inside spectacle, Young & Cursed may separate by silence, then rupture.

From Festivals to Market

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF remain breeding grounds for what horror looks like six to twelve months later. They are more runway than museum.

Fantastic Fest fields a robust horror set this year. Primate, an opening night tropical body-horror, invites Cronenberg meets Herzog talk. Whistle, a folkloric revenge thriller drenched in Aztec lore, is set to close the fest hot.

At midnight, entries like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You buzz for how they play, not only their names. That film, an A24 backed satire of toxic fandom inside a horror convention lockdown, looks poised to break out.

SXSW gave air to Clown in a Cornfield and to microbudget hauntings courting buyers. Sundance is on track for grief tuned elevated horror, and Tribeca’s genre set plays urban, social, and surreal.

The festival game increasingly values branding over mere discovery. Those badges act as campaign openers, not end caps.

Series Horror: Sequels, Reboots, Reinventions

The legacy slate is stronger, and more deliberate, than in recent years.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, due in July, revives the ’90s horror franchise with a new lead and a throwback tone. Versus earlier beats, it favors camp and prom night melodrama. Cue tiaras, phony blood, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 hits late June, aiming to expand its techno horror mythology with new characters and new AI generated terrors. The original’s social and streaming breakout emboldened Universal to double down.

On the slate sits The Long Walk, from one of Stephen King’s stark early titles, Directed by Francis Lawrence, it functions as a harsh dystopian fable encased in survival horror, a children’s march that ends in death. Marketed correctly, it could be 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.

Trend Lines

Mythic lanes mainstream
Lilith in Young & Cursed plus Aztec curses in Whistle highlight ancient texts and symbols. Not nostalgia, a reclaim of pre Christian archetypes. Horror goes beyond fright, it notes evil’s age.

Body horror comes roaring back
Entries like Together, Weapons, and Keeper shift back to flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation, these are the new metaphors for heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streamer originals stiffen their spine
Churn filler is losing ground on platforms. Streamers are investing in real scripts, real directors, and real marketing pushes. Titles such as Weapons and Sinners are treated as events, not mere content.

Festival heat turns into leverage
Festival seals operate as leverage for distribution lanes and press windows. Skip festival strategy in 2025 and the film risks invisibility.

Big screen is a trust fall
Studios hold theatrical for overperformers or future series seeds. The remainder goes PVOD or hybrid. Horror is not shrinking in theaters, but it is becoming more curated.

Near Term Outlook: Fall pileup, winter curveball

A cluster of Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons in September and October equals saturation. Indies like Bone Lake and Keeper will scrap for air. Watch for one or more of these to pivot into early 2026 or shift platforms.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 anchors December, and a surprise streaming drop could still arrive late. As several big titles lean dark and mythic, there is room for one last creature feature or exorcism flick.

The genre’s success in 2025 will hinge not on any one title, but on how well its diverse slate reaches its scattered, increasingly segmented audience. The goal is not Get Out again, it is horror with staying power past opening weekends.



The next fright calendar year ahead: follow-ups, non-franchise titles, alongside A Crowded Calendar engineered for jolts

Dek The current horror season crowds in short order with a January cluster, then extends through peak season, and straight through the holiday stretch, fusing franchise firepower, creative pitches, and data-minded counterprogramming. Studio marketers and platforms are focusing on cost discipline, exclusive theatrical windows first, and social-driven marketing that turn genre titles into four-quadrant talking points.

How the genre looks for 2026

This space has become the predictable option in distribution calendars, a genre that can grow when it clicks and still insulate the drag when it underperforms. After the 2023 year proved to top brass that responsibly budgeted pictures can dominate the national conversation, the following year held pace with festival-darling auteurs and word-of-mouth wins. The momentum moved into 2025, where revived properties and awards-minded projects underscored there is demand for many shades, from franchise continuations to standalone ideas that play globally. The takeaway for 2026 is a calendar that seems notably aligned across players, with purposeful groupings, a equilibrium of established brands and first-time concepts, and a sharpened eye on theater exclusivity that boost PVOD and platform value on premium rental and platforms.

Planners observe the horror lane now slots in as a fill-in ace on the slate. The genre can bow on open real estate, furnish a clean hook for marketing and short-form placements, and outpace with moviegoers that come out on previews Thursday and hold through the follow-up frame if the feature lands. Exiting a strike-affected pipeline, the 2026 configuration exhibits certainty in that playbook. The year rolls out with a heavy January lineup, then leans on spring and early summer for contrast, while carving room for a fall cadence that reaches into the Halloween corridor and into November. The layout also underscores the deeper integration of indie arms and platforms that can launch in limited release, build word of mouth, and roll out at the precise moment.

A further high-level trend is IP stewardship across brand ecosystems and established properties. The companies are not just turning out another continuation. They are looking to package lineage with a headline quality, whether that is a art treatment that signals a reframed mood or a ensemble decision that reconnects a new installment to a classic era. At the simultaneously, the helmers behind the top original plays are celebrating material texture, special makeup and grounded locations. That interplay yields 2026 a vital pairing of trust and unexpected turns, which is what works overseas.

What the big players are lining up

Paramount fires first with two spotlight titles that sit at tonal extremes. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the top job and Neve Campbell back at the heart, marketing it as both a lineage transfer and a rootsy character-centered film. The shoot is ongoing in Atlanta, and the creative posture points to a classic-referencing strategy without retreading the last two entries’ Carpenter-sisters arc. Plan for a rollout anchored in legacy iconography, intro reveals, and a staggered trailer plan hitting late fall. Distribution is cinema-first via Paramount.

Paramount also brings back a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are reforming, with the Wayans brothers involved as creative voices for the first time since the early 2000s, a campaign lever the campaign will lean on. As a summer contrast play, this one will seek four-quadrant chatter through meme-friendly cuts, with the horror spoof format making room for quick redirects to whatever shapes horror talk that spring.

Universal has three clear plays. SOULM8TE opens January 9, 2026, a tie-in spinoff from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The conceit is efficient, heartbroken, and elevator-pitch-ready: a grieving man implements an artificial companion that turns into a murderous partner. The date places it at the front of a crowded corridor, with the marketing arm likely to recreate eerie street stunts and bite-size content that interlaces intimacy and foreboding.

On May 8, 2026, the studio places an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely read as the feature developed under placeholder labels in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The dated slate currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which makes room for a proper title to become an attention spike closer to the initial tease. The timing offers Universal a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles occupy other frames.

Filling out the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film secures October 23, 2026, a slot he has owned before. His entries are positioned as auteur events, with a teaser that reveals little and a second beat that signal tone without plot the concept. The Halloween runway gives the studio room to lead pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then lean on the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, teams with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček commands, with Souheila Yacoub top-lining. The franchise has made clear that a flesh-and-blood, physical-effects centered execution can feel elevated on a controlled budget. Expect a hard-R summer horror hit that emphasizes global rollout, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most international territories.

Sony’s horror bench is impressively deep. The studio launches two brand-forward plays in the back half. An untitled Insidious film opens August 21, 2026, keeping a reliable supernatural brand alive while the spin-off branch evolves. The studio has reslotted on this title before, but the current plan aims it in late summer, where the brand has performed historically.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil re-emerges in what the studio is selling as a clean-slate approach for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a key part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a mission to serve both diehards and novices. The fall slot affords Sony time to build marketing units around setting detail, and practical creature work, elements that can boost deluxe auditorium demand and convention buzz.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, plants a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film follows the filmmaker’s run of period horror characterized by meticulous craft and linguistic texture, this time exploring werewolf lore. Focus has already locked the day for a holiday release, a public confidence in the auteur as a specialty play that can scale widely if early reception is favorable.

Streaming strategies and platform plays

Streaming playbooks in 2026 run on stable tracks. Universal’s genre entries shift to copyright after a theatrical and PVOD run, a cadence that optimizes both week-one demand and sign-up spikes in the tail. Prime Video stitches together licensed films with global acquisitions and small theatrical windows when the data supports it. Max and Hulu lean on their strengths in catalog discovery, using in-app campaigns, holiday hubs, and staff picks to keep attention on the annual genre haul. Netflix keeps flexible about in-house releases and festival pickups, dating horror entries with shorter lead times and making event-like go-lives with tight-window plans. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, works a two-step of targeted cinema placements and swift platform pivots that turns chatter to conversion. That will count for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before pivoting to genre-fan funnels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ adopts case-by-case posture for horror on a per-project basis. The platform has been willing to acquire select projects with acclaimed directors or headline-cast packages, then give them a modest theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet eligibility thresholds or to create word of mouth before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still leverages the 20th Century Studios slate, a notable driver for retention when the genre conversation builds.

Art-house genre prospects

Cineverse is crafting a 2026 arc with two IP plays. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The angle is clean: the same haunting, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult favorite, retooled for modern audio and picture. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a autumn frame, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. Cineverse has suggested a theatrical-first plan for the title, an optimistic indicator for fans of the ferocious series and for exhibitors seeking R-rated counterprogramming in the autumn weeks.

Focus will push the auteur angle with Werwulf, shepherding the title through festivals in the fall if the cut is ready, then relying on the holiday dates to open out. That positioning has proved effective for director-led genre with crossover potential. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not finalized many 2026 slots in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines generally solidify after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A reasonable expectation is a sprinkle of late-summer and fall platformers that can go wider if reception justifies. Do not be surprised by 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 hand in hand, using limited runs to jump-start evangelism that fuels their community.

Known brands versus new stories

By proportion, the 2026 slate is weighted toward the franchise column. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all exploit brand equity. The risk, as ever, is brand wear. The preferred tactic is to pitch each entry as a renewed feel. Paramount is bringing forward core character and DNA in Scream 7, Sony is hinting at a new foundation for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is highlighting a French-flavored turn from a fresh helmer. Those choices register when the audience has so many options and social sentiment changes rapidly.

Non-franchise titles and visionary-led titles keep the lungs full. Jordan Peele’s October film will be treated as a brand unto itself. Sam Raimi’s Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, puts Rachel McAdams in a stranded survival premise with Raimi’s impish dread. SOULM8TE offers a focused, eerie tech hook. Werwulf emphasizes period craft and an uncompromising tone. Even when the title is not based on familiar IP, the assembly is assuring enough to drive advance ticketing and Thursday-night crowds.

Comparable trends from recent years clarify the template. In 2023, a theater-first model that honored streaming windows did not block a day-date move from performing when the brand was compelling. In 2024, art-forward horror over-performed in premium formats. In 2025, a reawakened chapter of a beloved infection saga demonstrated that global horror franchises can still feel renewed when they change perspective and elevate scope. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which unfolds January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The dual-chapter plan, with chapters produced back-to-back, creates space for marketing to thread films through cast and motif and to keep assets alive without long breaks.

How the films are being made

The craft conversations behind the 2026 entries signal a continued shift toward in-camera, locale-specific craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not resemble any recent iteration of the property, a stance that complements the practical-effects sensibility he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film wrapped principal photography and is set for its April 17, 2026 date. Look for a campaign that centers aura and dread rather than CG roller-coasters, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership sustaining tight cost control.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has outlined Werwulf as the hardest-edged project he has tackled, which tracks with a medieval setting and period-faithful dialogue, a combination that can make for enveloping sound design and a icy, primal tone on the big screen. Focus will likely showcase this aesthetic in behind-the-scenes pieces and department features before rolling out a tease that plays with mood rather than plot, a move that has performed for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is built for practical nastiness, a signature of the series that performs globally in red-band trailers and produces shareable jump-cut reactions from early screenings. Scream 7 hints at a meta inflection that brings back the core lead. Resident Evil will fly or stall on monster work and world-building, which work nicely for convention activations and planned releases. Insidious tends to be a sound design showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the auditorium case feel definitive. Look for trailers that highlight hyper-detailed sound, deep-bass stingers, and blank-sound beats that land in premium houses.

Calendar map: winter through the holidays

January is packed. 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 tonal palate cleanser amid marquee brands. The month winds down with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a crash-survival thriller from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is thick, but the palette of tones lets each find a lane, and the five-week structure supports a clean run for each if word of mouth stays strong.

Q1 into Q2 prepare summer. Scream 7 opens February 27 with heritage buzz. In April, The Mummy re-centers a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once played to genre counterprogramming and now backs big openers. Universal’s untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 connects into summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer sharpens the contrast. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is light and four-quadrant, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 supplies ferocious intensity. The counterprogramming logic is workable. The spoof can pop next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest scratches the itch for older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have cycled through premium screens.

Late summer into fall leans recognizable. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously clicked. Resident Evil steps in after September 18, a pre-October slot that still feeds into Halloween marketing beats. Jordan Peele’s untitled film claims October 23 and will dominate cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely reinforced by a slow-reveal plan and limited asset reveals that center concept over reveals.

Holiday corridor prestige. Werwulf on December 25 is a declaration that genre can win the holiday when packaged as director prestige horror. The distributor has done this before, staging carefully, then leaning on critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to ride the cycle into January. If the film resonates with critics, the studio can broaden in the first week of 2027 while riding holiday turnout and card redemption.

Title-by-title briefings, embedded in the narrative

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting still being revealed as production continues. Logline: Sidney returns to face a new Ghostface while the narrative rethreads 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 widowed man’s algorithmic partner escalates into something deadly romantic. Rating: TBA. Production: Production locked for an early-year bow. Positioning: silicon scare with soul.

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 coalesces in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Shot back-to-back 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 ventures back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to run into a changing reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Locked and U.S. theatrical booked. Positioning: ambience-forward 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 rugged island as the control dynamic turns and paranoia creeps in. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed. 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 kept quiet in official materials. Logline: A contemporary retelling that returns the monster to terror, rooted in Cronin’s physical craft and accumulating dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed. Positioning: classic creature relaunch with signature touch.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A residential haunting scenario that interrogates the chill of a child’s mercurial senses. Rating: rating pending. Production: locked. Positioning: studio-backed, star-driven paranormal suspense.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers reuniting creatively. Logline: {A satire sequel that teases of-the-moment horror beats and true crime fixations. Rating: not yet rated. Production: production booked for fall 2025. Positioning: wide-lane seasonal counterprogram.

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 multinational twist in tone and setting. Rating: TBA. Production: principal photography in New Zealand. Positioning: intense red-band chapter tailored to PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: TBA publicly. Top cast: unrevealed. Logline: The Further opens again, with a new family lashed to ancient dread. Rating: to be announced. Production: aiming to lens in summer ahead of late-summer bow. Positioning: durable spectral IP in a late-summer sweet spot.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: to be disclosed. Top cast: undisclosed. Logline: A new start designed to recalibrate the franchise from the ground up, with an priority on survival horror over action spectacle. Rating: undetermined. Production: developing against a fixed date. Positioning: fidelity-minded reboot with crossover prospects.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: TBD. Logline: tightly guarded. Rating: pending. Production: moving forward. Positioning: auteur event powered by teasers.

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 time-true diction and ancient menace. Rating: TBA. Production: in preproduction for holiday debut. 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 theaters-first plan ahead of platforming. Status: timing TBD, fall window eyed.

Why the moment is 2026

Three nuts-and-bolts forces structure this lineup. First, production that eased or reshuffled in 2024 needed spacing on the calendar. Horror can move in swiftly More about the author because scripts often are set in fewer locales, fewer large-scale VFX set pieces, and condensed timelines. Second, studios have become more strict about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently generated more than straight-to-streaming placements. Third, online chatter converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will harvest reaction-worthy moments from test screenings, controlled scare clips calibrated to Thursday preview timing, and experiential pop-ups that power influencer posts. It is a repeatable playbook because it works.

The slot calculus is real. Early-2026 family and superhero concentrations ease, creating valuable space for genre entries that can control a weekend or sit as the slightly older-skewing alternative. January is the prime example. Four tonal lanes of horror will line up across five weekends, which reduces inter-title cannibalization. Summer provides the other window. The parody can surf the early-summer animated and action swell, then the hard-R entry can capitalize on a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Money matters, ratings, and surprise hits

Budgets remain in the strike zone. Most of the films above will land under the $40–$50 million mark, 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 sleeper chase 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 capitalize on those pockets. January could easily deliver the first surprise over-performer of the year, and August into September gives Sony an avenue to hold screens with back-to-back supernatural IP while still leaving room for an indie breakout.

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

What the calendar feels like for audiences

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers pattern and spread. January is a banquet, February delivers a legacy slasher, April returns a Universal monster, May and June provide a two-beat supernatural run for date nights and group outings, July turns feral, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a shadowed, literate nightmare. That is how you keep chatter alive and occupancy strong without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can sequence upward, using earlier releases to set up the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors are pleased with the spacing. Horror delivers frequent Thursday-night spikes, efficient screen counts, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can warrant PLF, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing surface detail, aural design, and image-making that benefit from larger formats. The calendar also leaves room for specialty platformers to open in New York and Los Angeles, build reviews, and slide into national conversation as the fall progresses.

A Promising 2026

Slots move. Ratings change. Casts update. But the spine of 2026 horror is set. There is brand power where it counts, fresh vision where it counts, and a calendar that shows studios understand how and when audiences want to be scared. The awards and festival pipeline into 2027 will come into focus once the fall festivals lock, and it would not be surprising to see at least one near-deadline boutique buy join the party. For now, the job is simple, edit tight trailers, keep the secrets, and let the fear sell the seats.