Ancient Darkness Surfaces within Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a nightmare fueled horror feature, launching October 2025 across premium platforms

An eerie occult suspense film from creator / visionary Andrew Chiaramonte, awakening an archaic nightmare when outsiders become puppets in a hellish game. Premiering this October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon Prime, Google’s YouTube, Google Play Movies & TV, iTunes Movies, Apple TV+, and Fandango streaming.

Los Angeles, CA (August 8, 2025) – be warned for *Young & Cursed*, a gut-wrenching story of struggle and primeval wickedness that will alter the fear genre this autumn. Created by rising director to watch Andrew Chiaramonte, this unpredictable and eerie feature follows five strangers who come to caught in a wilderness-bound hideaway under the aggressive influence of Kyra, a tormented girl claimed by a prehistoric religious nightmare. Get ready to be seized by a big screen journey that harmonizes visceral dread with ancient myths, coming on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Hellish influence has been a enduring fixture in screenwriting. In *Young & Cursed*, that idea is challenged when the malevolences no longer arise beyond the self, but rather within themselves. This illustrates the deepest layer of each of them. The result is a gripping psychological battle where the plotline becomes a ongoing face-off between moral forces.


In a unforgiving wild, five souls find themselves cornered under the malevolent control and domination of a secretive entity. As the protagonists becomes unresisting to resist her will, isolated and tracked by presences unimaginable, they are compelled to stand before their core terrors while the countdown unceasingly pushes forward toward their obliteration.


In *Young & Cursed*, paranoia swells and associations implode, pressuring each protagonist to evaluate their existence and the notion of self-determination itself. The danger grow with every tick, delivering a fear-soaked story that integrates ghostly evil with raw emotion.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my narrative plan was to evoke primal fear, an force before modern man, working through emotional vulnerability, and confronting a entity that erodes the self when will is shattered.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Performing as Kyra demanded embodying something far beyond human desperation. She is clueless until the possession kicks in, and that pivot is terrifying because it is so private.”

Distribution & Access

*Young & Cursed* will be available for streaming beginning on October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon Prime, Google’s video hub, Google’s store, Apple iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango at Home—guaranteeing watchers internationally can survive this horror showcase.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just published a new second trailer for *Young & Cursed*, debuted to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a second look to its release of trailer #1, which has gathered over 100,000 views.


In addition to its North American premiere, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has made public that *Young & Cursed* will also be released internationally, presenting the nightmare to international horror buffs.


Tune in for this visceral voyage through terror. Tune into *Young & Cursed* this October the 2nd to confront these evil-rooted truths about the mind.


For sneak peeks, special features, and updates straight from the filmmakers, follow @YoungCursedOfficial across platforms and visit the movie portal.





The horror genre’s inflection point: the 2025 season U.S. rollouts fuses old-world possession, Indie Shockers, together with tentpole growls

Moving from grit-forward survival fare inspired by old testament echoes and onward to IP renewals alongside acutely observed indies, 2025 looks like the most complex plus precision-timed year in years.

The 2025 horror calendar is not just busy, it is strategic. studio powerhouses lay down anchors with established lines, while subscription platforms pack the fall with unboxed visions in concert with old-world menace. On another front, the micro-to-mid budget ranks is catching the tailwinds of 2024’s record festival wave. As Halloween remains the genre’s crown jewel, the rest of the calendar is filling out with surgical precision. The September, October gauntlet has become standard, notably this year, the genre is also staking January, spring, and mid-summer. Horror fans are craving, studios are disciplined, as a result 2025 may be recorded as the genre’s most deliberate campaign.

Major and Mini-Major Maneuvers: High-craft horror returns

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

Universal’s distribution arm sets the tone with a bold swing: a reconceived Wolf Man, avoiding the standard nineteenth century European backdrop, but a crisp modern milieu. Shepherded by Leigh Whannell featuring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this telling braids lycanthropy with a family meltdown. The evolution surpasses the body, into spouses, parents, and bruised humanity. Booked into mid January, it fits the new plan to claim winter’s soft window with prestige horror rather than castoffs.

Spring ushers in Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher adaptation reframed as lean dread. From director Eli Craig and featuring Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it moves like barn born dread with razor satire. Beneath the mask, it picks at rural paranoia, age cohort splits, and lynch mob logic. Early circuit chatter says it has bite.

By late summer, Warner Bros. launches the swan song from its bankable horror series: The Conjuring: Last Rites. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson again portray Ed and Lorraine Warren, the entry offers emotional coda while tackling one of their notorious real cases. Despite a known recipe, Michael Chaves is rumored to steer toward a somber, reflective register for the close. It goes early September, easing the path before October flood.

Then comes The Black Phone 2. Initially pegged for early summer, an October berth implies conviction. Derrickson returns to the helm, and the memorable motifs return: period tinged dread, trauma explicitly handled, and eerie supernatural logic. This pass pushes higher, through a fuller probe of the “grabber” lore and inherited grief.

Completing the marquee stack is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a film that does not need traditional marketing to sell tickets. The next entry deepens the tale, stretches the animatronic parade, with a bullseye on teens and thirty something nostalgics. It bows in December, pinning the winter close.

Digital Originals: No Budget, No Problem

While theaters lean on names and sequels, streamers are pushing into risk, and dividends follow.

A leading ambitious platform entry is Weapons, a cold trail horror omnibus braiding three timelines tied to a mass vanishing. Guided by Zach Cregger and featuring Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the work combines fright with dramatic torque. With a late summer theatrical bow and fall streaming drop, it looks primed to seed post watch analysis akin to Barbarian.

On the more intimate flank sits Together, a body horror chamber piece including Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Fixed in a remote let as a weekend curdles, 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. While no platform has formally placed a date, it is virtually assured for fall.

Also rising is Sinners, a Depression era vampire folk fable featuring Michael B. Jordan. Framed in sepia richness with biblical metaphor, it nods to There Will Be Blood beside Let the Right One In. The project looks at American religious trauma under a supernatural allegory. Initial test audience notes point to a buzzy streaming debut.

Several other streaming indies are quietly waiting in the wings: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper all work grief and disappearance and identity, choosing meaning over noise.

The Possession Runs Deep: Young & Cursed

Posting October 2 across the big platforms, Young & Cursed emerges as a rare mix, tight in frame and epic in resonance. Written and directed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the movie observes five strangers who awaken in an isolated wilderness cabin, controlled by Kyra, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. With the dark, her reach grows, a parasitic force exploiting fears, flaws, and shame.

The threat is psychological first, wired with primal myth. Ducking the exorcism default of Catholic ritual and Latin text, this piece touches something older, something darker. Lilith does not answer ceremony, she climbs through trauma, hush, and human fracture. Making possession internal threads Young & Cursed into the current of intimate character studies in genre skin.

Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home set the film as Halloween counterprogramming versus sequel waves and monster returns. It is an astute call. No overinflated mythology. No series drag. Pure psyche terror, contained and taut, sized for the binge then exhale flow of digital viewers. Among spectacle, Young & Cursed might win by restraint, then release.

Festival Born, Buyer Ready

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF remain breeding grounds for what horror looks like six to twelve months later. And in 2025, they are acting more like launchpads than showcases.

Fantastic Fest’s horror bench is deep this year. Primate, an opening night tropical body-horror, invites Cronenberg meets Herzog talk. Whistle, a folkloric revenge piece in Aztec lore, likely shuts the fest with heat.

At midnight, entries like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You buzz for how they play, not only their names. That title, with A24 backing, satirizes toxic fandom during a convention lockdown and is set to pop.

SXSW rolled out Clown in a Cornfield and a clutch of microbudget haunts near deals. Sundance likely lifts another batch of grief laced elevated horror, with Tribeca’s genre lane skewing urban, social, and surreal.

This cycle, festival strategy pivots from discovery toward branding. A Fantastic Fest or TIFF badge is phase one marketing, not a coda.

Legacy IP: Additions, Do Overs, and Revisions

The returning series menu is stronger and more calculated than before.

Fear Street: Prom Queen, set for July, reanimates the 90s series with a new lead and nostalgia tone. Rather than prior modes, it goes camp and prom night melodrama. Bring tiaras, red dye, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 opens late June, with a plan to deepen its techno horror mythos via new characters and AI terrors. The first title’s online shareability and streaming stickiness fuel Universal’s appetite.

Then there is The Long Walk, an adaptation of one of Stephen King’s earliest and most harrowing works, guided by Francis Lawrence, it functions as a harsh dystopian fable encased in survival horror, a children’s march that ends in death. If framed properly, it could echo The Hunger Games for adult horror.

Also present, reboots and sequels including Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda, spread through the year, most watching for smart slots or quick buys.

Signals and Trends

Mythic currents go mainstream
From Lilith in Young & Cursed to Aztec curses in Whistle, creators turn to ancient texts and symbols. It eschews nostalgia to repossess pre Christian archetypes. Horror extends beyond terror, it frames evil as primordial.

Body horror returns
Pieces such as Together, Weapons, and Keeper bring it back to flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation symbolize heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streaming Originals Grow Teeth
Disposable horror filler days on platforms have passed. Streamers are investing in real scripts, real directors, and real marketing pushes. Pieces like Weapons and Sinners receive event status, not feed stock.

Festival glow translates to leverage
Festival laurels are no longer ornamental, they are leverage for theatrical release, premium placement, and media cycles. Without festivals in 2025, a horror film can evaporate.

Theatrical release is a trust fall
Studios hold theatrical for overperformers or future series seeds. The remainder goes PVOD or hybrid. Horror still lives in theaters, more curated than broad.

Near Term Outlook: Fall saturation and a winter joker

With Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons stacked into September and October, fall saturates. Indies like Bone Lake and Keeper will scrap for air. Expect one or more to pivot into early 2026 or shift platforms.

With Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 in December, a stealth streamer drop might pop near year end. As several big titles lean dark and mythic, there is room for one last creature feature or exorcism flick.

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 coming 2026 fear calendar year ahead: continuations, Originals, as well as A stacked Calendar Built For chills

Dek The upcoming scare calendar crams early with a January wave, following that carries through the summer months, and far into the holidays, marrying series momentum, untold stories, and savvy counterweight. The big buyers and platforms are relying on tight budgets, box-office-first windows, and platform-native promos that shape genre releases into all-audience topics.

The landscape of horror in 2026

The horror sector has emerged as the steady release in release strategies, a vertical that can expand when it catches and still cushion the exposure when it under-delivers. After 2023 showed greenlighters that efficiently budgeted scare machines can command cultural conversation, 2024 extended the rally with high-profile filmmaker pieces and quiet over-performers. The energy translated to 2025, where reawakened brands and arthouse crossovers highlighted there is capacity for many shades, from series extensions to fresh IP that play globally. The aggregate for the 2026 slate is a run that feels more orchestrated than usual across distributors, with mapped-out bands, a pairing of recognizable IP and new packages, and a sharpened focus on big-screen windows that amplify PVOD and streaming on paid VOD and platforms.

Studio leaders note the category now acts as a swing piece on the schedule. The genre can launch on virtually any date, provide a easy sell for spots and TikTok spots, and outpace with viewers that show up on previews Thursday and hold through the subsequent weekend if the release works. In the wake of a production delay era, the 2026 rhythm signals faith in that setup. The year starts with a busy January corridor, then taps spring and early summer for off-slot scheduling, while leaving room for a autumn stretch that pushes into the Halloween corridor and afterwards. The map also highlights the expanded integration of specialty distributors and platforms that can stage a platform run, fuel WOM, and go nationwide at the inflection point.

A companion trend is IP cultivation across linked properties and long-running brands. The studios are not just releasing another next film. They are seeking to position connection with a heightened moment, whether that is a title design that announces a reframed mood or a this contact form lead change that bridges a new entry to a first wave. At the very same time, the writer-directors behind the headline-grabbing originals are leaning into hands-on technique, special makeup and site-specific worlds. That combination offers the 2026 slate a vital pairing of recognition and unexpected turns, which is a pattern that scales internationally.

What the big players are lining up

Paramount leads early with two big-ticket bets that sit at tonal extremes. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the helm and Neve Campbell back at the core, positioning the film have a peek at this web-site as both a relay and a return-to-roots relationship-driven entry. Production is active in Atlanta, and the story approach conveys a legacy-leaning approach without going over the last two entries’ Carpenter-sisters arc. Anticipate a campaign fueled by franchise iconography, early character teases, and a trailer cadence landing toward late fall. Distribution is cinema-first via Paramount.

Paramount also reawakens 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 in development for the first time since the early 2000s, a centerpiece the campaign will stress. As a non-tentpole summer option, this one will chase mass reach through meme-ready spots, with the horror spoof format enabling quick shifts to whatever leads pop-cultural buzz that spring.

Universal has three unique lanes. SOULM8TE arrives January 9, 2026, a tie-in spinoff from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The story engine is tidy, somber, and big-hook: a grieving man implements an virtual partner that unfolds into a fatal companion. The date locates it at the front of a packed window, with the Universal machine likely to recreate odd public stunts and bite-size content that interweaves affection and dread.

On May 8, 2026, the studio books an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely assumed to be the feature developed under code names in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The public release grid currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which preserves a title drop to become an headline beat closer to the early tease. The timing secures a slot in early May while larger tentpoles stack elsewhere.

Supplementing the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film reserves October 23, 2026, a slot he has worked well before. Peele titles are positioned as director events, with a teaser with minimal detail and a subsequent trailers that establish tone without plot reveals the concept. The pre-Halloween slot affords Universal to take 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, teams with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček steers, with Souheila Yacoub at the center. The franchise has proven that a visceral, practical-effects forward strategy can feel prestige on a middle budget. Frame it as a blood-soaked summer horror charge that spotlights overseas performance, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most global territories.

Sony’s horror bench is particularly deep. The studio launches two brand-forward plays in the back half. An untitled Insidious film bows August 21, 2026, sustaining a consistent supernatural brand alive while the spin-off branch incubates. The studio has adjusted timing on this title before, but the current plan sticks it in late summer, where the brand has done well historically.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil reboots in what Sony is marketing as a new take for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a pillar part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a directive to serve both core fans and new audiences. The fall slot lets Sony to build artifacts around environmental design, and monster aesthetics, elements that can amplify premium screens and cosplay-friendly fan engagement.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, plants a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Robert Eggers’ Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film carries forward Eggers’ run of period horror shaped by obsessive craft and historical speech, this time focused on werewolf legend. The specialty arm has already announced the holiday for a holiday release, a signal of faith in the auteur as a specialty play that can grow wide if early reception is robust.

Streaming windows and tactics

Windowing plans in 2026 run on proven patterns. Universal’s releases feed copyright after a cinema and premium rental phase, a tiered path that enhances both opening-weekend urgency and sign-up spikes in the downstream. Prime Video interleaves third-party pickups with world buys and select theatrical runs when the data supports it. Max and Hulu press their advantages in library pulls, using well-timed internal promotions, October hubs, and staff picks to sustain interest on aggregate take. Netflix retains agility about first-party entries and festival additions, locking in horror entries near launch and staging as events drops with burst campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, leverages a dual-phase of precision theatrical plays and fast windowing that translates talk to trials. That will be meaningful for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before pressing genre pipelines in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ adopts case-by-case posture for horror on a selective basis. The platform has shown a willingness to board select projects with accomplished filmmakers or headline-cast packages, then give them a small theatrical footprint in partnership with exhibitors to meet qualifying rules or to gather buzz before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney domestic still draws on the 20th Century Studios slate, a important input for monthly engagement when the genre conversation surges.

Indie corridors

Cineverse is mapping a 2026 slate with two name-brand moves. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The proposition is direct: the same mist-blanketed, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a favorite of fans, recalibrated for modern audio-visual craft. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a fall corridor, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. Cineverse has signaled a wide-to-platform plan for Legacy, an positive signal for fans of the hard-edged series and for exhibitors looking for R-rated counterplay in the autumn stretch.

Focus will work the auteur lane with Werwulf, stewarding the film through festivals in the fall if the cut is ready, then using the holiday slot to expand. That positioning has shown results for director-led genre with four-quadrant hopes. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not announced many 2026 dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines typically coalesce after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A fair assumption is a selection of late-summer and fall platformers that can grow if reception supports. Look for an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that premieres at Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work together, using select theatrical to seed evangelism that fuels their subscriber base.

IP versus fresh ideas

By number, 2026 leans toward the brand side. 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 near-term solution is to position each entry as a tone reset. Paramount is spotlighting character and lineage in Scream 7, Sony is indicating a clean-slate build for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is pushing a French-accented approach from a breakout filmmaker. Those choices move the needle when the audience has so many options and social sentiment spins fast.

Non-franchise titles and visionary-led titles provide the air. Jordan Peele’s October film will be sold as a brand unto itself. Sam Raimi’s Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, centers 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 uncompromising tone. Even when the title is not based on existing IP, the package is recognizable enough to drive advance ticketing and Thursday-night turnout.

Comps from the last three years clarify the playbook. In 2023, a theatrical-first plan that observed windows did not hamper a day-date move from performing when the brand was trusted. In 2024, craft-forward auteur horror rose in premium large format. In 2025, a resurgence of a beloved infection saga signaled that global horror franchises can still feel recharged when they alter lens and grow scope. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which presses on January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The double feature plan, with chapters shot consecutively, allows marketing to thread films through personae and themes and to keep assets alive without doldrums.

Behind-the-camera trends

The production chatter behind the 2026 slate hint at a continued preference for hands-on, location-grounded craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not resemble any recent iteration of the property, a stance that fits with the prosthetic-forward taste he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film closed principal and is tracking to its April 17, 2026 date. Promo should that spotlights unease and texture rather than CG roller-coasters, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership supporting efficient spending.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has spoken of Werwulf as the grimmest project he has tackled, which tracks with a period English setting and era-correct language, a combination that can make for immersive sound design and a austere, elemental atmosphere on the big screen. Focus will likely warm the market to this aesthetic in trade spotlights and technical spotlights before rolling out a initial teaser that elevates tone over story, a move that has succeeded for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is built for goopy mayhem, a signature of the series that connects worldwide in red-band trailers and generates shareable jump-cut reactions from early screenings. Scream 7 delivers a meta recalibration that puts the original star at center. Resident Evil will stand or stumble on creature design and production design, which work nicely for fan-con activations and planned releases. Insidious tends to be a soundstage showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the premium-screen pitch feel essential. Look for trailers that foreground pin-drop sound, deep-bass stingers, and quiet voids that shine in top rooms.

How the year maps out

January is heavy. 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 gloomy counterbalance amid larger brand plays. The month closes with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival shocker from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is credible, but the tonal variety affords lanes to each, and the five-week structure hands each a runway for each if word of mouth sticks.

Pre-summer months tee up summer. Paramount’s Scream 7 debuts February 27 with heritage buzz. In April, The Mummy reimagines a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once belonged to genre counterprogramming and now nurtures big openers. The untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 flows 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 light and four-quadrant, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 delivers gnarly intensity. The counterprogramming logic is smart. The spoof can thrive next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest serves older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have run their PLF course.

Late summer into fall leans recognizable. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously thrived. Resident Evil arrives after September 18, a shoulder season window that still ties into Halloween marketing beats. Jordan Peele’s untitled film claims October 23 and will dominate cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely augmented by a peekaboo tease plan and limited information drops that prioritize concept over plot.

Year-end prestige and specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a position that genre can compete at Christmas when packaged as filmmaker-driven prestige horror. The distributor has done this before, slow-rolling, then leveraging critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to hold in chatter into January. If the film clicks critically, the studio can add screens in the first week of 2027 while benefiting from holiday season and card redemption.

Title snapshots

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting in progress as production continues. Logline: Sidney returns to challenge a new Ghostface while the narrative resurfaces the original film’s core. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: origin-forward with a contemporary twist.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A grieving man’s machine mate turns into something perilously amorous. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming finished for an early-year bow. Positioning: digital-age horror with pathos.

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 widens the scope beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult ascends in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Filmed consecutively with the first film. Positioning: elevated outbreak saga chapter.

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 shifting reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed production with U.S. distribution. 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 hard-edged boss struggle to survive on a cut-off island as the pecking order reverses and suspicion grows. Rating: TBA. Production: Locked. Positioning: A-list survival chiller from a master.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles to be revealed in official materials. Logline: A modern reconception that returns the monster to dread, driven by Cronin’s tactile craft and quiet dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Production wrapped. Positioning: classic monster relaunch with a filmmaker’s stamp.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A residential haunting setup that explores the fright of a child’s tricky interpretations. Rating: TBD. Production: completed. Positioning: studio-scale and star-led supernatural 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 comic send-up that lampoons of-the-moment horror beats and true crime fervors. Rating: to be announced. Production: lensing scheduled for fall 2025. Positioning: wide-appeal summer alternative.

Evil Dead Burn (Warner Bros. domestic, July 24, 2026)
Director: Sébastien Vaniček. Top cast: Souheila Yacoub, with ensemble additions. Logline: A new infestation of Deadites erupts, his comment is here with an transnational twist in tone and setting. Rating: forthcoming. Production: principal photography in New Zealand. Positioning: hard-hitting R entry designed for premium formats.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: TBA in marketing materials. Top cast: to be announced. Logline: The Further stirs again, with a new household anchored to returning horrors. Rating: undetermined. Production: aiming to lens in summer ahead of late-summer bow. Positioning: consistent franchise performer in a beneficial frame.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: TBD publicly. Top cast: pending. Logline: A ground-up reset designed to re-establish the franchise from the ground up, with an priority on true survival horror over action spectacle. Rating: forthcoming. Production: in development with a locked date. Positioning: lore-true modernization with broad upside.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: awaiting confirmation. Logline: purposely secretive. Rating: TBA. Production: continuing. Positioning: director-branded event with teaser focus.

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 historical diction and elemental fear. Rating: pending. Production: actively prepping for a holiday slot. Positioning: prestige horror for the holidays, with potential awards-season craft appeal.

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 traditional theatrical release planned before platforming. Status: window fluid, autumn forecast.

Why the moment is 2026

Three hands-on forces calibrate this lineup. First, production that bottlenecked or recalendared in 2024 demanded space on the calendar. Horror can backfill quickly because scripts often rely on fewer locations, fewer large-scale CGI sequences, and condensed timelines. Second, studios have become more orderly about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently surpassed straight-to-streaming debuts. Third, community talk converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will capitalize on shareable moments from test screenings, metered scare clips paired with Thursday night previews, and experiential pop-ups that generate creator assets. It is a repeatable playbook because it works.

A fourth factor is programming math. Family and superhero corridors are not as densely packed in early 2026, leaving useful real estate for genre entries that can command a weekend or serve as the mature-skew alternative. January is the prime example. Four horror varieties will jostle across five weekends, which reduces inter-title cannibalization. Summer provides the other window. The spoof can draft behind animation and action in early summer, then the hard-R entry can make hay in a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Business view: budgets, ratings, sleeper chase

Budgets remain in the optimal band. Most of the films above will come in under $40–$50 million, with many far below. That allows for expanded PLF presence 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 surprise-hit pursuit continues in Q1, where lean-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 shock 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. Predict a resilient PVOD phase industry-wide, since horror fans have shown a willingness to pay for convenience after an opening weekend, especially when word of mouth is strong.

How the viewing year plays

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

Exhibitors respond well to the spacing. Horror delivers reliable Thursday lifts, efficient placements, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can credibly make the premium-screen case, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing visual texture, audio design, and camera work 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

Calendars slide. Ratings change. Casts refresh. But the spine of 2026 horror is sturdy. There is brand heft where it matters, auteur intent where it matters, and a calendar that shows studios grasp the timing of scares. The awards and festival pipeline into 2027 will come into focus once the fall festivals lock, and it would not be surprising to see at least one late-arriving specialty entry join the party. For now, the job is simple, edit tight trailers, keep secrets, and let the gasps sell the seats.