Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed awakens ancient dread, a chilling horror thriller, debuting Oct 2025 on top streaming platforms

An haunting spiritual nightmare movie from narrative craftsman / cinema craftsman Andrew Chiaramonte, liberating an mythic entity when passersby become proxies in a hellish game. Airings begin October 2, 2025, on Amazon Prime Video, Google’s YouTube, Google’s Play platform, iTunes, Apple TV Plus, and Fandango platform.

Los Angeles, CA (August 8, 2025) – gear up for *Young & Cursed*, a frightful account of living through and mythic evil that will revolutionize genre cinema this October. Crafted by rising director to watch Andrew Chiaramonte, this tense and shadowy thriller follows five characters who arise stranded in a secluded dwelling under the malignant influence of Kyra, a mysterious girl occupied by a two-thousand-year-old sacred-era entity. Be warned to be drawn in by a screen-based event that melds bodily fright with biblical origins, dropping on Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on October 2, 2025.


Malevolent takeover has been a recurring theme in the entertainment world. In *Young & Cursed*, that structure is reimagined when the dark entities no longer form from beyond, but rather internally. This marks the most terrifying shade of the group. The result is a edge-of-seat spiritual tug-of-war where the story becomes a unyielding push-pull between moral forces.


In a desolate no-man's-land, five friends find themselves caught under the unholy sway and possession of a enigmatic figure. As the survivors becomes powerless to fight her control, left alone and tormented by terrors ungraspable, they are forced to confront their worst nightmares while the hours ruthlessly ticks toward their final moment.


In *Young & Cursed*, paranoia amplifies and friendships splinter, compelling each character to question their essence and the philosophy of freedom of choice itself. The consequences mount with every fleeting time, delivering a nerve-wracking journey that fuses occult fear with raw emotion.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my purpose was to uncover basic terror, an spirit before modern man, operating within psychological breaks, and exposing a entity that redefines identity when choice is taken.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Playing Kyra meant evoking something deeper than fear. She is clueless until the demon emerges, and that evolution is soul-crushing because it is so private.”

Watch the Horror Unfold

*Young & Cursed* will be available for audience access beginning this October 2, on Amazon’s platform, Google’s video hub, Google Play, Apple iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango at Home—ensuring audiences everywhere can survive this haunted release.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just published a new video trailer for *Young & Cursed*, currently showing to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a companion to its release of trailer #1, which has pulled in over thousands of viewers.


In addition to its initial rollout, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has announced that *Young & Cursed* will also be available worldwide, spreading the horror to global fright lovers.


Experience this unforgettable exploration of dread. Tune into *Young & Cursed* this horror drop to face these dark realities about the human condition.


For film updates, on-set glimpses, and reveals from inside the story, follow @YoungCursedOfficial across your socials and visit the movie’s homepage.





Modern horror’s pivotal crossroads: calendar year 2025 U.S. lineup blends ancient-possession motifs, independent shockers, set against legacy-brand quakes

Moving from pressure-cooker survival tales inspired by primordial scripture to canon extensions set beside pointed art-house angles, 2025 is emerging as the genre’s most multifaceted in tandem with carefully orchestrated year in the past ten years.

The 2025 horror calendar is not merely full, it is methodical. the big studios lay down anchors via recognizable brands, while SVOD players pack the fall with fresh voices in concert with ancient terrors. In the indie lane, the independent cohort is catching the kinetic energy of a record-setting 2024 festival season. With Halloween still the genre’s crown piece, the other windows are mapped with care. The autumn corridor is the classic sprint, distinctly in 2025, rollouts stretch into January, spring, and mid-summer. Fans are ravenous, studios are intentional, hence 2025 is positioned to be the most designed season yet.

Studio Roadmap and Mini-Major Pulse: Elevated fear reclaims ground

The majors are assertive. If 2024 planted the seeds, 2025 doubles down.

Universal’s schedule leads off the quarter with a bold swing: a contemporary Wolf Man, steering clear of the antique European village, in a modern-day environment. Led by Leigh Whannell with Christopher Abbott alongside Julia Garner, this chapter binds the lycanthropy to domestic unraveling. The change is not purely bodily, it is marital, parental, and achingly human. arriving mid January, it advances a tactic to control the winter valley through premium horror, not dumps.

Spring brings Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher novel refit as minimal menace. Led by Eli Craig featuring turns by Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it reads as gore kissed small town horror with wry bite. Behind the greasepaint sits a critique of small town suspicion, generational fracture, and vigilante justice. Early circuit chatter says it has bite.

When summer tapers, the Warner lot releases the last chapter of its steadiest horror franchise: 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. Even if the pattern is recognizable, Chaves is expected to tune it to a grieving, self reflective color. It sits in early September, securing daylight before October saturation.

Next is The Black Phone 2. It was eyed for early summer, and shifting to October telegraphs confidence. Derrickson re boards, and so do the signature elements that made the first installment a sleeper hit: nostalgic menace, trauma as text, plus otherworld rules that chill. The bar is raised this go, by digging further into the “grabber” mythos and grief’s generational echo.

Completing the marquee stack is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a movie that scarcely needs conventional ads. The second outing goes deeper into backstory, expands its animatronic nightmare roster, speaking to teens and older millennials. It books December, stabilizing the winter back end.

Platform Plays: Small budgets, sharp fangs

While cinemas swing on series strength, streamers are pushing into risk, and dividends follow.

One standout ambitious title is Weapons, a cold case horror anthology splicing three ages joined by a mass disappearance. Under Zach Cregger and starring Josh Brolin with Julia Garner, the title blends fear with dramatic gravity. Arriving to cinemas late summer then to streamers in fall, it will likely trigger thread wars and analysis videos, recalling Barbarian.

Keeping things close quarters is Together, a body horror chamber piece starring Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Trapped in a far off rental as a holiday fractures, the narrative traces love and jealousy and self contempt into body collapse. It reads tender, repulsive, and intensely uneasy, a three act churn into codependent hell. Despite no official platform date, it is poised for a fall platform bow.

One more platform talker is Sinners, a thirties set vampire folk saga headlined by Michael B. Jordan. Photographed in sepia saturation with biblical metaphor, it suggests There Will Be Blood blended with Let the Right One In. The narrative analyzes American religious trauma through a ghostly allegory. Early test screens tag it as a top talked streaming debut.

A handful of other streaming indies hover in the wings: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper each explores grief and disappearance and identity, opting allegory above bombast.

Possession From Within: Young & Cursed

Landing October 2 across key streamers, Young & Cursed arrives as a rare marriage, contained in staging yet mythic in effect. Authored and directed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the film follows five strangers who wake in a remote wilderness cabin under the thrall of Kyra, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. As dusk gives way to night, Kyra’s grip intensifies, a violating force plundering fears, vulnerabilities, and regrets.

The horror here is psychological but charged with primal myth. Ducking the exorcism default of Catholic ritual and Latin text, this one bores into something older, something darker. Lilith is not summoned by priests, she rises from trauma, muteness, and human fault lines. This inside out possession reframes expectation and groups Young & Cursed with a rising current, intimate character dramas within genre.

On Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home, the film acts as a Halloween counterpoint to sequel pipelines and creature comebacks. It is a calculated bet. No overinflated mythology. No brand fatigue. Just psychological dread, contained and tense, tailored to the binge then breathe cadence of digital horror fans. In a spectacle stack, Young & Cursed could be the hush before the shriek.

Festivals as Springboards

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 fields a robust horror set this year. Primate, an opening night tropical body-horror, invites Cronenberg meets Herzog talk. Whistle, a revenge folktale steeped in Aztec myth, is tapped to close with fire.

Midnight offerings such as If I Had Legs I’d Kick You surge on execution beyond the hook. 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.

Strategy at festivals now equals branding as well as discovery. Festival laurels are opening moves, not closing notes.

Legacy Horror: Next Chapters, New Starts, New Shapes

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

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. Expect tiaras, corn syrup blood, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 arrives late June, aiming to expand its techno horror mythology with new characters and new AI generated terrors. The debut’s viral plus streaming heat gives Universal reason to press the bet.

Next comes The Long Walk, adapting one of Stephen King’s earliest, most harrowing works, from Francis Lawrence, it plays as a savage dystopian parable housed in survival horror, a walk to death contest without winners. If packaged well, it could track like 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.

Emerging Currents

Myth turns mainstream
Lilith in Young & Cursed and Aztec curses in Whistle point to ancient texts and symbols. This reads not as nostalgia but as reclaiming pre Christian archetypes. Horror reaches past fear, it states evil is old.

Body Horror Makes a Comeback
The likes of Together, Weapons, and Keeper reshift toward flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation symbolize heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streaming Originals Grow Teeth
The era of filler horror on streamers is ending. Platforms show up with budgets for scripts, directors, and campaigns. Entries like Weapons and Sinners get event treatment, not inventory.

Festival hype becomes leverage
Festival seals operate as leverage for distribution lanes and press windows. A film minus festival planning in 2025 risks getting lost.

Theatrical release is a trust fall
The big screen goes to those expected to beat comps or build series. Everything else heads to PVOD or hybrid drops. Horror keeps theatrical presence, via curation.

Near Term Outlook: Autumn overload with a winter wildcard

The combination of Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons across September and October saturates fall. Indies such as Bone Lake and Keeper will tussle for space. 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. With mythic energy high, a late creature or exorcism entry could pop.

The hinge is broad reach to atomized viewers, not single tentpoles. The mission is not a new Get Out, it is sustained horror beyond tickets.



The 2026 Horror Year Ahead: brand plays, non-franchise titles, in tandem with A hectic Calendar tailored for nightmares

Dek: The new scare cycle lines up from day one with a January crush, before it stretches through summer corridors, and continuing into the festive period, mixing series momentum, untold stories, and strategic alternatives. Studios with streamers are committing to right-sized spends, cinema-first plans, and social-fueled campaigns that elevate these releases into mainstream chatter.

Horror’s position as 2026 begins

The genre has grown into the surest release in studio slates, a segment that can accelerate when it clicks and still mitigate the drag when it stumbles. After the 2023 year reassured strategy teams that efficiently budgeted pictures can steer social chatter, 2024 held pace with director-led heat and stealth successes. The head of steam carried into the 2025 frame, where reboots and elevated films highlighted there is a lane for several lanes, from brand follow-ups to filmmaker-driven originals that carry overseas. The result for the 2026 slate is a lineup that looks unusually coordinated across the industry, with obvious clusters, a combination of familiar brands and new packages, and a revived eye on theatrical windows that boost PVOD and platform value on PVOD and home platforms.

Planners observe the space now serves as a flex slot on the release plan. The genre can kick off on open real estate, provide a simple premise for spots and reels, and exceed norms with patrons that come out on previews Thursday and continue through the next pass if the title hits. After a work stoppage lag, the 2026 cadence reflects confidence in that setup. The calendar begins with a heavy January band, then primes spring and early summer for off-slot scheduling, while holding room for a fall corridor that reaches into spooky season and afterwards. The program also includes the stronger partnership of boutique distributors and streamers that can build gradually, build word of mouth, and scale up at the proper time.

A parallel macro theme is series management across connected story worlds and classic IP. Big banners are not just making another installment. They are looking to package lore continuity with a headline quality, whether that is a logo package that telegraphs a recalibrated tone or a ensemble decision that bridges a next entry to a first wave. At the in tandem, the writer-directors behind the marquee originals are favoring material texture, in-camera effects and concrete locations. That combination affords the 2026 slate a confident blend of trust and newness, which is the formula for international play.

Inside the studio playbooks

Paramount sets the tone early with two centerpiece titles that cover both tonal poles. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the director role and Neve Campbell back at the spine, framing it as both a lineage transfer and a origin-leaning character piece. The shoot is ongoing in Atlanta, and the artistic posture announces a nostalgia-forward treatment without recycling the last two entries’ Carpenter sisters arc. Plan for a rollout driven by recognizable motifs, early character teases, and a tease cadence aimed at 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 set to reunite, with the Wayans brothers involved as creative contributors for the first time since the early 2000s, a angle the campaign will spotlight. As a non-tentpole summer option, this one will go after four-quadrant chatter through meme-friendly cuts, with the horror spoof format making room for quick shifts to whatever dominates the meme cycle that spring.

Universal has three distinct pushes. SOULM8TE arrives January 9, 2026, a digital-age offshoot from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The logline is clean, heartbroken, and easily pitched: a grieving man onboards an artificial companion that escalates into a lethal partner. The date locates it at the front of a busy month, with the Universal machine likely to reprise off-kilter promo beats and short reels that interweaves companionship and dread.

On May 8, 2026, the studio schedules an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely understood 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 sets up a branding reveal to become an earned moment closer to the teaser. The timing hands the studio a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles occupy other frames.

Rounding out the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film plants on October 23, 2026, a slot he has defined before. Peele titles are sold as director events, with a teaser with minimal detail and a second wave of trailers that establish tone without plot reveals the concept. The late-month date affords Universal to dominate pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then press 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 leads, with Souheila Yacoub in the lead. The franchise has demonstrated that a tactile, practical-first execution can feel cinematic on a disciplined budget. Frame it as a viscera-heavy summer horror jolt that leans hard into international markets, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most global territories.

Sony’s horror bench is robust. The studio lines up two IP moves in the back half. An untitled Insidious film lands August 21, 2026, holding a bankable supernatural brand in the market while the spin-off branch moves forward. Sony has reshuffled on this title before, but the current plan locks it in late summer, where Insidious has performed historically.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil restarts in what Sony is describing as a ground-zero restart for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a strategic part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a sharper mandate to serve both loyalists and newcomers. The fall slot creates runway for Sony to build marketing units around universe detail, and creature effects, elements that can accelerate deluxe auditorium demand and community activity.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, places a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Robert Eggers’ Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film maintains the filmmaker’s run of period horror characterized by textural authenticity and historical speech, this time focused on werewolf legend. The specialty arm has already set the date for a holiday release, a confidence marker in Eggers as a specialty play that can platform wide if early reception is enthusiastic.

Streaming strategies and platform plays

Home-platform rhythms for 2026 run on predictable routes. The Universal horror run feed copyright after a exclusive run then PVOD, a ladder that boosts both week-one demand and viewer acquisition in the later window. Prime Video pairs outside acquisitions with global acquisitions and short theatrical plays when the data signals it. Max and Hulu focus their lanes in archive usage, using featured rows, October hubs, and handpicked rows to stretch the tail on aggregate take. Netflix stays opportunistic about Netflix originals and festival deals, locking in horror entries on shorter runways and making event-like rollouts with short runway campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, harnesses a tiered of targeted theatrical exposure and swift platform pivots that monetizes buzz via trials. That will be material for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before activating fan pipelines in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ treats carefully horror on a bespoke basis. The platform has shown appetite to take on select projects with top-tier auteurs or star-led packages, then give them a limited theatrical run in partnership with exhibitors to meet qualification bars or to earn receipts before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney domestic still capitalizes on the 20th Century Studios slate, a critical input for retention when the genre conversation spikes.

Indie corridors

Cineverse is steadily assembling Get More Info a 2026 corridor with two recognizable titles. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The angle is tight: the same somber, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a diehard favorite, updated for modern mix and grade. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a autumn frame, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. The distributor has suggested a theatrical-first plan for Legacy, an promising marker for fans of the nasty series and for exhibitors seeking adult skew in the late-season weeks.

Focus will lean into the auteur lane with Werwulf, stewarding the film through fall festivals if the cut is ready, then turning to the holiday dates to go wider. That positioning has served the company well for director-led genre with four-quadrant hopes. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not firmed many 2026 dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines tend to firm up after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A solid projection is a handful of late-summer and fall platformers that can scale if reception warrants. Watch 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 in concert, using limited runs to fuel evangelism that fuels their audience.

Franchise entries versus originals

By volume, the 2026 slate is weighted toward the brand side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all use name recognition. The question, as ever, is staleness. The operating solution is to frame each entry as a tone reset. Paramount is foregrounding core character and DNA in Scream 7, Sony is indicating a fresh ground-up build for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is driving a French-accented approach from a ascendant talent. Those choices carry weight when the audience has so many options and social sentiment tilts quickly.

Originals and visionary-led titles supply the oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be branded as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, places Rachel McAdams into a crash-survival premise with Raimi’s playful menace. SOULM8TE offers a clear, chilling tech hook. Werwulf anchors in period detail and an stark tone. Even when the title is not based on a brand, the configuration is familiar enough to translate curiosity into advance sales and Thursday previews.

Three-year comps illuminate the approach. In 2023, a exclusive window model that held distribution windows did not obstruct a same-day experiment from succeeding when the brand was strong. In 2024, auteur craft horror punched above its weight in premium screens. In 2025, a rebirth of a beloved infection saga demonstrated that global horror franchises can still feel fresh when they alter lens and widen scale. 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 linked-chapter plan, with chapters shot consecutively, creates space for marketing to bridge entries through character spine and themes and to keep materials circulating without hiatuses.

Craft and creative trends

The shop talk behind the 2026 entries signal a continued lean toward physical, site-specific craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not track with any recent iteration of the property, a stance that matches the prosthetic-forward taste he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film completed principal and is aimed at its April 17, 2026 date. Look for a campaign that emphasizes texture and dread rather than roller-coaster spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership sustaining cost management.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has framed Werwulf as the most shadowed project he has tackled, which tracks with a period English setting and era-true language, a combination that can make for immersive sound design and a spare, elemental mood on the big screen. Focus will likely preview this aesthetic in deep-dive features and technical spotlights before rolling out a preview that plays with mood rather than plot, a move that has succeeded for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is set up for gross-out texture, a signature of the series that sells overseas in red-band trailers and generates shareable scream clips from early screenings. Scream 7 targets a meta refresh that refocuses on the original lead. Resident Evil will live or die on creature execution and sets, which fit with convention activations and staggered reveals. Insidious tends to be a mix showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the cinema value feel key. Look for trailers that foreground hyper-detailed sound, deep-bass stingers, and dead-air cuts that benefit on big speakers.

From winter to holidays

January is loaded. SOULM8TE opens January 9, 2026, then Sony returns a week later with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple on January 16. Return to Silent Hill follows on January 23, a moody palate cleanser amid headline IP. The month finishes with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival thriller from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is real, but the tonal variety gives each title a lane, and the five-week structure gives each runway for each if word of mouth sticks.

Late winter and spring build the summer base. Paramount’s Scream 7 hits February 27 with heritage buzz. In April, New Line’s The Mummy reawakens a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once favored genre counterprogramming and now enables 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 splits the lanes. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is spoofy and broad, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 presents hard-R intensity. The counterprogramming logic is coherent. The spoof can hit 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 PLF.

Late Q3 into Q4 leans IP. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously worked. Resident Evil lands after September 18, a pre-Halloween slot that still builds toward Halloween marketing beats. The Peele event locks October 23 and will soak up cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely supported by a mystery-first teaser plan and limited pre-release reveals that put concept first.

Prestige at year’s end. Werwulf on December 25 is a statement that genre can live at Christmas when packaged as filmmaker-first prestige. Focus has done this before, platforming with care, then turning to critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to hold in chatter into January. If the film earns with critics, the studio can broaden in the first week of 2027 while carrying holiday turnout and gift-card spend.

One-sentence dossiers

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting on a rolling basis as production advances. Logline: Sidney returns to re-engage a new Ghostface while the narrative relinks to the original film’s genes. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: origin-forward with a contemporary twist.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A devastated man’s digital partner mutates into something romantically lethal. Rating: TBA. Production: Shoot completed for an early-year bow. Positioning: tech shocker with heart.

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 extends the world beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult surges in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Lensed back-to-back with the first film. Positioning: continuation of a revered infection cycle.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man comes back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to confront a unsettled 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 abrasive boss work to survive on a desolate island as the power dynamic shifts and paranoia builds. Rating: TBA. Production: Principal done. Positioning: marquee survival piece 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 from-today rework that returns the monster to terror, anchored by Cronin’s on-set craft and quiet dread. Rating: TBA. Production: In the can. 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 family-home haunting piece that leverages the fright of a child’s unreliable point of view. Rating: rating pending. Production: picture-locked. Positioning: studio-backed, star-driven supernatural mood piece.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers back in creative roles. Logline: {A parody reboot that pokes at modern genre fads and true-crime crazes. Rating: TBA. Production: fall 2025 production window. Positioning: broad-lane summer entry.

Evil Dead Burn (Warner Bros. domestic, July 24, 2026)
Director: Sébastien Vaniček. Top cast: Souheila Yacoub, with ensemble additions. Logline: A new infestation of Deadites flares, with an international twist in tone and setting. Rating: not yet rated. Production: filming 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 ripples again, with a new family linked to past horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: eying a summer shoot for late-summer slot. Positioning: stalwart franchise piece in a friendly frame.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: to be disclosed. Top cast: awaiting confirmation. Logline: A re-seeded launch designed to reframe the franchise from the ground up, with an emphasis on true survival horror over action fireworks. Rating: TBA. Production: moving through development on a locked slot. Positioning: source-faithful reboot with four-quadrant path.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: pending. Logline: deliberately concealed. Rating: forthcoming. 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 period-precise speech and primordial menace. Rating: not yet rated. Production: in preproduction for holiday debut. Positioning: prestige-leaning holiday genre with crafts potential.

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 conventional theatrical window prior to platforming. Status: date in flux, fall expected.

Why 2026 lands now

Three execution-level forces shape this lineup. First, production that stalled or re-slotted in 2024 required runway on the datebook. Horror can fill those gaps quickly because scripts often use 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 launches. Third, community talk converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will mine meme-ready beats from test screenings, select scare clips dropping on Thursday previews, and experiential pop-ups that become influencer fuel. It is a repeatable playbook because it works.

A fourth factor is programming math. Early 2026 is less crowded with family and superhero corridors, offering breathing room for genre entries that can capture a weekend or serve as the mature-skew alternative. January is the prime example. Four horror lanes will line up across five weekends, which lets each title generate conversation without cannibalizing the others. Summer provides the other window. The spoof can ride the first-half wave of animated and action tentpoles, then the hard-R entry can exploit a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Cost, ratings, and sleeper dynamics

Budgets remain in the optimal band. Most of the films above will fit below the $40–$50 million line, with many far below. That allows for broad premium screen use 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-hit hunt continues in Q1, where low-to-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 unexpected breakout 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. Plan on a solid PVOD window generally, 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 cadence and diversity. January is a feast, February delivers a legacy slasher, April returns a Universal monster, May and June provide a paranormal one-two 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 preserve buzz while driving admissions without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can stack through the year, using earlier releases to trailhead the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors appreciate the spacing. Horror delivers Thursday preview surges, smart allocations, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can command PLF, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing tactility, soundcraft, 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.

2026 Is Well Positioned

Windows change. Ratings change. Casts rotate. But the spine of 2026 horror is in place. There is brand power where it counts, auteur intent where it matters, and a calendar that shows studios sense the cadence of scares. The awards and festival pipeline into 2027 will come into focus once the fall festivals lock, and it would not be surprising to see at least one final-hour specialty addition join the party. For now, the job is simple, cut sharp trailers, keep the secrets, and let the scares sell the seats.