Age-old Terror rises: Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a spine tingling horror feature, bowing Oct 2025 on major streaming services

One eerie paranormal horror tale from author / helmer Andrew Chiaramonte, evoking an forgotten entity when newcomers become subjects in a cursed experiment. Premiering October 2, 2025, on Prime Video, video-sharing site YouTube, Google’s Play platform, Apple’s iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango on-demand.

Hollywood, CA (August 8, 2025) – be warned for *Young & Cursed*, a nerve-wracking account of resilience and old world terror that will reimagine genre cinema this season. Crafted by rising director to watch Andrew Chiaramonte, this tense and gothic tale follows five teens who regain consciousness isolated in a unreachable wooden structure under the unfriendly control of Kyra, a mysterious girl consumed by a ancient sacred-era entity. Ready yourself to be shaken by a immersive spectacle that melds raw fear with mystical narratives, debuting on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Unholy possession has been a iconic theme in film. In *Young & Cursed*, that formula is challenged when the malevolences no longer manifest from an outside force, but rather from their psyche. This represents the most sinister layer of the cast. The result is a intense mind game where the tension becomes a unyielding clash between divinity and wickedness.


In a abandoned woodland, five individuals find themselves imprisoned under the dark presence and overtake of a enigmatic person. As the survivors becomes helpless to withstand her dominion, severed and pursued by terrors mind-shattering, they are confronted to wrestle with their core terrors while the final hour without pause draws closer toward their death.


In *Young & Cursed*, paranoia rises and partnerships collapse, demanding each character to reflect on their personhood and the idea of self-determination itself. The danger accelerate with every second, delivering a nerve-wracking journey that weaves together otherworldly panic with human fear.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my objective was to awaken elemental fright, an threat from ancient eras, working through human fragility, and exposing a presence that tests the soul when will is shattered.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Transforming into Kyra involved tapping into something darker than pain. She is in denial until the haunting manifests, and that transformation is deeply unsettling because it is so raw.”

Release & Availability

*Young & Cursed* will be brought for on-demand beginning on October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon Prime, Google’s video hub, Google Play, iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango at Home—offering customers everywhere can dive into this horror showcase.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just shared a new follow-up preview for *Young & Cursed*, streaming to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a follow up to its release of trailer #1, which has seen over massive response.


In addition to its first availability, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has revealed that *Young & Cursed* will also be taken worldwide, taking the terror to scare fans abroad.


Avoid skipping this bone-rattling journey into fear. Enter *Young & Cursed* this day of reckoning to see these unholy truths about existence.


For director insights, filmmaker commentary, and promotions from the story's source, follow @YoungAndCursedMovie across your favorite networks and visit our horror hub.





U.S. horror’s Turning Point: the year 2025 U.S. lineup weaves legend-infused possession, independent shockers, together with returning-series thunder

Running from survivor-centric dread inspired by old testament echoes and stretching into installment follow-ups as well as focused festival visions, 2025 is lining up as the most complex combined with tactically planned year in a decade.

It is loaded, and also intentionally sequenced. Top studios bookend the months by way of signature titles, at the same time streamers stack the fall with emerging auteurs as well as primordial unease. In the indie lane, the independent cohort is catching the afterglow from a high-water 2024 festival stretch. As Halloween remains the genre’s crown jewel, the surrounding weeks are charted with intent. A fat September–October lane is customary now, distinctly in 2025, horror is also claiming January, spring, and even mid-summer. Viewers are hungry, studios are methodical, and 2025 is positioned to be the most designed season yet.

Studio Playbook and Mini-Major Tactics: Prestige-leaning dread rebounds

The studios are not sitting idle. If 2024 planted the seeds, 2025 deepens the push.

Universal’s schedule opens the year with a headline swing: a reinterpreted Wolf Man, leaving behind the period European setting, in a clear present-tense world. Directed by Leigh Whannell featuring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this pass grounds the lycanthropy in household collapse. The evolution surpasses the body, into spouses, parents, and bruised humanity. dated for mid January, it is part of the new strategy to own the box office’s winter dead zone with prestige horror instead of dumping ground thrillers.

In spring, Clown in a Cornfield lands, a YA slasher conversion presented as stripped terror. Helmed by Eli Craig and featuring Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it plays as blood lacquered Americana with satire under the paint. Behind its clown mask lies commentary on small town paranoia, generational divides, and mob justice. Early circuit chatter says it has bite.

When summer fades, Warner’s pipeline drops the final chapter from its bankable horror series: The Conjuring: Last Rites. Farmiga and Wilson return as the Warrens, the installment promises emotional closure while taking on one of the duo’s most infamous real life cases. While the template is known, Chaves is guiding toward a solemn, meditative finish. It goes early September, easing the path before October flood.

Then comes The Black Phone 2. Originally slated for early summer, its move to an October release suggests confidence. Derrickson returns to the helm, and the defining traits of the first sleeper return: retrograde shiver, trauma as text, paired with unsettling supernatural order. This pass pushes higher, with more excavation of the “grabber” canon and family hauntings.

Rounding out the big ticket releases is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a franchise that brings its own crowd. The new chapter enriches the lore, builds out the animatronic fear crew, bridging teens and legacy players. It lands in December, securing the winter cap.

SVOD Originals: Tight funds, wide impact

With theaters prioritizing brand safety, platforms are embracing risk, and engagement climbs.

A flagship risky title is Weapons, a cold case horror anthology that weaves together three timelines connected by a mass disappearance. Steered by Zach Cregger including Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the piece merges terror with dramatic mass. Opening theatrically late summer ahead of fall SVOD, it should ignite online discourse and post viewing breakdowns, much like Barbarian.

In the micro chamber lane is Together, a two hander body horror spiral led by Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Set in a remote rental home during a getaway gone wrong, the movie follows love and envy and self denial into corporeal breakdown. It feels intimate, ghastly, and profoundly uneasy, a three part fall into codependent hell. Even without a formal platform date, it is tracking toward an autumn slot.

Then there is Sinners, a 1930s period vampire folk story led by Michael B. Jordan. Photographed in sepia saturation with biblical metaphor, it feels like There Will Be Blood fused with Let the Right One In. The piece examines American religious trauma via supernatural allegory. Initial test audience notes point to a buzzy streaming debut.

A cluster of streaming indies sits ready: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper all work grief and disappearance and identity, choosing meaning over noise.

Deep Possession Currents: Young & Cursed

Hitting October 2 on the platforms, Young & Cursed arrives as a rare marriage, contained in staging yet mythic in effect. Scripted and led by Andrew Chiaramonte, the release shadows five strangers waking in a hidden woods cabin, bound to Kyra, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. With nightfall, Kyra’s power deepens, an invasive force mining their most secret fears, frailties, and regrets.

The terror is psychological in engine, alive with primal myth. Swerving the standard exorcism angle of Catholic rite and Latin word, this one bores into something older, something darker. Lilith comes not via liturgy, but from trauma, quiet, and human brittleness. An inward possession, not an outward spell, turns the trope and sets Young & Cursed inside a widening trend, intimate character work housed in genre.

Platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home position the film as a Halloween counter to sequel heavy theatricals and monster revivals. It is canny scheduling. No bloated canon. No brand fatigue. Sheer psychological unease, compact and taut, calibrated to digital binge beats. With a spectacle heavy year, Young & Cursed may pop by going quiet, then screaming.

Festivals as Springboards

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF act as proving grounds for the next waves. This cycle, they are launchpads first and showcases second.

This year’s Fantastic Fest has already confirmed a strong horror lineup. Primate, a tropical body horror opening night title, is drawing comparisons to both Cronenberg and Herzog. Whistle, a folkloric revenge piece in Aztec lore, likely shuts the fest with heat.

The midnight bench, including If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, hums from execution, not mere titling. Backed by A24, it skewers toxic fandom amid a convention lockdown, poised to break big.

SXSW premiered Clown in a Cornfield and surfaced several microbudget hauntings that circle deals. Sundance likely lifts another batch of grief laced elevated horror, with Tribeca’s genre lane skewing urban, social, and surreal.

The festival game increasingly values branding over mere discovery. Laurels now light the fuse, they do not just adorn.

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. Compared to earlier parts, it tilts camp and prom night melodrama. Cue tiaras, phony blood, and VHS panic.

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

The Long Walk, from an early and searing Stephen King work, is inbound, under Francis Lawrence, it stands as a punishing dystopian allegory wearing survival horror, a march until death with no victors. With a precise angle, it could mirror The Hunger Games for adults in horror.

Meanwhile, reboots and sequels like Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda appear through the year, many poised for targeted windows or last minute deals.

Trend Lines

Mythic Horror Is Mainstream
Lilith in Young & Cursed plus Aztec curses in Whistle highlight ancient texts and symbols. Rather than nostalgia, it reclaims pre Christian archetypes. Horror surpasses shocks, it recalls evil’s antiquity.

Body horror swings back
Entries like Together, Weapons, and Keeper shift back to flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation encode heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Originals on platforms bite harder
Disposable horror filler days on platforms have passed. Streamers are investing in real scripts, real directors, and real marketing pushes. Drops such as Weapons and Sinners arrive as events, not as catalog.

Festival buzz converts to leverage
Festival ribbons become currency for better windows and top shelves. Without a festival strategy in 2025, a horror film risks vanishing.

Theatrical becomes a trust fall
Studios hold theatrical for overperformers or future series seeds. Other titles pivot PVOD or hybrid. Horror persists theatrically, in curated lanes.

Forecast: 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 including Bone Lake and Keeper will wrestle for room. Keep an eye on possible slips into early 2026 or platform flips.

With Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 in December, a stealth streamer drop might pop near year end. With mythic energy high, a late creature or exorcism entry could pop.

What matters is slate breadth meeting fractured audiences, not one crown jewel. The brief is not the next Get Out, it is horror with afterlife beyond receipts.



The approaching scare calendar year ahead: next chapters, filmmaker-first projects, and also A Crowded Calendar aimed at frights

Dek The incoming horror year builds from day one with a January glut, then unfolds through midyear, and deep into the holiday frame, mixing brand equity, fresh ideas, and calculated counter-scheduling. The big buyers and platforms are doubling down on tight budgets, cinema-first plans, and social-driven marketing that elevate these releases into broad-appeal conversations.

The landscape of horror in 2026

The horror marketplace has shown itself to be the predictable counterweight in programming grids, a space that can lift when it resonates and still buffer the exposure when it falls short. After the 2023 year showed greenlighters that modestly budgeted genre plays can galvanize mainstream conversation, the following year held pace with auteur-driven buzzy films and slow-burn breakouts. The momentum pushed into 2025, where reawakened brands and arthouse crossovers proved there is an opening for several lanes, from series extensions to fresh IP that travel well. The net effect for the 2026 slate is a schedule that reads highly synchronized across studios, with clear date clusters, a equilibrium of known properties and first-time concepts, and a recommitted priority on box-office windows that amplify PVOD and streaming on premium digital and streaming.

Studio leaders note the space now serves as a utility player on the schedule. The genre can debut on most weekends, supply a tight logline for teasers and reels, and overperform with moviegoers that show up on opening previews and stay strong through the second frame if the film delivers. Coming out of a strike-delayed pipeline, the 2026 setup reflects confidence in that equation. The year begins with a heavy January run, then taps spring and early summer for counterprogramming, while reserving space for a autumn stretch that stretches into the fright window and beyond. The gridline also underscores the ongoing integration of boutique distributors and streamers that can develop over weeks, create conversation, and roll out at the timely point.

A notable top-line trend is franchise tending across interlocking continuities and heritage properties. Big banners are not just releasing another sequel. They are working to present lineage with a specialness, whether that is a art treatment that conveys a new tone or a casting choice that links a new entry to a initial period. At the concurrently, the directors behind the most buzzed-about originals are celebrating real-world builds, real effects and vivid settings. That fusion hands the 2026 slate a healthy mix of recognition and invention, which is what works overseas.

How the majors and mini-majors are programming

Paramount leads early with two prominent plays that span tone from serious to silly. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with original architect Kevin Williamson in the director position and Neve Campbell back at the spine, signaling it as both a lineage transfer and a heritage-centered character study. Production is active in Atlanta, and the directional approach announces a roots-evoking treatment without looping the last two entries’ Carpenter-sisters arc. Count on a promo wave anchored in classic imagery, initial cast looks, and a trailer cadence rolling toward late fall. Distribution is theatrical through Paramount.

Paramount also resurrects 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 in creative roles for the first time since the early 2000s, a angle the campaign will foreground. As a counterweight in summer, this one will generate mainstream recognition through joke-first clips, with the horror spoof format enabling quick reframes to whatever leads trend lines that spring.

Universal has three clear strategies. SOULM8TE premieres January 9, 2026, a tie-in spinoff from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The story engine is clean, soulful, and big-hook: a grieving man sets up an synthetic partner that escalates into a murderous partner. The date places it at the front of a competition-heavy month, with Universal’s team likely to mirror odd public stunts and brief clips that interweaves companionship and dread.

On May 8, 2026, the studio lines up an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely considered the feature developed under internal titles in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The official release calendar currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which preserves a proper title to become an teaser payoff closer to the first look. The timing gives the studio a foothold in early May while larger tentpoles circle other weekends.

Closing out the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film claims October 23, 2026, a slot he has excelled in before. Peele’s releases are presented as auteur events, with a hinting teaser and a subsequent trailers that define feel without revealing the concept. The pre-Halloween slot lets the studio to fill pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then use the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, links with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček heads, with Souheila Yacoub headlining. The franchise has shown that a visceral, practical-effects forward strategy can feel deluxe on a tight budget. Position this as a viscera-heavy summer horror hit that maximizes international play, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most foreign territories.

Sony’s horror bench is notably deep. The studio books two name-brand pushes in the back half. An untitled Insidious film rolls out August 21, 2026, holding a bankable supernatural brand alive while the spin-off branch incubates. The studio has reshuffled on this title before, but the current plan anchors it in late summer, where the brand has long performed.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil re-enters in what the studio is marketing as a new take for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a primary part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a mission to serve both players and curious audiences. The fall slot offers Sony space to build materials around canon, and creature builds, elements that can drive deluxe auditorium demand and community activity.

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 continues the filmmaker’s run of period horror characterized by historical precision and dialect, this time set against lycan legends. The imprint has already reserved the holiday for a holiday release, a bold stance in the auteur as a specialty play that can grow wide if early reception is strong.

SVOD and PVOD rhythms

Platform plans for 2026 run on proven patterns. Universal’s releases transition to copyright after a cinema-first plus PVOD, a sequence that amplifies both premiere heat and subscriber lifts in the downstream. Prime Video will mix licensed content with worldwide buys and qualifying theatrical engagements when the data encourages it. Max and Hulu focus their lanes in deep cuts, using seasonal hubs, seasonal hubs, and programmed rows to keep attention on the year’s genre earnings. Netflix stays nimble about own-slate titles and festival pickups, slotting horror entries toward the drop and positioning as event drops drops with compressed campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, capitalizes on a paired of targeted theatrical exposure and quick platforming that funnels enthusiasm into trials. That will be critical for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before pivoting to horror-fan channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ assesses case by case horror on a title-by-title basis. The platform has indicated interest to pick up select projects with prestige directors or star-driven packages, then give them a modest theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet awards eligibility or to create word of mouth before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still benefits from the 20th Century Studios slate, a notable driver for sustained usage when the genre conversation surges.

Specialized lanes

Cineverse is engineering a 2026 corridor with two IP plays. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The pitch is straightforward: the same somber, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult item, recalibrated for modern mix and grade. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a fall frame, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. Cineverse has indicated a traditional theatrical plan for Legacy, an promising marker for fans of the relentless series and for exhibitors seeking darker fare in the September weeks.

Focus will cultivate the auteur lane with Werwulf, marshalling the project through festivals in the fall if the cut is ready, then relying on the Christmas window to scale. That positioning has helped for director-led genre with award possibilities. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not locked many 2026-specific horror dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines commonly finalize after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A credible outlook is a cluster of late-summer and fall platformers that can break out if reception drives. Anticipate 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 hand in hand, using targeted theatrical to seed evangelism that fuels their user base.

Legacy titles versus originals

By skew, the 2026 slate tilts in favor of the brand-heavy side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all leverage marquee value. The watch-out, as ever, is overexposure. The preferred tactic is to market each entry as a renewed feel. Paramount is emphasizing core character and DNA in Scream 7, Sony is promising a full reset for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is leading with a French-inflected take from a fresh helmer. Those choices count when the audience has so many options and social sentiment shifts fast.

Non-franchise titles and auteur plays bring 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, casts Rachel McAdams in a island-set survival premise with Raimi’s signature playful menace. SOULM8TE offers a sharp, spooky tech hook. Werwulf grounds itself in period and an stark tone. Even when the title is not based on a brand, the configuration is familiar enough to turn curiosity into pre-sales and advance-audience nights.

Rolling three-year comps help explain the template. In 2023, a exclusive window model that maintained windows did not preclude a day-date try from working when the brand was strong. In 2024, meticulous-craft horror punched above its weight in big-format auditoriums. In 2025, a resuscitation of a beloved infection saga reminded the market that global horror franchises can still feel renewed when they reorient and grow scope. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which carries on January 16, 2026 with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, this time directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. The back-to-back plan, with chapters shot consecutively, builds a path for marketing to cross-link entries through protagonists and motifs and to leave creative active without hiatuses.

How the films are being made

The production chatter behind these films suggest a continued lean toward tactile, place-driven craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not follow any recent iteration of the property, a stance that aligns with the hands-on effects stance he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film finished principal and is tracking toward its April 17, 2026 date. The push will likely that leans on tone and tension rather than theme-park spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership backing financial discipline.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has spoken of Werwulf as the most forbidding project he has tackled, which tracks with a feudal backdrop and archaic dialect, a combination that can make for sonic immersion and a austere, elemental atmosphere on the big screen. Focus will likely pre-sell this aesthetic in trade spotlights and craft spotlights before rolling out a tone piece that elevates tone over story, a move that has resonated for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is engineered for red-band excess, a signature of the series that plays abroad in red-band trailers and produces shareable audience clips from early screenings. Scream 7 targets a meta recalibration that centers an original star. Resident Evil will live or die on monster aesthetics and world-building, which align with booth activations and staggered reveals. Insidious tends to be a sound-mix showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the in-theater case feel key. Look for trailers that center pinpoint sound design, 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 gloomy counterbalance amid bigger brand plays. The month concludes with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival-horror from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is stiff, but the spread of tones affords lanes to each, and the five-week structure offers clean runway for each if word of mouth carries.

Q1 into Q2 set up the summer. Scream 7 arrives February 27 with nostalgia energy. In April, The Mummy reintroduces a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once was aligned with genre counterprogramming and now enables big openers. The untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 hands off to 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 jokier and broader, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 unleashes no-compromise intensity. The counterprogramming logic is tight. The spoof can deliver next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest hits squarely for older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have finished their premium pass.

Shoulder season into fall leans brand. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously worked. Resident Evil arrives after September 18, a transitional slot that still connects to Halloween marketing beats. Jordan Peele’s untitled film takes October 23 and will engross cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely reinforced by a slow-reveal plan and limited advance reveals that stress concept over spoilers.

Holiday corridor prestige. Werwulf on December 25 is a position that genre can compete at Christmas when packaged as awards-flirting horror. Focus has done this before, platforming with care, then pressing critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to linger in conversation into January. If the film earns with critics, the studio can scale in the first week of 2027 while building on holiday impulse and gift-card use.

One-sentence dossiers

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting on a rolling basis as production carries on. Logline: Sidney returns to counter a new Ghostface while the narrative re-keys to the original film’s genome. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming in Atlanta. Positioning: legacy reset with a modern edge.

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic useful reference Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A bereaved man’s virtual companion turns into something deadly romantic. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed principal photography for an early-year bow. Positioning: tech-horror with an emotional core.

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 expands the scope beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult coalesces in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Filmed consecutively with the first film. Positioning: next step of a prestige infection saga.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man finds his way back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to meet a unsettled reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed with U.S. theatrical distribution secured. Positioning: atmospheric game 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 difficult boss try to survive on a lonely island as the control balance upends and paranoia spreads. Rating: TBA. Production: Shoot complete. 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 confidential in official materials. Logline: A renewed vision that returns the monster to nightmare, rooted in Cronin’s practical effects and quiet dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Locked. Positioning: monster revival with signature voice.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A in-home haunting tale that pipes the unease through a youth’s uncertain internal vantage. Rating: pending. Production: fully shot. Positioning: studio-backed, star-driven occult suspense.

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 satirical comeback that lampoons hot-button genre motifs and true crime preoccupations. Rating: undetermined. 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 erupts, with an international twist in tone and setting. Rating: TBA. Production: lensing in New Zealand. Positioning: R-forward continuation crafted for PLF.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: unrevealed for now. Top cast: awaiting confirmation. Logline: The Further ripples again, with a different family linked to old terrors. Rating: not yet rated. Production: eying a summer shoot for late-summer slot. Positioning: dependable ghost-franchise slot that suits the brand.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: awaiting public disclosure. Top cast: TBA. Logline: A new start designed to re-engineer the franchise from the ground up, with an emphasis on classic survival-horror tone over action-forward bombast. Rating: TBA. Production: in active development with set date. Positioning: game-faithful modern reboot with crossover potential.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: TBA. Logline: deliberately concealed. Rating: TBD. Production: underway. 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-specific language and ancient menace. Rating: awaiting classification. Production: building toward Christmas Day opening. 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 conventional theatrical window prior to platforming. Status: window fluid, autumn forecast.

Why the calendar favors 2026

Three grounded forces organize this lineup. First, production that slowed or re-slotted in 2024 required schedule breathing room. Horror can bridge those gaps quickly because scripts often demand fewer locations, fewer large-scale effects sequences, and leaner schedules. Second, studios have become more methodical about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently out-earned straight-to-streaming drops. Third, viral talk converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will mine turnkey scare beats from test screenings, orchestrated scare clips calibrated to Thursday preview timing, and experiential pop-ups that serve as influencer content. It is a repeatable playbook because it works.

Factor four is the scheduling calculus. Family and cape-heavy lanes thin out in early 2026, providing runway for genre entries that can command a weekend or stand as the older-leaning counter. January is the prime example. Four distinct flavors of horror will cluster across five weekends, which lets WOM accrue cleanly. Summer provides the other window. The spoof can ride the first-half wave of animated and action tentpoles, then the hard-R entry can use a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Business view: budgets, ratings, sleeper chase

Budgets remain in the Goldilocks zone. Most of the films above will sit beneath the $40–$50 million band, 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 underdog chase continues in Q1, where midrange-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 exploit those windows. 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. Count on a vigorous PVOD arc overall, since horror fans have shown a willingness to pay for convenience after an opening weekend, especially when word of mouth is strong.

From viewer POV, the year

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers momentum and variety. January is a sampler, February delivers a legacy slasher, April revives a Universal monster, May and June provide a supernatural one-two for date nights and group outings, July leans brutal, August and September keep the supernatural momentum, October turns into a Jordan Peele event, and December invites a bleak, literate nightmare. That is how you hold talk and turnout without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can stack through the year, using earlier releases to set up the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors appreciate the spacing. Horror delivers frequent Thursday-night spikes, disciplined footprints, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can justify premium screens, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing detail, sound, and visuals 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, Ready To Roar

Release dates move. Ratings change. Casts shift. But the spine of 2026 horror is intact. There is brand gravity where needed, original vision 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-stage specialty acquisition join the party. For now, the job is simple, shape lean trailers, preserve the surprise, and let the screams sell the seats.