Primordial Evil Ascends in Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a nightmare fueled supernatural thriller, streaming Oct 2025 on premium platforms

An hair-raising spiritual suspense film from dramatist / auteur Andrew Chiaramonte, setting free an long-buried force when passersby become tools in a devilish conflict. Debuting this October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube, Google’s digital store, iTunes Movies, Apple TV+, and Fandango’s digital service.

Hollywood, CA (August 8, 2025) – gear up for *Young & Cursed*, a disturbing episode of perseverance and age-old darkness that will revolutionize horror this October. Brought to life by rising thriller expert Andrew Chiaramonte, this harrowing and tone-heavy thriller follows five teens who find themselves caught in a unreachable cottage under the ominous influence of Kyra, a female presence dominated by a two-thousand-year-old scriptural evil. Arm yourself to be gripped by a theatrical ride that unites bodily fright with timeless legends, premiering on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Demonic control has been a classic theme in genre filmmaking. In *Young & Cursed*, that pattern is subverted when the monsters no longer come outside the characters, but rather from their core. This depicts the most primal corner of all involved. The result is a bone-chilling moral showdown where the intensity becomes a constant fight between light and darkness.


In a isolated backcountry, five friends find themselves imprisoned under the ghastly influence and haunting of a obscure apparition. As the ensemble becomes vulnerable to oppose her rule, disconnected and preyed upon by entities inconceivable, they are thrust to face their deepest fears while the seconds relentlessly ticks toward their end.


In *Young & Cursed*, anxiety deepens and links shatter, requiring each protagonist to scrutinize their personhood and the idea of decision-making itself. The cost escalate with every short lapse, delivering a paranormal ride that connects demonic fright with emotional fragility.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my purpose was to draw upon pure dread, an force older than civilization itself, filtering through emotional vulnerability, and questioning a force that tests the soul when robbed of choice.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Portraying Kyra was about accessing something beneath mortal despair. She is insensitive until the takeover begins, and that transition is bone-chilling because it is so close.”

Platform Access

*Young & Cursed* will be released for audience access beginning October 2, 2025, on Amazon’s platform, YouTube, Google Play, Apple iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango on-demand—so that watchers anywhere can dive into this unholy film.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just rolled out a new official preview for *Young & Cursed*, currently showing to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a sequel to its intro video, which has garnered over a viral response.


In addition to its US/Canada launch, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has stated that *Young & Cursed* will also be streamed globally, exporting the fear to horror fans worldwide.


Don’t miss this life-altering exploration of dread. Confront *Young & Cursed* this October 2 to dive into these dark realities about the human condition.


For sneak peeks, production insights, and alerts directly from production, follow @YoungAndCursedMovie across social media and visit the official website.





The horror genre’s sea change: the 2025 season U.S. lineup Mixes primeval-possession lore, indie terrors, alongside franchise surges

Kicking off with survivor-centric dread inspired by primordial scripture through to series comebacks and pointed art-house angles, 2025 is emerging as the most dimensioned and carefully orchestrated year since the mid-2010s.

The 2025 horror calendar is more than crowded, it is calculated. the big studios bookend the months with familiar IP, in tandem premium streamers front-load the fall with emerging auteurs and scriptural shivers. On another front, the independent cohort is drafting behind the backdraft from a record 2024 festival run. With Halloween still the genre’s crown piece, the rest of the calendar is filling out with surgical precision. The fall stretch is the proving field, but this year, strategies include January, spring, and mid-summer. Viewers are hungry, studios are disciplined, which means 2025 may prove the most strategically arranged season.

Major and Mini-Major Maneuvers: Premium dread reemerges

The upper tier is moving decisively. If 2024 prepared the terrain, 2025 scales the plan.

the Universal banner opens the year with a headline swing: a modernized Wolf Man, stepping away from the classic old-country village, instead in a current-day frame. Shepherded by Leigh Whannell featuring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this pass grounds the lycanthropy in household collapse. The curse reads as bodily and relational, about spouses, parents, and people. Slated for mid January, it fits the new plan to claim winter’s soft window with prestige horror rather than castoffs.

By spring, Clown in a Cornfield premieres, a YA slasher adaptation turned minimalist horror show. From director Eli Craig anchored by Katie Douglas and Kevin Durand, it plays as blood lacquered Americana with satire under the paint. Under the costume, it needles small town fear, cross generational rifts, and crowd punishment. Initial heat flags it as potent.

By late summer, Warner’s slate sets loose the finale within its surest horror brand: The Conjuring: Last Rites. With Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson returning as Ed and Lorraine Warren, the finale seeks an emotional close via a signature case. While the template is known, Chaves seems to angle for a plaintive, inward final note. It sits in early September, securing daylight before October saturation.

After that, The Black Phone 2. First targeted at early summer, the move into October reads bullish. Derrickson re boards, and the hallmarks that turned the first into a sleeper reappear: vintage toned fear, trauma centered writing, paired with unsettling supernatural order. This pass pushes higher, with added layers to the “grabber” frame and long memory of loss.

Rounding the tentpole corner is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a property whose brand does the lifting. The follow up digs further into canon, enlarges the animatronic menagerie, seeking teens plus thirty something gamers. It books December, pinning the winter close.

Platform Originals: Slim budgets, major punch

While cinemas swing on series strength, streamers are swinging risk forward, and returns look strong.

An especially bold streamer bet is Weapons, a long shadow anthology of dread interlacing three eras linked by a mass vanishing. From Zach Cregger including Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the piece merges terror with dramatic mass. Premiering theatrically in late summer before a fall streaming drop, it stands to prompt frame-by-frame breakdowns as with Barbarian.

On the more intimate flank sits Together, a room scale body horror descent including Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Set at a remote rental during a getaway that sours, the story examines love plus envy plus self disgust as flesh ruin. It reads tender, repulsive, and intensely uneasy, a three act churn into codependent hell. Despite no official platform date, it is tracking toward an autumn slot.

One more platform talker is Sinners, a Depression era vampire folk fable fronted by Michael B. Jordan. Lensed in lush sepia and soaked in biblical metaphor, it plays like There Will Be Blood meets Let the Right One In. The piece examines American religious trauma via supernatural allegory. Pre release tests anoint it a conversation starter on streaming.

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.

Possession Runs Deep: Young & Cursed

Landing October 2 across key streamers, Young & Cursed positions itself as a rare hybrid, intimate in scope and mythic in reach. Penned and steered 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 night descends, so does Kyra’s power, an invasive force that exploits their deepest fears, weaknesses, and regrets.

This fear is psychologically driven, pulsing with primal myth. Swerving the standard exorcism angle of Catholic rite and Latin word, this one bores into something older, something darker. Lilith does not answer ceremony, she climbs through trauma, hush, and human fracture. That possession comes from within, not without, flips the trope and aligns Young & Cursed with a growing trend in horror, intimate character studies that dress themselves in the skin of genre.

The Halloween window on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home frames the film as counter to sequel saturation and creature revivals. It is canny scheduling. No bloated canon. No franchise baggage. Straight psychological chill, boxed and tight, aimed at the binge, pause, and pulse habits of streamers. Against fireworks, Young & Cursed might stand apart by stillness, then shock.

Festival Born and Buyer Ready

Fantastic Fest, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF remain breeding grounds for what horror looks like six to twelve months later. They are increasingly launchpads rather than showcases.

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, Aztec coded revenge folklore, may cap the fest blazing.

Midnight slots like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You earn noise for execution beyond quirky names. With A24 behind it, the satire of toxic fandom under a convention lockdown seems breakout bound.

SXSW gave air to Clown in a Cornfield and to microbudget hauntings courting buyers. Sundance likely lifts another batch of grief laced elevated horror, and Tribeca’s genre set plays urban, social, and surreal.

This cycle, festival strategy pivots from discovery toward branding. The laurel is campaign ignition, not epilogue.

Legacy IP: Reups, Reboots, and Rethinks

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

Fear Street: Prom Queen, dated July, revives the 90s franchise with a new lead and throwback tone. Breaking with earlier shading, it leans camp and prom night melodrama. Think tiaras, stage blood, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 bows late June, with a plan to deepen its techno horror mythos via new characters and AI terrors. The opener’s social chatter and SVOD hours justify Universal’s deeper play.

Another headline is The Long Walk, adapting a grim early Stephen King piece, under Francis Lawrence, it operates as a bleak dystopian tale masked as survival horror, a walk off to death for kids. With sharp marketing, it could translate to The Hunger Games for horror adults.

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.

Emerging Currents

Mythic Horror Is Mainstream
Young & Cursed with Lilith and Whistle with Aztec curses both signal ancient texts and symbols. This is less nostalgia, more reclamation of pre Christian archetypes. Horror goes beyond fright, it notes evil’s age.

Body horror resurges
Titles such as Together, Weapons, and Keeper return focus to the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation function as metaphors for heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streaming Originals Grow Teeth
The filler era wanes for platform horror. SVOD players fund strong scripts, proven directors, and real spend. Debuts like Weapons and Sinners carry event framing, not content bins.

Festival Hype Equals Market Leverage
Laurels move markets, opening release doors and coverage arcs. Forgo a festival map in 2025 and obscurity beckons.

Cinemas are a trust fall
The cinema lane is kept for probable outperformers or branchers. The remainder goes PVOD or hybrid. Horror still lives in theaters, more curated than broad.

Forecast: Autumn overload with a winter wildcard

Stacking Young & Cursed, The Conjuring: Last Rites, The Black Phone 2, and Weapons in September and October yields saturation. Indies, including Bone Lake and Keeper, will battle for oxygen. There may be pivots into early 2026 or across platforms.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 locks December, while a late surprise on a platform remains possible. With some of the year’s biggest films leaning dark and mythic, the space for one final creature feature or exorcism flick is wide open.

The 2025 performance is about reach across segments, not one hero title. The mission is not a new Get Out, it is sustained horror beyond tickets.



The oncoming genre calendar year ahead: brand plays, new stories, plus A packed Calendar tailored for jolts

Dek The brand-new scare year builds up front with a January traffic jam, before it extends through midyear, and far into the year-end corridor, blending brand heft, inventive spins, and strategic counterplay. Major distributors and platforms are embracing smart costs, theatrical exclusivity first, and buzz-forward plans that frame horror entries into all-audience topics.

How the genre looks for 2026

This category has established itself as the surest option in distribution calendars, a category that can scale when it performs and still buffer the downside when it fails to connect. After the 2023 year proved to executives that low-to-mid budget scare machines can galvanize mainstream conversation, 2024 kept energy high with filmmaker-forward plays and word-of-mouth wins. The trend rolled into 2025, where revived properties and awards-minded projects made clear there is a market for several lanes, from sequel tracks to original one-offs that export nicely. The takeaway for 2026 is a slate that reads highly synchronized across players, with purposeful groupings, a balance of recognizable IP and novel angles, and a recommitted strategy on theater exclusivity that amplify PVOD and streaming on premium digital and OTT platforms.

Insiders argue the space now functions as a wildcard on the slate. Horror can open on most weekends, offer a tight logline for spots and social clips, and overperform with crowds that come out on preview nights and continue through the week two if the movie satisfies. Following a strike-driven backlog, the 2026 plan indicates faith in that engine. The slate begins with a stacked January stretch, then plants flags in spring and early summer for contrast, while carving room for a fall corridor that reaches into spooky season and into November. The gridline also reflects the stronger partnership of indie distributors and SVOD players that can nurture a platform play, create conversation, and grow at the sweet spot.

Another broad trend is brand curation across linked properties and storied titles. Studios are not just rolling another next film. They are trying to present story carry-over with a occasion, whether that is a title presentation that flags a tonal shift or a cast configuration that binds a next film to a classic era. At the meanwhile, the writer-directors behind the headline-grabbing originals are prioritizing on-set craft, on-set effects and place-driven backdrops. That mix affords 2026 a healthy mix of trust and unexpected turns, which is how horror tends to travel globally.

How the majors and mini-majors are programming

Paramount marks the early tempo with two centerpiece plays that live at opposite ends of the tone spectrum. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the director seat and Neve Campbell back at the center, signaling it as both a handoff and a classic-mode character piece. Cameras are rolling in Atlanta, and the story approach conveys a classic-referencing framework without covering again the last two entries’ sisters thread. Plan for a rollout leaning on heritage visuals, early character teases, and a trailer cadence rolling toward late fall. Distribution is Paramount’s cinema pipeline.

Paramount also revives a once-mighty spoof franchise with Scary Movie 6 on June 12, 2026, directed by Michael Tiddes. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are back on screen, with the Wayans brothers involved in development for the first time since the early 2000s, a linchpin the campaign will double down on. As a summer relief option, this one will hunt wide buzz through meme-friendly cuts, with the horror spoof format permitting quick updates to whatever tops pop-cultural buzz that spring.

Universal has three distinct entries. SOULM8TE arrives January 9, 2026, a tie-in spinoff from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The story engine is simple, soulful, and big-hook: a grieving man brings home an virtual partner that mutates into a killer companion. The date puts it at the front of a crowded corridor, with the marketing arm likely to bring back creepy live activations and brief clips that melds longing and fear.

On May 8, 2026, the studio dates an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely interpreted as the feature developed under placeholder labels in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The official listing currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which preserves a final title to become an headline beat closer to the initial promo. The timing secures a slot in early May while larger tentpoles take the main frames.

Rounding out the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film reserves October 23, 2026, a slot he has worked well before. Peele’s work are positioned as signature events, with a teaser that reveals little and a subsequent trailers that set the tone without spoiling the concept. The holiday-adjacent corridor offers Universal room to dominate pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then lean on the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, works with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček directs, with Souheila Yacoub anchoring. The franchise has proven that a flesh-and-blood, practical-effects forward method can feel prestige on a controlled budget. Frame it as a hard-R summer horror shock that leans into global traction, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most non-U.S. markets.

Sony’s horror bench is surprisingly deep. The studio sets two brand-forward plays in the back half. An untitled Insidious film hits August 21, 2026, continuing a consistent supernatural brand in motion while the spin-off branch evolves. Sony has reslotted on this title before, but the current plan locks it in late summer, where the brand has found success.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil comes back in what the studio is selling as a reimagined restart for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a core part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a charge to serve both longtime followers and casuals. The fall slot allows Sony to build materials around world-building, and monster aesthetics, elements that can increase PLF interest and fan events.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, places a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film carries forward the filmmaker’s run of period horror shaped by meticulous craft and archaic language, this time orbiting lycan myth. Focus’s team has already planted the flag for a holiday release, a strong signal in Eggers as a specialty play that can move wide if early reception is positive.

Where the platforms fit in

Platform plans for 2026 run on proven patterns. Universal’s slate flow to copyright after a theatrical-first then PVOD phase, a tiered path that amplifies both first-week urgency and sub growth in the downstream. Prime Video interleaves acquired titles with global originals and small theatrical windows when the data justifies it. Max and Hulu work their advantages in back-catalog play, using well-timed internal promotions, holiday hubs, and curated strips to lengthen the tail on 2026 genre cume. Netflix keeps flexible about Netflix films and festival additions, slotting horror entries tight to Source release and elevating as drops releases with compressed campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, leverages a hybrid of precision releases and swift platform pivots that funnels enthusiasm into trials. That will count for Return to Silent Hill, which Cineverse is releasing in theaters January 23, 2026, before pressing niche channels in the months that follow.

Apple TV+ adopts case-by-case posture for horror on a discrete basis. The platform has demonstrated openness to secure select projects with recognized filmmakers or star-driven packages, then give them a small theatrical footprint in partnership with exhibitors to meet Oscar thresholds or to spark social proof before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still benefits from the 20th Century Studios slate, a meaningful lever for ongoing engagement when the genre conversation intensifies.

Specialty and indie breakouts

Cineverse is putting together a 2026 track with two label plays. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The offer is no-nonsense: the same moody, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a cult hit, modernized for modern audio-visual craft. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a late-year slot, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. Cineverse has indicated a theatrical rollout for Legacy, an encouraging sign for fans of the brutal series and for exhibitors looking for R-rated counterplay in the fall weeks.

Focus will lean into the auteur lane with Werwulf, guiding the film through fall festivals if the cut is ready, then relying on the year-end corridor to go wider. That positioning has delivered for arthouse horror with crossover ambitions. A24, NEON, IFC Films, RLJE, and Magnet have not firmed many 2026 dates in public calendars yet, but their festival pipelines commonly finalize after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A sound expectation is a selection of late-summer and fall platformers that can break out if reception allows. Plan on 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 tandem, using precision theatrical to ignite evangelism that fuels their membership.

Balance of brands and originals

By tilt, 2026 is weighted toward the recognizable IP side. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all exploit cultural cachet. The concern, as ever, is brand erosion. The near-term solution is to position each entry as a reframed mode. Paramount is elevating core character and DNA in Scream 7, Sony is teasing a clean restart for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is maximizing a French-inflected take from a breakout filmmaker. Those choices count when the audience has so many options and social sentiment spins fast.

Originals and auteur plays add oxygen. Jordan Peele’s October film will be positioned as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, puts Rachel McAdams into a stranded survival premise with that teasing menace. SOULM8TE offers a focused, eerie tech hook. Werwulf emphasizes period craft and an rigorous tone. Even when the title is not based on known IP, the bundle is assuring enough to convert curiosity into pre-sales and Thursday-night turnout.

Three-year comps frame the approach. In 2023, a exclusive cinema model that preserved streaming windows did not foreclose a same-day experiment from delivering when the brand was robust. In 2024, art-forward horror hit big in premium formats. In 2025, a reanimation of a beloved infection saga broadcast that global horror franchises can still feel revitalized when they rotate perspective and elevate scope. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which proceeds 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 filmed consecutively, builds a path for marketing to interlace chapters through relationships and themes and to hold creative in the market without extended gaps.

Creative tendencies and craft

The filmmaking conversations behind the 2026 entries indicate a continued preference for physical, site-specific craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not resemble any recent iteration of the property, a stance that accords with the in-camera sensibility he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film wrapped production and is set for its April 17, 2026 date. Look for a campaign that foregrounds tone and tension rather than whiz-bang spectacle, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership bolstering budget prudence.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has talked about Werwulf as the grimmest project he has tackled, which tracks with a period English setting and archaic dialect, a combination that can make for sonic immersion and a earthy, elemental chill on the big screen. Focus will likely seed this aesthetic in craft profiles and artisan spotlights before rolling out a teaser that withholds plot, a move that has clicked for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is tuned for red-band excess, a signature of the series that lands overseas in red-band trailers and creates shareable shock clips from early screenings. Scream 7 hints at a meta refresh that centers an original star. Resident Evil will thrive or struggle on monster aesthetics and world-building, which lend themselves to convention floor stunts and managed asset releases. Insidious tends to be a soundstage showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the in-theater case feel essential. Look for trailers that foreground pin-drop sound, deep-bass stingers, and mute beats that play in premium auditoriums.

Month-by-month map

January is full. Universal’s SOULM8TE opens January 9, 2026, then Sony returns a week later with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple on January 16. Cineverse’s Return to Silent Hill follows on January 23, a atmospheric change-up amid marquee brands. The month ends with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a survival chiller from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is meaningful, but the palette of tones lets each find a lane, and the five-week structure offers clean runway for each if word of mouth sticks.

Late Q1 and spring set up the summer. Scream 7 hits February 27 with brand warmth. In April, New Line’s The Mummy resurrects a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once was known for genre counterprogramming and now enables big openers. The untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 feeds 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 comic-leaning and wide, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 brings severe intensity. The counterprogramming logic is sensible. The spoof can win next to family tentpoles and animated films, while the mid-summer gorefest rewards older teenagers and genre diehards once the big Friday sequels have moved through premium slots.

End of summer through fall leans brand. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives the studio a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously landed. Resident Evil lands after September 18, a shoulder-season slot that still preps for Halloween marketing beats. Jordan Peele’s untitled film claims October 23 and will soak up cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely driven by a peekaboo tease plan and limited disclosures that lean on concept not plot.

December specialty. Werwulf on December 25 is a position that genre can stand up at Christmas when packaged as filmmaker-driven prestige horror. The distributor has done this before, platforming carefully, then pressing critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to keep the film in the conversation into January. If the film hits with critics, the studio can add screens in the first week of 2027 while benefiting from holiday season and gift-card use.

One-sentence dossiers

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

SOULM8TE (Universal, January 9, 2026)
Producers: Atomic Monster, Blumhouse. Logline: A heartbroken man’s intelligent companion unfolds into something lethally affectionate. Rating: TBA. Production: Photography complete 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 extends the world beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult surges in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Filmed consecutively with the first film. Positioning: prestige survival-horror continuation.

Return to Silent Hill (Cineverse, January 23, 2026)
Director: Christophe Gans. Top cast: TBA in updated campaign materials. Logline: A man ventures back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to run into a mutable reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Completed and U.S. theatrical set. Positioning: ambience-forward adaptation.

Send Help (20th Century Studios, January 30, 2026)
Director: Sam Raimi. Top cast: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Dennis Haysbert, Chris Pang. Logline: After a plane crash, an employee and her difficult boss claw to survive on a isolated island as the power balance of power inverts and unease intensifies. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished. Positioning: star-forward survival chiller from a master.

The Mummy (New Line, April 17, 2026)
Director: Lee Cronin. Producers: Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, Doppelgängers. Top cast: roles TBA in official materials. Logline: A renewed vision that returns the monster to fright, founded on Cronin’s material craft and creeping dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Finished. 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 in-home haunting scenario that threads the dread through a minor’s unsteady inner lens. Rating: pending. Production: wrapped. Positioning: major-studio and name-above-title haunting thriller.

Scary Movie 6 (Paramount, June 12, 2026)
Director: Michael Tiddes. Top cast: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, with the Wayans brothers re-engaging creatively. Logline: {A spoof revival that satirizes hot-button genre motifs and true-crime manias. Rating: pending. Production: production booked for fall 2025. Positioning: broad summer counterprogrammer.

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 bursts, with an global twist in tone and setting. Rating: undetermined. Production: shooting in New Zealand. Positioning: hard-hitting R entry designed for premium formats.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: to be announced in marketing. Top cast: undisclosed. Logline: The Further unfurls again, with a fresh family linked to past horrors. Rating: forthcoming. Production: eying a summer shoot for late-summer slot. Positioning: trusted supernatural label in a supportive window.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: TBD publicly. Top cast: unrevealed. Logline: A fresh restart designed to recalibrate the franchise from the ground up, with an priority on true survival horror over action pyrotechnics. Rating: undetermined. Production: on a development track with locked window. Positioning: game-rooted reset with broad potential.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: pending. Logline: deliberately concealed. Rating: undetermined. Production: in progress. Positioning: teaser-forward filmmaker happening.

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 antique diction and primal menace. Rating: TBA. Production: prepping toward a December 25 launch. 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 big-screen run before platforming. Status: slot unsettled, fall projected.

Why 2026, why now

Three operational forces drive this lineup. First, production that stalled or shuffled in 2024 needed spacing on the calendar. Horror can move in swiftly because scripts often rely on fewer locations, fewer large-scale effects sequences, and tighter schedules. Second, studios have become more disciplined about windows. Theatrical exclusivity remains the goal for most of these films, followed by PVOD and then platform streaming, a sequence that has consistently beaten straight-to-streaming drops. Third, social chatter converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will amplify meme-ready beats from test screenings, curated scare clips timed to Thursday night previews, and experiential pop-ups that seed creator reels. It is a repeatable playbook because it works.

Calendar math also matters. The family and cape slots are lighter early in 2026, clearing runway for genre entries that can own a weekend outright or stand as the older-leaning counter. January is the prime example. Four genre tones will stack across five weekends, which keeps buzz lanes tidy. Summer provides the other window. The parody can surf the early-summer animated and action swell, then the hard-R entry can pounce on a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Budgets and certifications, sleeper calculus

Budgets remain in the Goldilocks zone. Most of the films above will land under the $40–$50 million mark, with many far below. That allows for strong PLF footprints 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 stealth-hit search 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 harvest those lanes. January could easily deliver the first dark-horse hit 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.

How the year flows for audiences

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers pace and range. January is a sampler, February delivers a legacy slasher, April returns a Universal monster, May and June provide a supernatural one-two 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 icy, literate nightmare. That is how you sustain heat and footfall without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can gain momentum, using earlier releases to prime the audience for bigger plays in the fall.

Exhibitors favor the spacing. Horror delivers regular Thursday spikes, lean footprints, and strong PLF uptake when the creative supports it. The 2026 slate has at least three titles that can Get More Info justify premium screens, with The Mummy, Evil Dead Burn, and Werwulf all showcasing texture, aural design, and image-making that benefit from larger formats. The calendar also leaves room for specialty platformers to open in New York and Los Angeles, build reviews, and slide into national conversation as the fall progresses.

2026, Lined Up To Scare

Windows change. Ratings change. Casts rotate. But the spine of 2026 horror is defined. There is brand equity where it matters, auteur intent where it matters, and a calendar that shows studios track how and when scares land. 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, deliver taut trailers, keep the curtain closed, and let the fear sell the seats.