Age-old Evil returns: Andrew Chiaramonte’s Young & Cursed, a hair raising horror feature, landing Oct 2025 across major platforms

A terrifying occult thriller from writer / film architect Andrew Chiaramonte, manifesting an primeval malevolence when outsiders become vehicles in a cursed ceremony. Releasing this October 2nd, 2025, on Amazon’s streaming platform, YouTube streaming, Google Play, Apple iTunes, Apple TV Plus, and Fandango platform.

Los Angeles, CA (August 8, 2025) – get set for *Young & Cursed*, a gripping account of survival and prehistoric entity that will reimagine fear-driven cinema this cool-weather season. Helmed by rising creative mind Andrew Chiaramonte, this unpredictable and emotionally thick cinema piece follows five strangers who arise stranded in a off-grid cabin under the unfriendly will of Kyra, a cursed figure inhabited by a timeless ancient fiend. Brace yourself to be enthralled by a theatrical spectacle that intertwines raw fear with folklore, debuting on Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home on the second of October, 2025.


Diabolic occupation has been a mainstay motif in the movies. In *Young & Cursed*, that belief is radically shifted when the beings no longer descend from an outside force, but rather inside their minds. This mirrors the most terrifying facet of the cast. The result is a harrowing spiritual tug-of-war where the conflict becomes a brutal battle between good and evil.


In a isolated terrain, five characters find themselves trapped under the sinister sway and curse of a enigmatic being. As the companions becomes incapacitated to break her curse, detached and pursued by beings unfathomable, they are forced to deal with their darkest emotions while the hours without pause edges forward toward their expiration.


In *Young & Cursed*, suspicion rises and bonds collapse, compelling each cast member to challenge their essence and the notion of decision-making itself. The danger accelerate with every instant, delivering a scare-fueled ride that blends otherworldly panic with psychological weakness.

Andrew Chiaramonte, Director: “With *Young & Cursed*, my focus was to channel elemental fright, an curse from ancient eras, manifesting in psychological breaks, and exposing a force that redefines identity when stripped of free will.”

Madison Hubler (Kyra): “Living Kyra meant channeling something past sanity. She is blind until the possession kicks in, and that transition is eerie because it is so private.”

Release & Availability

*Young & Cursed* will be brought for horror fans beginning this October 2, on Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google’s store, iTunes, Apple’s streaming platform, and Fandango on-demand—so that households globally can get immersed in this demonic journey.


Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has just shared a new follow-up preview for *Young & Cursed*, uploaded to watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/zu0n4WmPI1s, as a sequel to its first preview, which has pulled in over strong viewer count.


In addition to its continental debut, Chiaramonte Films, Inc. has revealed that *Young & Cursed* will also be taken worldwide, making the film to a global viewership.


Tune in for this heart-stopping voyage through terror. Brace yourself for *Young & Cursed* this October the 2nd to acknowledge these unholy truths about the psyche.


For previews, making-of footage, and announcements from inside the story, follow @YACFilm across social media and visit the film’s website.





Today’s horror watershed moment: the 2025 season American release plan melds legend-infused possession, microbudget gut-punches, paired with franchise surges

Across life-or-death fear infused with scriptural legend all the way to brand-name continuations and pointed art-house angles, 2025 looks like the genre’s most multifaceted together with precision-timed year since the mid-2010s.

The 2025 horror calendar is not just busy, it is strategic. leading studios lock in tentpoles using marquee IP, in parallel streaming platforms stack the fall with fresh voices paired with ancestral chills. In the indie lane, the art-house flank is riding the afterglow of a peak 2024 circuit. Because Halloween continues as the prize window, the off-peak lanes are managed with purpose. The early fall corridor has become the proving ground, however this time, players are marking January, spring, and mid-summer. Audiences are eager, studios are calculated, as a result 2025 may be recorded as the genre’s most deliberate campaign.

What Studios and Mini-Majors Are Doing: Premium genre swings back

The top end is active. If 2024 set the base, 2025 amplifies the bet.

Universal’s slate begins the calendar with a bold swing: a contemporary Wolf Man, steering clear of the antique European village, instead in a current-day frame. From director Leigh Whannell anchored by Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner, this telling braids lycanthropy with a family meltdown. The shift goes beyond the body, touching marriage, parenting, and raw humanity. arriving mid January, it backs a move to shape winter into a prestige corridor, not a discard corridor.

Spring delivers Clown in a Cornfield, a YA slasher adaptation reframed as lean dread. Guided by Eli Craig with 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.

When summer tapers, Warner’s pipeline drops the final chapter of its steadiest horror franchise: The Conjuring: Last Rites. The Warrens are back with Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, the film signals catharsis as it engages a widely cited real case. Even if the pattern is recognizable, Chaves is expected to tune it to a grieving, self reflective color. It is dated for early September, granting margin before October’s crush.

The Black Phone 2 slots behind. Set early then moved to October, a confidence tell. Scott Derrickson is back, and the memorable motifs return: nostalgic menace, trauma as text, and a cold supernatural calculus. This pass pushes higher, by expanding the “grabber” backstory and grief across bloodlines.

Rounding out the big ticket releases is Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, a film that does not need traditional marketing to sell tickets. The return delves further into myth, thickens the animatronic pantheon, seeking teens plus thirty something gamers. It drops in December, cornering year end horror.

Streaming Firsts: Lean budgets, heavy bite

As theatrical skews franchise first, SVOD players are testing edges, and gains show.

A flagship risky title is Weapons, a cold case horror anthology threading three timelines via a mass disappearance. Helmed by Zach Cregger including Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, the work combines fright with dramatic torque. Hitting theaters late summer with fall digital, it stands to prompt frame-by-frame breakdowns as with Barbarian.

Keeping things close quarters is Together, a close quarters body horror study starring Alison Brie and Dave Franco. Trapped in a far off rental as a holiday fractures, the movie follows love and envy and self denial into corporeal breakdown. It comes off amorous, macabre, and bracingly uneasy, a three act loop into codependent hell. Despite no official platform date, it is poised for a fall platform bow.

In the mix sits Sinners, a 1930s vintage vampire folk yarn featuring Michael B. Jordan. Imaged in sepia bloom and biblical metaphor, it plays like There Will Be Blood meets Let the Right One In. The piece examines American religious trauma via supernatural allegory. Early test screenings have marked it as one of the year’s most talked about streaming debuts.

A cluster of streaming indies sits ready: Bring Her Back, Bone Lake, and Keeper each explores grief and disappearance and identity, opting allegory above bombast.

The Possession Runs Deep: Young & Cursed

Landing October 2 across key streamers, Young & Cursed operates as a rare duality, minimal in staging, maximal in myth. Shaped and helmed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the story trails five strangers who come to in a far off forest cabin, ruled by Kyra, a young woman possessed by the ancient biblical demon Lilith. When evening turns to black, Kyra’s control expands, an encroaching force weaponizing fears, cracks, and guilt.

The chill is psyche led, anchored in primal myth. Avoiding the usual exorcism path with Catholic ritual and Latin spell, this film taps something older, something darker. Lilith bypasses ritual, she awakens from trauma, repression, and human fragility. The shift to interior possession, not exterior conjuring, flips expectation and aligns Young & Cursed with an expanding wave, intimate character portraits wearing genre.

Streaming platforms like Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Google Play, and Fandango at Home have positioned the film as a Halloween counterweight to theatrical sequels and monster revivals. It reads as sharp positioning. No overstuffed canon. No franchise baggage. Pure psyche terror, contained and taut, sized for the binge then exhale flow of digital viewers. Among spectacle, Young & Cursed might win by restraint, then release.

Festival Launchpads, Market Engines

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

Fantastic Fest this cycle touts a strong horror menu. Primate, an opening night tropical body-horror, invites Cronenberg meets Herzog talk. Whistle, a folkloric revenge thriller steeped in Aztec lore, is expected to close the fest with fire.

Midnight slots like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You earn noise for execution beyond quirky names. The A24 fueled satire of toxic fandom in a con lockdown has breakout energy.

SXSW premiered Clown in a Cornfield and introduced several microbudget hauntings currently circling deals. Sundance is expected to unspool its usual crop of grief soaked elevated horror, and Tribeca’s genre box tilting urban, social, and surreal.

Strategy at festivals now equals branding as well as discovery. The laurel is campaign ignition, not epilogue.

Legacy Lines: Sequels, Reboots, and Reinvention

The franchise bench is sturdier and more targeted than lately.

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. Visualize tiaras, fake gore, and VHS panic.

M3GAN 2.0 drops late June, seeking to build out techno horror lore using new characters and AI born frights. The original’s social and streaming breakout emboldened Universal to double down.

On the slate sits The Long Walk, from one of Stephen King’s stark early titles, under Francis Lawrence, it operates as a bleak dystopian tale masked as survival horror, a walk off to death for kids. If framed properly, it could echo The Hunger Games for adult horror.

Additionally, reboots and sequels, among them Hell House LLC: Lineage, V/H/S/Halloween, The Toxic Avenger, and Anaconda, populate the months, with timing held for strategy or acquisitions.

Key Trends

Mythic Horror Is Mainstream
From Lilith in Young & Cursed, and with Aztec curses in Whistle, horror taps ancient texts and symbols. This trend avoids nostalgia, reclaiming pre Christian archetypes. Horror is not just scaring us, it is reminding us that evil is older than we are.

Body horror reemerges
Titles such as Together, Weapons, and Keeper return focus to the flesh. Mutation, infection, transformation encode heartbreak, grief, and regret.

Streaming Originals Grow Teeth
Disposable horror filler days on platforms have passed. Platforms invest in real scripts, real directors, and real campaigns. Titles such as Weapons and Sinners are treated as events, not mere content.

Laurels convert to leverage
Festival laurels are no longer ornamental, they are leverage for theatrical release, premium placement, and media cycles. Skip festival strategy in 2025 and the film risks invisibility.

Theatrical Is Now a Trust Fall
Studios release horror theatrically only when they believe in overperformance or sequel trees. Other titles pivot PVOD or hybrid. Horror still lives in theaters, more curated than broad.

Projection: Fall stack and winter swing card

Young & Cursed plus The Conjuring: Last Rites plus The Black Phone 2 plus Weapons, all in September and October, makes for a saturated fall. Indies, including Bone Lake and Keeper, will battle for oxygen. Anticipate possible date slides into early 2026 or platform moves.

December anchors on Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, yet a surprise streamer drop could appear in the final weeks. With mythic energy high, a late creature or exorcism entry could pop.

Horror’s 2025 outcome will be decided not by one title, but by how its variety connects with splintered audiences. The play is not Get Out replication, it is long life horror past theaters.



The coming 2026 scare cycle: brand plays, standalone ideas, together with A loaded Calendar optimized for shocks

Dek: The fresh scare year crowds at the outset with a January bottleneck, after that flows through the mid-year, and deep into the late-year period, blending series momentum, creative pitches, and well-timed alternatives. The big buyers and platforms are prioritizing mid-range economics, theatrical leads, and platform-native promos that transform these films into broad-appeal conversations.

Horror’s status entering 2026

The genre has emerged as the bankable play in studio calendars, a vertical that can grow when it performs and still limit the downside when it stumbles. After 2023 reminded executives that modestly budgeted chillers can command audience talk, 2024 held pace with director-led heat and unexpected risers. The momentum fed into 2025, where legacy revivals and critical darlings proved there is appetite for varied styles, from legacy continuations to director-led originals that carry overseas. The result for 2026 is a grid that feels more orchestrated than usual across the market, with mapped-out bands, a spread of household franchises and fresh ideas, and a reinvigorated stance on exclusive windows that increase tail monetization on premium digital and platforms.

Executives say the horror lane now acts as a schedule utility on the grid. The genre can premiere on many corridors, create a clean hook for ad units and short-form placements, and over-index with moviegoers that show up on Thursday nights and stay strong through the follow-up frame if the picture satisfies. Coming out of a strike-affected pipeline, the 2026 mapping exhibits conviction in that equation. The year launches with a stacked January corridor, then plants flags in spring and early summer for alternate plays, while reserving space for a October build that stretches into All Hallows period and beyond. The grid also underscores the tightening integration of specialty arms and home platforms that can platform a title, grow buzz, and scale up at the precise moment.

An added macro current is IP stewardship across connected story worlds and long-running brands. The companies are not just making another sequel. They are trying to present lore continuity with a marquee sheen, whether that is a title treatment that indicates a new vibe or a casting choice that binds a incoming chapter to a vintage era. At the simultaneously, the creative leads behind the marquee originals are celebrating hands-on technique, real effects and vivid settings. That mix hands 2026 a smart balance of trust and unexpected turns, which is why the genre exports well.

Major-player strategies for 2026

Paramount plants an early flag with two marquee pushes that live at opposite ends of the tone spectrum. First comes Scream 7 on February 27, 2026, with Kevin Williamson in the top job and Neve Campbell back at the spine, angling it as both a handoff and a heritage-centered relationship-driven entry. Production is active in Atlanta, and the directional approach telegraphs a heritage-honoring strategy without recycling the last two entries’ sibling arc. The studio is likely to mount a drive driven by iconic art, early character teases, and a rollout cadence rolling toward late fall. Distribution is Paramount in theaters.

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 reuniting, with the Wayans brothers involved creatively for the first time since the early 2000s, a draw the campaign will feature. As a off-tentpole summer play, this one will chase wide buzz through meme-ready spots, with the horror spoof format enabling quick adjustments to whatever rules pop-cultural buzz that spring.

Universal has three specific bets. SOULM8TE bows January 9, 2026, a technology-driven offshoot from the M3GAN universe from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse. The story engine is efficient, tragic, and easily pitched: a grieving man adopts an digital partner that becomes a killer companion. The date puts it at the front of a busy month, with the studio’s marketing likely to reprise viral uncanny stunts and quick hits that threads love and fear.

On May 8, 2026, the studio slots an untitled Rob Savage horror film, widely read as the feature developed under code names in the family-in-peril vein, with Jessica Chastain top-lining. The public release grid currently lists it as an untitled Savage project, which reserves space for a branding reveal to become an attention spike closer to the first trailer. The timing secures a slot in early May while larger tentpoles take the main frames.

Anchoring the studio’s year, Jordan Peele’s untitled event film secures October 23, 2026, a slot he has owned before. Peele’s releases are framed as filmmaker events, with a opaque teaser and a later creative that establish tone without plot reveals the concept. The holiday-adjacent corridor offers Universal room to dominate pre-holiday auditoriums with PLF and IMAX bookings where available, then work the copyright window to capture late-October interest at home.

Warner Bros., via New Line, collaborates with Sony internationally for Evil Dead Burn, dated July 24, 2026. Sébastien Vaniček leads, with Souheila Yacoub in the lead. The franchise has consistently shown that a in-your-face, practical-effects forward mix can feel prestige on a middle budget. Expect a gore-forward summer horror blast that maximizes foreign markets, with Warner Bros. handling U.S. and Sony taking most international territories.

Sony’s horror bench is robust. The studio deploys two series moves in the back half. An untitled Insidious film debuts August 21, 2026, keeping a consistent supernatural brand in play while the spin-off branch advances. Sony has reshuffled on this title before, but the current plan holds it in late summer, where Insidious has found success.

Then, on September 18, 2026, Resident Evil comes back in what Sony is presenting as a new take for its game-to-film powerhouse. With the PlayStation Productions pipeline now a vital part of the studio’s strategy, this new take has a sharper mandate to serve both players and curious audiences. The fall slot offers Sony space to build campaign creative around universe detail, and creature work, elements that can stoke IMAX and PLF uptake and cosplayer momentum.

Focus Features, working with Working Title, stakes a prestige bet on Christmas Day with Robert Eggers’ Werwulf on December 25, 2026. Set in 13th-century England, the film carries forward the filmmaker’s run of period horror built on rigorous craft and archaic language, this time engaging werewolf myth. The specialty arm has already locked the day for a holiday release, a strong signal in Eggers as a specialty play that can open narrow then widen if early reception is enthusiastic.

Digital platform strategies

Platform tactics for 2026 run on known playbooks. Universal’s releases transition to copyright after a theatrical and PVOD run, a sequence that maximizes both initial urgency and subscriber lifts in the late-window. Prime Video balances library titles with cross-border buys and check my blog small theatrical windows when the data supports it. Max and Hulu press their advantages in catalog discovery, using in-app campaigns, horror hubs, and collection rows to lengthen the tail on aggregate take. Netflix keeps options open about originals and festival acquisitions, confirming horror entries closer to launch and turning into events drops with quick-run campaigns. Shudder, integrated with RLJE and Cineverse’s theatrical footprint, capitalizes on a laddered of targeted cinema placements and prompt platform moves that monetizes buzz via 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 case-by-case basis. The platform has been willing to pick up select projects with acclaimed directors or marquee packages, then give them a qualifying theatrical in partnership with exhibitors to meet awards-qualifying thresholds or to show bona fides before the streaming drop. Hulu and Disney’s domestic pipeline still pulls from the 20th Century Studios slate, a important element for sustained usage when the genre conversation spikes.

Art-house genre prospects

Cineverse is curating a 2026 sequence with two franchise steps. Return to Silent Hill lands in January with Christophe Gans returning to his adaptation of Konami’s classic title. The offer is tight: the same haunting, fog-choked atmosphere that made the original a diehard favorite, reimagined for modern sound and image. Later in the year, Wolf Creek: Legacy is expected in a fall corridor, with Greg McLean back steering his outback slasher universe. Cineverse has suggested a big-screen first plan for Legacy, an positive signal for fans of the hard-edged series and for exhibitors hungry for R material in the late stretch.

Focus will favor the auteur track with Werwulf, shepherding the title through select festivals if the cut is ready, then working the holiday dates to expand. That positioning has worked well for auteur horror 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 generally solidify after Sundance, Berlin, and Cannes. A credible outlook is a sprinkle of late-summer and fall platformers that can go wider if reception supports. Anticipate an A24 acquisition out of Sundance midnight slots and a NEON title that launches at Cannes before a September or October domestic bow. RLJE and Shudder often work hand in hand, using limited theatrical to fuel evangelism that fuels their subscriber growth.

Series vs standalone

By volume, the 2026 slate skews toward the legacy column. Scream 7, Insidious, Resident Evil, Evil Dead Burn, and Return to Silent Hill all harness household recognition. The trade-off, as ever, is staleness. The workable fix is to frame each entry as a new angle. Paramount is emphasizing relationship and legacy in Scream 7, Sony is indicating a new foundation for Resident Evil, and New Line’s Evil Dead Burn is driving a European tilt from a emerging director. Those choices count when the audience has so many options and social sentiment tilts quickly.

Originals and filmmaker-led entries provide the air. Jordan Peele’s October film will be framed as a brand unto itself. Send Help, dated January 30, 2026 at 20th Century Studios, puts Rachel McAdams in a stranded survival premise with the director’s playful dread. SOULM8TE offers a focused, eerie tech hook. Werwulf roots in era detail and an uncompromising tone. Even when the title is not based on a recognizable brand, the assembly is steady enough to translate curiosity into advance sales and Thursday-night turnout.

Recent comps announce the template. In 2023, a theatrical-first plan that respected streaming windows did not prevent a simultaneous release test from succeeding when the brand was potent. In 2024, craft-forward auteur horror punched above its weight in premium formats. In 2025, a return of a beloved infection saga showed the market that global horror franchises can still feel alive when they angle differently and elevate scope. That last point is directly relevant to Sony’s 28 Years Later plan, which continues 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 lensed sequentially, permits marketing to relate entries through personae and themes and to keep materials circulating without hiatuses.

Technique and craft currents

The filmmaking conversations behind the year’s horror foreshadow a continued lean toward tactile, place-driven craft. Lee Cronin has said his The Mummy will not repeat any recent iteration of the property, a stance that squares with the practical-craft ethos he brought to Evil Dead Rise. The film finished filming and is tracking toward its April 17, 2026 date. Expect a campaign that emphasizes mood and dread rather than CG roller-coasters, with the New Line and Blumhouse partnership bolstering budget prudence.

Robert Eggers, meanwhile, has said Werwulf as the most shadowed project he has tackled, which tracks with a historical setting and historically accurate language, a combination that can make for 3D sound and a spare, elemental mood on the big screen. Focus will likely showcase this aesthetic in craft journalism and department features before rolling out a atmospheric tease that elevates tone over story, a move that has delivered for the filmmaker’s past releases.

On the click site franchise side, Evil Dead Burn is set up for red-band excess, a signature of the series that sells overseas in red-band trailers and spurs shareable screening reactions from early screenings. Scream 7 aims for a self-aware reset that centers an original star. Resident Evil will stand or stumble on monster work and world-building, which lend themselves to convention floor stunts and timed asset drops. Insidious tends to be a sound design showcase, with Dolby and Atmos spots that make the cinema value feel compelling. Look for trailers that underscore fine-grain sound, deep-bass stingers, and dropouts that shine in top rooms.

Calendar map: winter through the holidays

January is stacked. Universal’s 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 atmospheric change-up amid heftier brand moves. The month ends with Send Help on January 30 via 20th Century Studios, a stranded thriller from Sam Raimi that puts a star forward in Rachel McAdams. The competition here is meaningful, but the menu of tones lets each find a lane, and the five-week structure gives each runway for each if word of mouth carries.

Late Q1 and spring prime the summer. Scream 7 bows February 27 with nostalgia energy. In April, New Line’s The Mummy resurrects a classic monster on April 17, a spring frame that once suited genre counterprogramming and now can handle big openers. Universal’s untitled Rob Savage film on May 8 bridges into summer while maintaining horror’s hold on early May weekends that are not claimed by superheroes or family tentpoles.

Summer sharpens the contrast. Scary Movie 6 on June 12 is jokier and broader, then Evil Dead Burn on July 24 offers brutal intensity. The counterprogramming logic is strong. The spoof can win 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 rotated off PLF.

Late-season stretch leans franchise. The Insidious entry on August 21 gives Sony a spiritual-horror anchor where the brand has previously excelled. Resident Evil lines up after September 18, a shoulder-season slot that still steps into Halloween marketing beats. Jordan Peele’s untitled film claims October 23 and will absorb cultural oxygen heading into Halloween weekend, likely reinforced by a peekaboo tease plan and limited disclosures that favor idea over plot.

Prestige-horror at year-end. Werwulf on December 25 is a flag plant that genre can compete at Christmas when packaged as movies filmmaker-first prestige. Focus has done this before, platforming carefully, then capitalizing on critics’ lists and awards-season craft coverage to linger in conversation into January. If the film clicks critically, the studio can extend in the first week of 2027 while riding holiday turnout and card redemption.

Film-by-film briefs

Scream 7 (Paramount, February 27, 2026)
Director: Kevin Williamson. Top cast: Neve Campbell, with casting still being revealed as production proceeds. Logline: Sidney returns to face a new Ghostface while the narrative rethreads the original film’s founding notes. 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 devastated man’s machine mate turns into something deadly romantic. Rating: TBA. Production: Filming finished for an early-year bow. Positioning: algorithmic dread with emotion.

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 scales the story beyond the immediate outbreak as a cult forms in the ruins. Rating: TBA. Production: Filmed in tandem 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 comes back to a fog-shrouded town in search of a lost love, only to face a shifting reality and the town’s horrors. Rating: TBA. Production: Done with U.S. run set. 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 hard-edged boss battle to survive on a far-flung island as the power dynamic inverts and paranoia builds. Rating: TBA. Production: Done. 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 TBA in official materials. Logline: A renewed vision that returns the monster to dread, built on Cronin’s practical effects and suffocating dread. Rating: TBA. Production: Principal wrapped. Positioning: monster revival with signature voice.


Untitled Rob Savage Horror Film (Universal, May 8, 2026)
Director: Rob Savage. Top cast: Jessica Chastain. Logline: {A domestic haunting tale that threads the dread through a preteen’s uncertain personal vantage. Rating: to be announced. Production: wrapped. 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 returning creatively. Logline: {A spoof revival that targets in-vogue horror tropes and true-crime crazes. Rating: TBD. 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 surges, with an worldly twist in tone and setting. Rating: TBA. Production: production in New Zealand. Positioning: ferocious R chapter primed for premium screens.

Untitled Insidious Film (Sony, August 21, 2026)
Director: TBD per campaign. Top cast: awaiting confirmation. Logline: The Further reopens, with a young family anchored to ancient dread. Rating: undetermined. Production: slated for summer production leading to late-summer release. Positioning: stalwart franchise piece in a friendly frame.

Resident Evil (Sony, September 18, 2026)
Director: forthcoming. Top cast: forthcoming. Logline: A re-seeded launch designed to reframe the franchise from the ground up, with an center of gravity in true survival horror over action fireworks. Rating: to be announced. Production: dev phase with date secured. Positioning: IP-accurate revival with mainstream runway.

Jordan Peele Untitled Event Film (Universal, October 23, 2026)
Director: Jordan Peele. Top cast: pending. Logline: carefully shrouded. Rating: TBD. Production: ongoing. Positioning: director-branded event with teaser focus.

Werwulf (Focus Features, December 25, 2026)
Director: Robert Eggers. Top cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, with other regulars expected. Logline: A medieval werewolf story built on historical diction and primordial menace. Rating: not yet rated. Production: in preproduction for holiday debut. Positioning: prestige-grade holiday chiller with artisan honors in view.

Wolf Creek: Legacy (Cineverse, TBA 2026)
Director: Greg McLean. Top cast: John Jarratt expected to return as Mick Taylor. Logline: The Australian outback slasher returns, with a traditional theatrical release planned before platforming. Status: slot unsettled, fall projected.

Why the calendar favors 2026

Three operational forces organize this lineup. First, production that bottlenecked or re-slotted in 2024 demanded space on the calendar. Horror can fill those gaps quickly because scripts often use fewer locations, fewer large-scale visual effects runs, and condensed timelines. 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 exceeded straight-to-streaming debuts. Third, platform buzz converts. The marketing teams behind these titles will amplify clippable moments from test screenings, curated scare clips synced to Thursday previews, and experiential pop-ups that become influencer fuel. It is a repeatable playbook because it works.

Another factor is the scheduling math. Family and cape-heavy lanes thin out in early 2026, offering breathing room for genre entries that can dominate a weekend or sit as the slightly older-skewing alternative. January is the prime example. Four genre tones will trade weekends across five weekends, which helps each film cultivate buzz on its own. Summer provides the other window. The lampoon benefits from family and action buoyancy, then the hard-R entry can make hay in a late-July lull before back-to-school.

Money matters, ratings, and surprise hits

Budgets remain in the sweet spot. Most of the films above will live under the $40–$50 million ceiling, with many far below. That allows for robust premium-format allocation without needing superhero-level volume to break even. The most likely R ratings include Evil Dead Burn, Werwulf, and possibly Resident Evil depending on the final cut. Scream 7, Insidious, and SOULM8TE can plausibly land PG-13 to maximize reach, though each franchise has toggled between ratings in the past. Specialty plays tend to lean R to preserve tone and intensity.

The stealth-hit search continues in Q1, where value-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 maximize those pockets. January could easily deliver the first surprise over-performer of the year, and August into September gives Sony an avenue to hold screens with back-to-back supernatural IP while still leaving room for an indie breakout.

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

How the year flows for audiences

From a moviegoer’s perspective, the 2026 horror year offers rhythm and variety. January is a spread, February delivers a legacy slasher, April reintroduces a Universal monster, May and June provide a two-hit supernatural combo for date nights and group outings, July gets blood-slick, 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 fuel talk and ticketing without cannibalizing your own titles. The pattern also supports social campaigns that can scale over time, using earlier releases to prime 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 texture, soundcraft, and framing 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 Looks Exciting

Windows change. Ratings change. Casts rotate. But the spine of 2026 horror is solid. There is recognizable IP where it plays, fresh vision where it counts, and a calendar that shows studios know when and how to deliver 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 eleventh-hour specialty buy join the party. For now, the job is simple, craft precise trailers, keep the secrets, and let the fear sell the seats.