2026 Horror Movie Preview
Here's what's in store for scary movie enthusiasts in 2026.
Every year of horror cinema seems to top the one before it. Examining this coming year in horror as a whole, it can best be described as the return of the auteur. Big heavy hitting horror directors are coming in strong with pet projects like Sam Raimi’s Send Help, Kevin Williamson’s Scream 7, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, Robert Eggers’ Werwulf, Luc Besson’s Dracula, and Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man. This may actually be the first time we’ll have a big-budget Frankenstein, mummy, werewolf, and Dracula movie all in theaters in the same year.
That said, there is still a ton of room in theaters, and we’re getting streaming originals for some really intriguing independent horror as well. Peruse this list of 2026 cinematic horror and plan your next scary movie date. Be sure and jump into each other’s arms during the appropriate moments.
Directed by: Patrick Rea
Starring: Jennifer Seward, Nicole Hall
Release Date: January 1, 2026 on BloodStream
We can all relate to being a former gifted kid who becomes burned out later in life. In this combination of scary clown film and social commentary, Jennifer Sullivan (Jennifer Seward of 2020’s Fresh werewolf picture I Am Lisa) turns her love of movie monsters, serial killers, and clowns into an unhealthy obsession, becomes the Super Happy Fun Clown, and the body count begins to pile up. “It’s about feeling like you haven’t lived up to expectations others have placed on you,” says writer Eric Winkler. “Your worth as a person is not directly proportional to the size of your house.”
Directed by: Zak Hilditch
Starring: Daisy Ridley, Mark Coles Smith
Release Date: January 2, 2026
Daisy Ridley, best known as the earnest, heroic main character in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, is recast as a survivor after an apocalypse in We Bury the Dead, and is on a desperate search to find her husband. She joins a “body retrieval unit” and then the bodies start moving, to much horror and running. Writer-director Zak Hilditch made the Certified Fresh 1922, a neo-Western horror Stephen King adaptation, so this is new and interesting territory for him.
Directed by: Johannes Roberts
Starring: Johnny Sequoyah, Ernest Riera
Release Date: January 9, 2026
Look, monkeys and apes can be terrifying; we’ve seen evidence of that countless times at the movies. This time around, it’s a rabid family pet chimpanzee that goes bonkers and terrorizes a family on a tropical vacation. Johnny Sequoyah is best known as the police chief’s daughter Aubrey on Dexter: New Blood. This is her first horror turn. Director Johannes Roberts, on the other hand, is a horror veteran, having directed entries in the Strangers and Resident Evil franchises prior to Primate.
Directed by: Nia DaCosta
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell
Release Date: January 16, 2026
In this follow-up to last year’s 28 Years Later, Jack O’Connell plays Jimmy, a lunatic cult leader whose gang “The Jimmys” is modeled after a despicable real-life human being, Jimmy Savile. Ralph Fiennes returns to play the good-guy doctor who resists indoctrination and tries to help people.
Directed by: Ryan Prows
Starring: Jermaine Fowler, Justin Long
Release Date: January 16, 2026
“An LAPD officer uncovers a secret vampire task force with their sights set on his old neighborhood, kicking off a bloody fight between police and local gangs,” says Ryan Prows, director of Night Patrol. “The film is a timely statement on modern-day America and a true roller coaster of horror, action, crime, comedy and more that genuinely has something for everyone (except kids — stay away, kids; this film is extremely bloody!)”
Directed by: Christophe Gans
Starring: Jeremy Irvine, Sandra Vo-Anh, Will Schneider
Release Date: January 23, 2026
Based on the creepy-as-hell Konami survival horror video game franchise that’s been running for over 25 years, Return to Silent Hill is the third entry in the movie franchise and an adaptation of 2001’s Silent Hill 2 game. It’s the first new Silent Hill film in 14 years, and it reunites the series with director and co-writer Christophe Gans. The series antagonist Pyramid Head will also return with this installment.
“Our director, Christophe Gans, has created an incredibly immersive journey through this horrific place,” says producer Victor Hadida. “From recreating camera angles and moves from the game, to the upgraded design of the monsters that we worked closely with Konami on, to the meticulous sound design and of course music crafted by game composer and Silent Hill creator Akira Yamaoka — you feel like you are there and in it, with James our main character. I hope everyone will enjoy returning to Silent Hill as much as we have enjoyed bringing this horrific world to the big screen.”
Directed by: Sam Raimi
Starring: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien
Premiere Date: January 30, 2026
“Send Help is a darkly comedic survival horror starring Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien as employee and boss, respectively, who survive a plane crash only to find themselves stranded on a deserted island,” says producer Zainab Azizi. “What begins as a survival story quickly evolves into a battle of will and wit, delivered with Sam Raimi’s trademark bursts of chaos and dark humor. As a producer, this project is especially meaningful to me as I began developing it in 2019 from a two-sentence pitch by writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. It ultimately became the vehicle for Raimi’s return to the genre, and first original film in 16 years, since Drag Me to Hell. Send Help is a thrilling ride through the jungles of Thailand, filled with unexpected twists, Raimi Easter eggs, and standout performances from Rachel and Dylan.”
This is McAdams’ first turn in a horror movie in a long career, but she’s no stranger to darkly comedic roles. Look, it’s horror and it’s Raimi. Isn’t that all you need to know?
Directed by: Luc Besson
Starring: Caleb Landry Jones, Christoph Waltz
Premiere Date: February 6, 2026
Luc Besson, best known for thrillers like Léon: The Professional and La Femme Nikita, tries his hand at the tale of Dracula. As is apparent from the film’s original subtitle, “A Love Tale,” Besson’s angle is to treat it like a doomed romance between Vlad and his lover Mina Harker, and to play down the violence in favor of this while also being faithful to the source material. Early reviews for this have been decent, and Besson is no slouch as a filmmaker, so this will be one gothic romance to see.
Directed by: Renny Harlin
Starring: Madelaine Petsch, Gabriel Basso
Release Date: February 6, 2026
Chapter 3 is the fifth The Strangers movie, featuring masked serial killers with clever codenames like Pin-Up Girl, Scarecrow, and Dollface. At this point, audiences should be familiar enough with them that they should start calling it The Acquaintances. At any rate, director Renny Harlin is no stranger to The Strangers, having directed the prior two installments before this one, as well as many other scary movies. Madelaine Petsch, familiar to Riverdale fans as Cheryl Blossom, returns as the final girl from the previous film to wrap up the trilogy.
Directed by: Corin Hardy
Starring: Dafne Keen, Sophie Nélisse
Release Date: February 6, 2026
“We follow a group of teens who stumble across a cursed whistle that summons your death,” says Owen Egerton, the writer of Whistle. “The film has horror and heart — an homage to the high school horror of the 1980s. Like The Lost Boys and A Nightmare on Elm Street. For me, the best horror has as much life as it does horror. This film has a lot of death (pretty gnarly deaths!), but it has even more life. Horror and heart and a hell of a ride.”
Directed by: Jonny Campbell
Starring: Georgina Campbell, Joe Keery, Liam Neeson
Release Date: February 13, 2026
One of two horror films coming out in back-to-back weeks starring scream queen Georgina Campbell (Barbarian, The Watchers), Cold Storage is a darker-than-dark comedy about two employees at a dead-end job at a storage facility on a military base. A parasitic fungus escapes and makes people explode in cringey but funny fashion, and these two losers must team up with a grizzled bioterror operative (Liam Neeson) to escape the facility and contain the wicked fungus.
Directed by: Gavin Polone
Starring: Georgina Campbell, Logan Miller, James Preston Rogers
Release Date: February 20, 2026
Psycho Killer, qu’est-ce que c’est? Fa fa fa, fa fa fa fa fa fa fa. This one’s the other February horror flick with Georgina Campbell, who plays a police officer hunting down a supernatural serial killer called The Satanic Slasher (James Preston Rogers) after he murders her husband. Rogers, briefly a professional wrestler, has played many roles calling for a 6’6” muscled fellow, such as Hulk Hogan in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. This psychological horror might bring the weird too, but it’s not a comedy.
Directed by: Martín Mauregui
Starring: Carmen Maura, Daniel Hendler
Release Date: February 27, 2026 on Shudder
Another trapped-in-a-house picture with a twist, this one stars Daniel Hendler as Pedro, who’s asked to look after his senile mother-in-law Alicia (Carmen Maura). Unfortunately for Pedro, Alicia won’t let him leave, and things go very badly for him from there. A nightmarish and bloody Shudder Original from first-time lead director Martín Mauregui.
Directed by: Kevin Williamson
Starring: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Joel McHale, Isabel May
Release Date: February 27, 2026
The in-movie characters of the Scream universe would call Scream 7 a “requel,” or a sequel that’s a relaunch of the franchise in the same universe. Such films often bring back surviving legacy actors from previous entries in the past. That’s never been more the case than with the seventh film, which returns Neve Campbell after two movies away, and Courteney Cox, who’s been in all of them. Also, franchise creator, director, and co-writer Kevin Williamson (Scream, Scream 2, and Scream 4) returns after many years away. Mysteriously, actors Matthew Lillard and Scott Foley, dead Ghostfaces in Scream and Scream 3, are also coming back, as is David Arquette as Dewey Riley, who bit it in Scream VI. More than likely, these are flashbacks or dream sequences or hallucinations, but who knows? Oddly enough, Ghostface Killah of the Wu-Tang Clan has never been in a Scream movie.
Directed by: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Starring: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening, Jake Gyllenhaal, Penelope Cruz
Release Date: March 6, 2026
A lonely Frankenstein (Christian Bale) travels to 1930s Chicago to ask groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening) to create a companion for him. The two revive a murdered young woman and The Bride (Jessie Buckley) is born. What ensues is beyond what either of them imagined: Murder! Possession! A wild and radical cultural movement! And outlaw lovers in a wild and combustible romance! Maggie Gyllenhaal is coming off 2021’s Certified Fresh The Lost Daughter, a film she also wrote and directed, and she’s undoubtedly hoping lightning will strike twice for her on The Bride!
Directed by: Meredith Alloway
Starring: Lili Reinhart, Lola Tung, Alexandra Shipp, Gabrielle Union
Release Date: March 20, 2026
“Forbidden Fruits is about the at times beautiful, at times violent, and always magical ways women connect,” says director and co-writer Meredith Alloway. “I love using horror and satire to visually and tonally showcase the complex and wild emotions between female friends. I’m excited for the world to see what this team has crafted – from the performances, to the costumes, to the soundtrack.”
Directed by: Kirill Sokolov
Starring: Zazie Beetz, Myha’la, Paterson Joseph, Tom Felton, Heather Graham, Patricia Arquette
Release Date: March 27, 2026
Sort of an Only Murders in the Building with a sinister twist, They Will Kill You stars Zazie Beetz, Myha’la, Patricia Arquette, Heather Graham, and Tom Felton as residents and employees of a residential skyscraper that has a history of people mysteriously disappearing. The point-of-view housekeeper character played by Beetz soon learns that one or more people from the community is responsible. Arquette, of course, is a veteran scream queen from potboilers like Stigmata and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, so it’s a welcome return to the scary movies that made her famous.
Directed by: Jeremiah Kipp
Starring: Willa Holland, Paul Sparks
Release Date: April 3, 2026 on Shudder
“We’re the most afraid of what we can’t look at directly, the terrors we know are there but don’t want to confront,” says Jeremiah Kipp, director of The Mortuary Assistant. “Our protagonist Rebecca Owens prefers being a caretaker for the silent dead than facing her own inner demons, much like me in my mid-20s living in my work and not in my life. The Mortuary Assistant is about the fateful night when those repressed monsters finally leap out and attack like a vicious jack-in-the-box, and the only way out is through.”
Directed by: Matt Bettinelli-Opin, Tyler Gillett
Starring: Samara Weaving, Kathryn Newton, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Elijah Wood, David Cronenberg, Kevin Durand
Release Date: April 10, 2026
One of the best satirical horror comedies ever made gets a welcome sequel with Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. In the first one, Samara Weaving played Grace, a new bride who accidentally marries into a sinister family whose ritual involves hunting her down and trying to kill her in a deadly game of hide and seek. In this one, a new family kidnaps her sister Faith (Kathryn Newton) and forces her to be part of a new game to save her sister’s life. This time, though, she’s prepared. The new twisted family includes genre favorites like Sarah Michelle Gellar, Elijah Wood, and David Cronenberg. (The final episode of Star Trek: Discovery implies that every instance of Cronenberg is the same person throughout history, so this must be another example.)
Directed by: Lee Cronin
Starring: Jack Reynor, Laia Costa
Release Date: April 17, 2026
Hot off the record-setting resurrection of Evil Dead Rise, writer/director Lee Cronin turns to one of the most iconic horror stories of all time with an audacious and twisted retelling: The Mummy. Evil Dead Rise was perhaps the most intense, most unsettling of the entire Evil Dead series, culminating in a final attack from a huge, amalgamated Deadite. Cronin’s latest effort explores the undead again, but this time swaddled in linens. Can’t wait to unwrap this one!
Directed by: Damian McCarthy
Starring: Adam Scott, Peter Coonan
Release Date: May 1. 2026
Reclusive novelists have to be one of the best tropes and genre-starters in all of horror, and this one’s got that in spades, but instead of Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) retreating to finish his bugbear of a novel, he travels to a remote Irish inn to scatter his parents’ ashes. An ancient witch haunts the honeymoon suite, at least according to the inn’s staff, and soon the nightmares begin. Hokum is the first big-budget Hollywood film for director Damian McCarthy, but he cut his teeth on psychological indie horror with Caveat in 2020 and Oddity in 2024, both Certified Fresh. And of course, Adam Scott, normally in everyman good guy roles (though he was a great bully demon in The Good Place), will be playing strongly against type here.
Directed by: Curry Barker
Starring: Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette
Release Date: May 15. 2026
“Obsession starts from a very grounded, relatable place and then spirals,” says Curry Barker, writer and director of the film. “It’s about what happens when wanting something crosses a line and turns dangerous. We wanted to explore obsession as a very human impulse that slowly warps your sense of reality. It’s tense, unsettling horror, but also self-aware and a little funny in how honestly it looks at desperation and insecurity. The scares come from character first, so when things get intense it feels earned. If you like horror that’s uncomfortable I think Obsession will hit.”
Directed by: Tommy Wirkola
Starring: Phoebe Dynevor, Whitney Peak, Djimon Hounsou
Release Date: July 3, 2026
Somewhat of a serious take on Sharknado, this film from prolific horror director Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow and Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead) has to do with a coastal town under siege from both a terrible hurricane and an influx of sharks from the sea. Lead protagonist Phoebe Dynevor is fresh off a starring turn as Daphne on Bridgerton.
Directed by: Sébastien Vaniček
Starring: Souheila Yacoub, Hunter Doohan
Release Date: July 24, 2026
This is the third of a relaunched series of Evil Dead movies that eschews the slapstick and satire of the original trilogy for straight-up gonzo horror, and each of them has had a different person behind the camera. This time, it’s Sébastien Vaniček of the extremely creepy 2023 insect horror film Infested (Certified Fresh at 95%). The only thing we know about this one is that it will feature plenty of Deadites, and it will be extremely violent but a lot of fun at the same time. We don’t know if she’ll be possessed or not, but star Souhelia Yacoub starred in psychological horror film Climax several years back, so she’s no stranger to the genre.
Insidious: The Bleeding World (2026)
Directed by: Jacob Chase
Starring: Brandon Perea, Lin Shaye, Sam Spruell, Maisie Richardson-Sellers
Release Date: August 21, 2026
First-time Insidious director Jacob Chase takes the helm for this, the sixth film in this long-running supernatural horror series (not counting spinoffs). Chase directed the jump scare-filled Come Play in 2020, so he should feel right at home. The Bleeding World is a direct sequel to 2023’s Insidious: The Red Door, though it has a mostly new cast led by Brandon Perea, the Fry’s salesman from Jordan Peele’s Nope. Lin Shaye is one of Hollywood’s best seasoned scream queens, having been a teacher in the very first Nightmare on Elm Street and psychic consultant Elise Rainier in most of the other Insidious movies up until now, and she returns for this installment. Expect a lot of demon hunting, exorcism, possession, and creepy scares.
Directed by: Zach Cregger
Starring: Austin Abrams, Paul Walter Hauser, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis
Release Date: September 18, 2026
Remember that long-running Resident Evil series based on the video games, with Milla Jovovich as a zombie ass-kicking woman with lots of guns and sharp objects? That series is being relaunched after a five-year absence, but Jovovich-less this time and presumably more faithful to the source material. However, the director and co-writer is Zach Cregger, the man responsible for two of the best horror movies made in decades, Weapons and Barbarian, so expect this to be much more than a video game cash-in.
Austin Abrams, who played the troublemaking junkie in Weapons who stumbles upon the witch’s plot, takes the lead here in all its survival horror and zombie blasting action.
Other Mommy (2026)
Directed by: Rob Savage
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Jay Duplass
Release Date: October 9, 2026
The extraordinarily versatile Jessica Chastain (It Chapter Two, The Good Nurse, and the terrifying The Eyes of Tammy Faye) stars in this psychological horror feature from veteran director Rob Savage. Savage is known for the Fresh horror movie The Boogeyman and the Certified Fresh Host. Other Mommy is based on a novel, Incidents Around the House, by author Josh Malerman, who also wrote the novel Bird Box that became a Netflix original. Stephen King called the source material “Exorcist level of scary,” so if that translates successfully to the big screen, we’re in for a horrific good time.
Directed by: James Watkins
Starring: Tom Rhys Harries, Naomi Ackie, Max Minghella
Release Date: October 23, 2026
The new DC Extended Universe led by James Gunn rolls on with this live-action take on one of the more unsettling of all Batman villains: Clayface, a man with an unstable form who can take on the appearance of others by shapeshifting.
Expect a lot of body horror as Tom Rhys Harries takes on the title role, joined by Caitlin (Naomi Ackie) as an Elizabeth Holmes-like fringe scientist. Completing the love triangle is a Gotham City Police Department detective played by Max Minghella, while horror vet James Watkins (Eden Lake, The Woman in Black) takes the helm after successfully remaking the deeply unsettling Danish psychological thriller Speak No Evil.
Directed by: Tommy Wirkola
Starring: David Harbour, Daniela Melchior, Kristen Bell
Release Date: December 4, 2026
“Santa finds himself up to his eyeballs in trouble once again, as he clashes with some bad guys who are high on the naughty list,” says Pat Casey, co-writer of Violent Night 2. If this film is anything like the first, Santa’s past as a badass Norse warrior will come into play once again. Expect a lot of sardonic humor, black comedy, and incredible violence in this horror-adjacent action series.
Directed by: Robert Eggers
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Lily-Rose Depp, Willem Dafoe, Ralph Ineson
Release Date: December 25, 2026
However you pronounce Werwulf, director and co-screenwriter Robert Eggers brought us The Witch and Nosferatu. He is a master of folklore and is very good at his job, so expect possibly the definitive take on the werewolf legend with this one, especially with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who appeared in the aforementioned Nosferatu, as the titular Werwulf. Co-starring in this wolfishly good time of a movie is Lily-Rose Depp, Willem Dafoe, and Ralph Ineson, all of whom also appeared in Nosferatu.
TBD
11817 (2026)
Directed by: Louis Leterrier
Starring: Greta Lee, Wagner Moura
Release Date: 2026 on Netflix
Louis Leterrier, known mainly for superhero films (The Incredible Hulk), action films (The Transporter, Transporter 2, Fast X), tries his hand at horror for the first time in this Netflix original starring Greta Lee (Tron: Ares) and Wagner Moura (Narcos, The Secret Agent). The title refers to the number of the house that the characters are trapped inside while supplies slowly run out and they must figure out how to escape.
The Backrooms (2026)
Directed by: Kane Parsons
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass
Release Date: 2026
How many horror movies begin life on 4chan? Not many. Beginning as a creepypasta (a horror legend that takes on a life of its own after being shared around the Internet), this concept of a series of interdimensional rooms populated by monsters turned into a series of short films by YouTuber Kane Parsons. Now, he’s directing an A24-produced feature film based on this same concept. Chiwetel Ejiofor (Doctor Strange) stars as a patient who disappears into the titular Backrooms, chased by his therapist, played by Renate Reinsve. Can a creepy Internet legend become a successful feature film? We shall see!
Directed by: Brandon Christensen
Starring: Jaime Callica, Sean Rogerson
Release Date: 2026 on Shudder
Here’s an interesting premise: Two dirty cops answer a domestic dispute call, and someone ends up dead. Naturally, they try and cover it up to save their jobs, but their mandated bodycams aren’t the only witness to the crime. Director Brandon Christensen is best known for indie horror like the Fresh film Z and the Certified Fresh Influencer and What Keeps You Alive.
Directed by: Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Dusty Mancinelli
Starring: Grace Glowicki, Ben Petri, Jason Isaacs, Kate Dickie
Release Date: 2026 on Shudder
“Honey Bunch is a twisted love story that grew out of something very personal for us – an exploration of devotion, loss, and the strange ways we try to hold on to one another,” say Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli, directors and writers of the film. “It means a lot to us that something so specific and strange might reach people who see love the same unconventional way.”
Directed by: Eli Roth
Starring: Ari Millen, Benjamin Byron Davis
Release Date: 2026
Through his production, directing, and writing, Eli Roth has been responsible for splattery modern horror classics like Cabin Fever, Hostel, and, most recently, Thanksgiving. After taking a break from horror to direct the video game adaptation Borderlands, Roth returns to his roots with Ice Cream Man. A creepy ice cream man (Ari Millen) delivers treats to a quiet summer town with horrifying and disgusting results. Snoop Dogg provided many of the soundtrack songs for this gonzo horror movie that Roth has described in a Variety interview as his “most terrifying and insane film to date.”
Slay Day (2026)
Directed by: John David Buxton
Starring: Lyndon Smith, Jayden Bartels
Release Date: Fall 2026
“Slay Day is an ’80s slasher with a twist,” says director John David Buxton. “The movie is interactive! In theaters, and eventually at home, the audience members each vote at the decision points on their smartphones (there will be between 50-60 depending on which path the audience chooses), and the movie, without stopping, continues down that path and carries the consequences of that choice with them.”
“Our story follows six high schoolers in the picturesque town of Belle Falls as they prepare for the town’s celebration of Sadie Hawkins Night, and their big Sadie Hawkins Dance,” he says. “When the town exhumes the real Sadie’s body to investigate the truth behind her legend, a force is awakened and terrorizes the town. As night falls, the audience’s choices determine who survives the terror to come… or who doesn’t.”
SOULM8TE
Directed by: Kate Dolan
Starring: Lily Sullivan, David Rysdahl
Release Date: TBD
The first two M3GAN films took a similar path to the Alien franchise, moving from conventional horror to action-adventure horror with its first two installments, and this spinoff veers further into new territory in the form of an erotic thriller. Employing a similar premise as last year’s Companion, SOULM8TE follows a man grieving his wife who orders an android to help him get past it. Lily Sullivan (Evil Dead Rise) plays the titular android, and as we’ve seen in these movies so far, robots don’t behave nearly as well as their operators would like them to. The film was originally slated to open on January 9, but was pulled from the calendar; we may still see it sometime in 2026.
The Young People (2026)
Directed by: Osgood Perkins
Starring: Lola Tung, Nico Parker
Release Date: 2026
Horror-meister Osgood Perkins continues his impressive streak, which began with 2024’s Longlegs and continued with 2025’s Keeper and The Monkey. We don’t know much about The Young People just yet, except it involves school friends, one of whom starts displaying some terrifying behavior. The Summer I Turned Pretty breakout Lola Tung stars in this and in Forbidden Fruits in the same year, cementing the young actress as a potential horror queen to keep an eye on.
Thumbnail images by Jay Maidment/©Universal Pictures, Matt Infante/©A24, ©Cineverse
