2026 is shaping up to be one of the strongest years for horror in recent memory, and if you know where to look, the upcoming horror movies 2026 has lined up are genuinely worth getting excited about. From Robert Eggers delivering what he’s calling the darkest thing he’s ever written, to A24 handing a 20-year-old the keys to one of the internet’s most beloved horror concepts, to Kirill Sokolov unleashing Zazie Beetz into a Manhattan high-rise full of Satanists.
Upcoming Horror Movies
This is not a year of sequels keeping seats warm. These are films with intent. Below is the Mother of Movies breakdown of what’s actually worth your time, the Upcoming Horror Movies split by confirmed release date and titles still waiting on one.
They Will Kill You — March 27, 2026
A woman answers a housekeeper ad for a Manhattan high-rise and walks straight into a Satanic cult. Director Kirill Sokolov made “Why Don’t You Just Die!“, a film this site gave five stars, and the man has not mellowed. Zazie Beetz leads a cast that includes Patricia Arquette, Tom Felton, and Myha’la. If you know Sokolov’s work, you know what’s coming. This is Mother of Movies’ personal most anticipated, I can’t wait. There is a trailer for They Will Kill You, if you’re into those.
Do Not Enter — March 20, 2026
Urban explorers livestream from an abandoned New Jersey hotel with a mob history and rumoured missing millions. Lionsgate distributing. The found footage/livestream framework is well-worn at this point, but the setting is genuinely unsettling, and Lionsgate knows how to market a contained thriller (except for Killer Whale, this year). Worth watching if the found footage subgenre is your entry point to the genre. “Do Not Enter is based on the book, “Creepers.”
Faces of Death — IFC Films. April 10th is the release date for cinemas
ICYMI, as a remake, Faces of Death 2026 has been widely talked about. There have been others. Daniel Goldhaber, who made Cam, an underrated horror film in our opinion, returns with IFC Films distributing. Goldhaber’s track record with digital identity horror is exceptional. There is a trailer to watch, too. Angry Films is producing. Stars Charli XCX, AaronHolliday, Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Mongomery sand Sarah Voight.
Upcoming Horror Movies Trailers faces of Death
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy — April 17, 2026
Cronin off Evil Dead Rise. Wan, Keville, and Blum are producing. Jack Reynor and Laia Costa as parents whose daughter vanishes in the desert and returns years later, changed. The concept is tight, the pedigree is real, and Atomic Monster hasn’t missed yet. This is Cronin’s proper follow-up to one of the best horror films of 2023, and it’s arriving sooner than you think. According to sources, Cronin says Poltergeist (1982) and Seven (1995) have an influence on the storyline.
Hokum — May 1, 2026
Damian McCarthy’s follow-up to Oddity. Adam Scott plays a reclusive novelist who travels to a remote Irish inn to scatter his parents’ ashes and finds something considerably worse than grief waiting for him. Neon distributing. Premiered at SXSW on March 14. McCarthy is two-for-two, and Neon doesn’t distribute films that don’t deserve the attention. Cwreature features are producing. At the end of the trailer for Keeper, a 40-second teaser trailer for Hokum was added. We’ve got that teaser here.
Backrooms — May 29, 2026
A24 handed the directorial reins to Kane Parsons, 20 years old and known for his viral Backrooms YouTube series, making him the studio’s youngest-ever director. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve star. Liminal space horror with one of the most devoted built-in fanbases in the genre. The creepypasta internet-to-film pipeline finally gets a prestige studio budget. This one could genuinely surprise. Watch the trailer on Mother of Movies’ Facebook Page. Written by Parsons and with a screenplay by Will Soodik (Westworld).
Passenger — May 29, 2026
André Øvredal directed Autopsy of Jane Doe and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. His new film follows a couple on van life who witness a horrific accident and are then pursued by a demonic force that refuses to let them leave. Paramount distributing. 18Hz Productions is producing (also did Primate). Early crowd reactions are drawing comparisons to Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, which is a sentence that should get your attention immediately.
Evil Dead Burn — July 24, 2026
Sébastien Vaniček, the man who made Infested, was hand-selected by Sam Raimi to take the chainsaw next. He told the studio he wanted to make a nasty film. A film that hurts. Souheila Yacoub, Hunter Doohan, and Luciane Buchanan star. Raimi gave him complete creative control. The Necronomicon is back. Produced by New Line Cinema and distributed by Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures Releasing.
Flowervale Street — August 14, 2026
David Robert Mitchell (It Follows) returns with Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor as a family noticing something deeply wrong with their neighbourhood. JJ Abrams produces, Warner Bros. distributes, shot on IMAX. Mitchell’s instincts for atmosphere are unmatched, and this looks like the prestige horror and Action film of the year. Produced by Bad Robot. Online chatter reports seeing Hathaway on the film set covered in blood with a fireplace poker.
Insidious: The Bleeding World — August 21, 2026
Jacob Chase directs Lin Shaye back into the Further. Lin Shaye has confirmed it won’t be the last one. The mythology is still holding, and Chase has proven he can build sustained dread. Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, and Sony on Production. This installment was filmed in parts of Australia (Melbourne and Victoria), which is pretty cool. Written by Chase and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (who did Orphan 2008)
Resident Evil — September 18, 2026
Sony handed Zach Cregger, the director of Barbarian, $20 million and told him to make a Resident Evil film. He said he’d take inspiration from Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II. Cregger has integrity, and we like that. In an interview, he said he won’t direct someone else’s script. Maybe that means everything he touches will be awesome. He hopes this 2026 Resident Evil will be edgy and weird, and he has more to come, one that apparently feels like “Nightcrawler”.
A hapless courier delivers a package to a remote hospital mid-outbreak and has to fight through the consequences. There’s a dark comedic streak running through this one, which fits Cregger’s instincts. Could this be the best Resident Evil movie yet? Sony Pictures Releasing (US) and Screen Australia are doing distribution.
The Young People — Neon (Osgood Perkins) (Spain – October)
Perkins just came off Longlegs and The Monkey. Neon backing him again. The film follows two pals from school who discover evil things about each other that sour the friendship. Perkins name alone carries weight. Releasing in Spain in October 2026, Nicole Kidman, Johnny Knoxville, Kaitlyn Cielo, and Heather Graham are amongst the cast. Lyrical Media is producing, and we wish we knew more. No USA release date yet
Clayface — October 23, 2026
Mike Flanagan wrote it. (Screenplay by Hossein Amini) and James Watkins directs (Eden Lake, 2008). Tom Rhys Harries plays an actor whose body begins transforming into living clay after a dangerous procedure in Gotham City. DC’s first real horror offering under the new chapter, and with Flanagan’s fingerprints on the script, body horror is the throughline. These are the right hands for this concept. If that’s not enough, the producers are James Gunn, Lynn Harris, Peter Safran, and Matt Reeves.
The Great Beyond — Warner Bros. (JJ Abrams) – November 13, 2026
JJ Abrams is writing and directing a drama/fantasy/horror for Warner Bros. via Bad Robot. The cast list contains Jenna Ortega, Glen Powell, Samuel L. Jackson, and Emma Mackey, so we wish we knew more about The Great Beyond. We do know it follows a newlywed couple up against a supernatural force. Originally filmed under the title Ghostwriter, it marks JJ Abrams’ return to the script niche after a long 7 years away. No wonder this is hard to dig anything up about.
Werwulf — December 25, 2026
13th-century England. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Lily-Rose Depp, Willem Dafoe, and Ralph Ineson. Eggers has called it the darkest thing he has ever written. Focus Features is distributing. This is the horror event of the year, slow, brutal, folkloric dread from the director of The Witch and The Northman. The Christmas Day release date is the kind of provocation only Eggers could pull off.
NO CONFIRMED RELEASE DATE (Upcoming Horror Movies)
Not every title deserves a proper slot, but these horror movies are coming soon and have slightly fewer details online. Watch out for these fresh flicks, and Mother of Movies will update this data as we learn more.
Goody Goody — Shudder
Raymond Creamer directing and writing, Shudder distributing. Drama/horror/thriller. Shudder doesn’t always pick up rubbish, and this is hot off the Overlook Film Festival. Coming sometime in April, it involves a home birth, complications, and a blizzard.
DreamQuil — Republic Pictures
Alex Prager directing, horror/mystery/thriller. Brownstone Productions. Republic Pictures distribution. Prager is a visual artist making her feature debut with a distinctive aesthetic and unusual pedigree. Written by Vanessa and Alex Prager, DreamQuill is a potential sleeper. Among the cast are Juliette Lewis, Elizabeth Banks, and Kathryn Newton, which is why this caught my eye. Fresh off SXSW on March 16th, Mother of Movies awaits more information.
11817 — Netflix
Louis Leterrier (Fast X) directs Greta Lee and Wagner Moura as a family sealed inside their home with no way out. Netflix horror with real directorial weight behind it. The premise is simple and nasty. Sometimes that’s all you need. PG-13 Horror won’t appease the real fans, but it might scratch an itch for a mid-week binge. Matthew Robinson wrote it, and he did alright with Love and Monsters.
Pinocchio: Unstrung — ITN Distribution
Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s follow-up to the Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey universe. Frake-Waterfield has carved out a cult following that actively seeks this stuff out. If you’re in that camp, you already know. Slightly worried that he took over the writer’s chair for this, with previous writers doing a good job for the followup films on Winnie the Pooh, but we shall see what he does with this. Small budget doesn’t instill confidence, however. Set for release in the USA and the UK sometime in 2026. Jagged Edge Productions produced it. The trailer is causing loads of traaction, check that out here.
Boiúna: Legend — Lionsgate
Mike P. Nelson (Wrong Turn 2021) directs a creature feature drawn from Amazonian mythology. Set against the backdrop of Brazil’s Curuçá River in the present day, with Lionsgate distributing. The Boiúna is a massive serpent deity from Brazilian legend, and Nelson is a reliable genre craftsman. Underrated pick for the year. Constantin Film is producing, and it has had a release in the Netherlands. No release date for the USA or any other countries as yet.
Tony Gigilo (TWD), Alan B. McElroy (Halloween 4), and Nelson got behind the writing. But it’s the cast that got people talking, so we can’t wait for more information on “Boiúna: Legend.” Logan Marshall-Green (The Invitation), Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day), and Kiana Madeira (Fear Street Part 3 are among the cast.
Mother of Movies will update this Upcoming Horror Movies list ongoing basis and every few months. Be sure to bookmark this and our Facebook page for more news and reviews.
