Tuesday, August 4, 2026

Shudder takes U.S. rights to Bloody Tennis as Nikias Chryssos’ English-language horror film lands a stacked international sales rollout ahead of its Locarno world premiere. Territory deals are also set across Australia, the Baltics, Italy, Japan, Poland, and Scandinavia, with production backed by German and Spanish incentives.

Shudder has locked V/H/S/MIXTAPE for an October 9, 2026 streaming launch; the ninth franchise entry ropes in Ernest Dickerson, RZA, David Moreau, Renee Zhan, Flying Lotus, Tobias Forge, and GWAR, while Shudder leans on the series’ biggest acquisition weekend of 2025 to keep the anthology brand hot.

Orion Pictures lands North American rights to Kumail Nanjiani’s werewolf horror-comedy; Nanjiani directs and stars in his feature debut.

The Horror Section and Media Capital Technologies financed and produced Ice Cream Man, with Roth’s label using a fan-equity mechanic that lets supporters buy into the business. Karen Cliche says the structure keeps horror fans financially invested in the slate while giving Roth room to fully execute his vision.

Shudder and AMC+ set The Creep Tapes Season 3 for Sept. 15, 2026; the six-episode run opens with a two-episode drop and adds Katie Siegel, Chris Gethard, and Ora Duplass to the guest roster.

Production wraps on the indie supernatural feature, adding Travis Fimmel and Natasha Lyonne to the ensemble.

Saban Films picks up North American rights to Jeffrey Scott Collins’ witchcraft horror The Caged; Tamzin Merchant, Edmund Kingsley, Raffiella Chapman, and Callen Carter lead the cast.

V/H/S 9 pivots to a musical anthology entry, with Ernest Dickerson, RZA, and Flying Lotus among the filmmakers taking the found-footage reins.

Disney canceled Wonder Man season 2 after a March renewal, signaling a harder Marvel TV pullback even as Murai’s Widow’s Bay profile keeps the show’s off-kilter genre tone in view. The move tightens the streamer’s live-action slate while executives reallocate toward bigger franchise bets.

Freestyle Digital Media grabs North American VOD/DVD/cable/satellite rights to Blood Magick for an Aug. 11, 2026 release; Micah Delhauer writes/directs the witch-versus-monsters survival horror from Conduit Inc. and the Delhauer brothers.

World premiere at FrightFest 2026 in London Aug. 27-31; Brett and Jason Butler's Canadian dark-satire thriller Starsuckers follows a couple whose celebrity getaway turns into murder and psychological manipulation, with release plans to follow the festival launch.

Nightborn takes Fantasia’s Cheval Noir for Best Film and No Rest for the Wicked wins Best Director at the fest’s 30th edition in Montreal. Ferine, Sleep No More and Mancave also picked up awards, while Her Private Hell opened and Freaks Part II closed the festival.

Locarno Pro is building its 2026 industry program around the Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery consolidation and the AI/data pressure reshaping indie cinema. The fest is using the merger as a live case study for how power concentration and platform economics are changing the European sales and production ecosystem.

July 20, 2026 U.S. digital rollout on Tubi, Amazon Prime, Roku, Fawesome, Apple TV and Fandango; Greenway Entertainment's supernatural thriller stars Julian Glover and Patsy Kensit, with Steven M. Smith directing and writing.

Freeform launches Somebody Knows Something on Aug. 10 with next-day streaming on Hulu; Ample Entertainment and ABC News Studios are pairing a Kara Chamberlain-hosted true-crime format with a public-tip callout. The rollout gives Disney’s linear and streaming sides a coordinated nonfiction push.

Netflix and Alan Ritchson inked a long-term first-look feature pact via Dancing Skeleton; the first project is a MotoGP-set heist thriller with Chris Morgan writing and MotoGP consulting. Ritchson will star and produce, with the slate set to expand beyond the opener.

Amazon MGM Studios has grabbed worldwide rights to David Gordon Green's 'Supermax' in the $70M range, with production set to roll in weeks and a straight-to-streaming launch locked. Will Smith, Jaafar Jackson, and AnnaSophia Robb are in the package, from a screenplay by David Weil and David J. Rosen.

Low Light Films comes aboard Basil Da Cunha’s Locarno thriller O Jacaré ahead of its world premiere; the Reboleira-set feature centers on a hidden €180,000 and closes Da Cunha’s 15-year neighborhood cycle.

Netflix's I Will Find You hits 101.8M views and No. 1 in 81 countries, cracking the streamer’s all-time top 10 English-language series list.

Wrath of the Gods, the second Wicker Man sequel, is set to premiere at FrightFest on Aug. 28; Justin Hardy dies at 61 just weeks before the launch. The film is dedicated to his mother Caroline, who was later identified as an uncredited executive producer on The Wicker Man.

Director James Watkins told Empire at San Diego Comic-Con that Sam Raimi influenced Clayface’s extreme horror and humor, while Brian De Palma and Martin Scorsese shaped its visual language with cinematographer Rob Hardy.

Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma centers on a horror-franchise reboot inside the movie; Jane Schoenbrun and Hannah Einbinder detail the self-reflexive slasher setup, with Gillian Anderson in the cast.

An Exorcist II documentary hits theaters this August, reframing John Boorman’s infamous 1977 sequel as a horror-history package for a limited theatrical rollout. The release turns one of Warner Bros.’ most notorious franchise misfires into fresh cult-programming inventory.

Zach Cregger, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley teased updates on Resident Evil, Star Trek and Mayday at SDCC; Collider published the report Aug. 3, 2026.

Prime Video is developing both a flagship live-action Warhammer 40,000 series and a separate animated series, with Henry Cavill fronting the IP push. The double-track adaptation deepens the streamer’s play in grimdark sci-fi/fantasy.

John Carpenter’s 1992 Chevy Chase vehicle Memoirs of an Invisible Man nearly ended his directing career; he later called the production “a horror show,” after writer William Goldman and director Ivan Reitman exited amid conflicts with Chase.

Aaron Truss’s Indiegogo feature Employee of the Dead stars Dani Harmer (Tracy Beaker), Ellie Raé Winstone, Paul Casar, Nick Helm, Nicholas Vince and Sean Cronin; it follows a supermarket worker making a zombie film during night shifts.

Grady Hendrix said Witchcraft for Wayward Girls grew from discovering relatives were secretly sent away as teenagers, with their experiences revealed 50–60 years later; the novel follows pregnant teen Fern at an isolated institution.

Eckhart Schmidt’s 1982 German cannibal horror cult film Der Fan will receive its first U.S. theatrical release beginning August 28 at New York’s Metrograph, distributed by Fun City Editions.