Netflix, Kane Parsons & Boss Fight

Netflix shuts Night School Studio and Moonloot while narrowing its games business around kids, party and story-driven titles; the cull lands six weeks after interactive horror title Unhinged launched and follows prior cuts at Spry Fox, Boss Fight and Team Blue.

50 Canadian screen organizations are pressuring Ottawa to keep enforceable streamer contribution quotas under the Online Streaming Act, warning that discretionary funding won’t replace the CRTC’s 15% Canadian programming spend benchmark. The coalition says foreign platforms must keep reinvesting in Canadian and Indigenous content as the government revises policy direction.

Dark Sky Films and Fathom are rolling Texas Chain Saw Day back into theaters for a one-night national event on Aug. 18, while Dark Sky and Exurbia Films unveil the first look at the rotoscoped Texas Chain Saw Massacre, now in production for 2027. The package also adds a CREEPY podcast prologue and live Q&As in Los Angeles and Austin.

Paramount Primal has picked up Tower Defense, a medieval supernatural spin on Assault on Precinct 13. The package leans on John Carpenter and Howard Hawks DNA as it moves into studio development.

Neon is pairing IT ENDS’ Aug. 21 NY/LA opening and Aug. 28 nationwide rollout with a 36-hour NYC theater endurance contest and indie-theater partner invite; the film also gets a Vancouver sneak screening with Kane Parsons Q&A.

YouTube-born horror is forcing a reset on where the genre finds new voices, with Backrooms and Obsession feeding fresh development chatter. Funders still want “elevated horror,” but the money is not matching the pitch; Toronto and Venice are the next pressure tests for that pipeline.

Grimmfest sets its 2026 feature slate for Oct. 8-11 in Manchester, with world, international and UK premieres across the lineup; Hammer’s Ithaqua, Signature’s Crawlers and John Carpenter’s The Fog anchor the program.

Locarno Open Doors tapped Accept My Plea for Burial for an Open Doors Grant as the Somali thriller seeks a co-production partner and a home country to move into production; the project is set as a Djibouti-Somalia-Qatar co-production and is one of the platform’s two main winners.

Sunscreen Film Festival is launching Sunscreen Fantastic Fest as its first explicit genre offshoot, with the inaugural edition set for St. Petersburg on Nov. 28. The move widens another regional fest's lane into horror and sci-fi programming.

Just north of $2 million in preview-night gross for Warner Bros.’ The End of Oak Street; early box-office pulse points to a modest launch rather than a breakout.

Netflix’s fall slate mixes documentaries, horror TV, true-crime biopics, and animation across September to December. Genre anchors include supernatural limited series Below on Oct. 8 and Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story on Sept. 17.

Supernatural horror film Passenger begins streaming on Paramount+ Aug. 20, followed by Blu-ray and DVD releases Sept. 8.

Hammer Films has Ithaqua on deck as a new survival-horror title; the project is set for its world premiere at FrightFest London on Aug. 29, 2026.

Octavia Spencer fronts Investigation Discovery’s three-part Lost Women of Alaska as narrator and executive producer; the series frames the Brian Steven Smith killings as a systemic failure, not entertainment. Spencer says the mission is justice, visibility and accountability for missing Indigenous women.

Skeet Ulrich boards indie psychological horror Deify as a cult leader on trial for mass burnings; Neal McDonough also joins as the prosecuting attorney. Brothers Carmelo and Nicholas Chimera are mounting the Chicago shoot with Jordan Gianeschi, Jacob Rice and Mike Manning producing.

Seth Kearsley joins Marvel Zombies Season 2 as the animated horror team expands; the writer-director says the Disney+ run is aiming for “no holds barred martial arts and gore.”

Scott Z. Burns’ new American Psycho draft keeps the killing off the page until the final fifteen pages; Drew Starkey’s script read keeps Bateman casting chatter alive while Lionsgate still weighs Luca Guadagnino’s attachment.

Mitchell’s It Follows sequel gets a fresh production update; no casting, financing or distribution terms are disclosed.

Cineplex books Mike P. Nelson's Beware Boiúna for Oct. 2 in Canada; the Amazon-set creature horror pairs Kiana Madeira, Jessica Rothe, and Logan Marshall-Green with a theatrical-first Canadian play.

Prime Video rolls out the first teaser for Mike Flanagan’s Carrie miniseries, which updates Stephen King’s prom-night carnage with a cyberbullying angle; Summer Howell stars with Samantha Sloyan, Matthew Lillard, Amber Midthunder, Kate Siegel, Rahul Kohli, and a full eight-episode launch on Oct. 7.

Half Mermaid has tapped Brandon Cronenberg to co-write and co-develop Precognition, a live-action sci-fi horror FMV game now funded through Kinetic Publishing after the project’s earlier Blumhouse Games tie fell away. Spring 2028 launch is targeted for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2 and PC.