Netflix, A24 & Shudder

Sony Pictures and Screen Gems lock in a live-action Mouthwashing feature; Karyn Kusama boards to direct from a Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay script, with Scott Derrickson, C. Robert Cargill and Vince Cheng producing via Crooked Highway.

HBO Max dropped a surprise Halloween episode of It: Welcome to Derry and renewed the Stephen King prequel for season 2; the new chapter will jump to 1935 and center on the Bradley Gang massacre.

Spine Drop Pictures launches as a Dubai-based microbudget horror label with three features in the inaugural slate; Fractal is already attached with Jason Flemyng and Gabriela Vargas and is targeting a 2027 Serbia shoot.

Prestige International Pictures pads its AFM slate with horror titles Fifteen and Experiment 11, alongside the in-production western The Last Heroes Of Rio Bravo. Fifteen premiered in SXSW Midnighters; Experiment 11 is headed out with Eduardo Sánchez and Gregg Hale exec producing.

Final Girls Berlin says its usual 2027 funding has fallen through and is now fundraising to keep the festival alive. The ask includes €8,000 for screening fees, €28,000 for admin and staffing, plus cash for marketing, accessibility, guests and venue costs.

Netflix renews Haunted Hotel for a third season; Matt Roller already has Season 3 scripts in hand, keeping the animated supernatural hit on track for another run.

Cleopatra Entertainment lands North American rights to J-horror The Invisible Half, with Pictureworks, Cola Films and Crystalsky Entertainment closing additional territory plays. EST N8 is still shopping the Raindance premiere ahead of a Nov. 10 North American release under Cleopatra Venom.

Clayface is tracking a $10M+ second weekend and $43.7M domestic cume; A24’s You Can See Everything is also pacing for a Halloween-frame win as holiday box office skews soft.

Horror-sector deal activity spans The Horror Collective, Lights On and New Mountain Films; terms aren’t disclosed, but the roundup signals fresh buying and packaging momentum in indie genre.

Ripcord’s Halloween Film Festival handed Julian Doan’s Long’s Long Lost & Mini Mart the $100,000 top prize, with more than $200,000 paid out across the inaugural edition. Ripcord is now moving into a web platform, adding indie genre features, shorts and online events at ripcord.film in the coming weeks.

TIFFCOM surfaced a new animated horror anthology, A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts, with studios in Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and Ireland aligned behind the project; the panel also underscored how international co-financing is shaping anime development.

FrightFest lands in Newcastle for the first time with a May 1-2, 2027 two-day takeover at Tyneside Cinema; Tubi sponsors the expansion, which promises premieres and guest appearances.

Hoyt McCallany will star in Paradise Disturbed, a serial-killer feature headed to the American Film Market in November; the Mindhunter alum’s casting offers a new genre project after David Fincher confirmed the Netflix series will not return.

Australian slasher The Only One sets its international premiere as the closing-night selection at SOHO Horror Film Festival; Mel Jarnson and Saphira Moran headline the indie horror feature.

Independent Film Company and Shudder are opening Breeder at 777 theaters with about $275K in play, while Briarcliff pushes Christmas At The Kringles to 1,825 screens as Halloween weekend opens thin.

Season 2 is now in production in New York; Madelaine Petsch joins Netflix's true-story horror series alongside Naomi Watts, Bobby Cannavale, and Margo Martindale, with a 2027 launch likely.

Vertical follow-up Megan Is Missing: Evil Never Dies is live on the official Instagram account, with the entire feature-length series rolling out across Instagram and TikTok and no other platforms planned. Michael Goi filmed the Los Angeles production earlier this year; Rachel Quinn and Amber Perkins reprise fictionalized versions of themselves.

IP-heavy horror TV still gets the broadest streamer push, but original concepts like The Creep Tapes and From show the low-budget, high-concept lane still works; platform boosts can turn niche horror into a bigger audience play.

Blumhouse and Atomic Monster are lining up a 2027 theatrical horror slate under the Scary AF banner, signaling a continued co-branded release strategy for the pair.

Beta Film has licensed the six-part true-crime thriller to Filmin for Spain; the series launches on ARD’s streamer Oct. 30 and lands on Filmin in early 2027.

Joseph Mazzello lands the lead in A Grim Life, a supernatural horror set around Los Angeles’ Cecil Hotel; Francesco Lucente writes and directs. The casting adds a recognizable name to a contained horror setup with built-in true-crime creep factor.

FilmNation launches AFM sales on Infrared Pictures’ survival thriller State Of Emergency as Infrared backs the financing; Brittany O’Grady stars, Greg Yaitanes directs, and production is set to roll next year.

Grindhouse Releasing is rolling Scott Spiegel’s unrated director’s cut of Intruder into art-house theaters across the U.S. and Canada, restoring the KNB EFX gore cut from the home-video version. Dates are still being booked through Grindhouse and Full Moon Features.

Canadian creature feature Last Moon heads for a Nov. 17 home release after a Cinéfest Sudbury premiere; Brandon D. Cox shot the horror-western entirely on location in Powassan, Ontario with Shawn Doyle and Colin Cunningham leading the cast.

Darren Aronofsky and Matthew Libatique are running AI tests before cameras roll on the director’s next feature; the project slate still includes a Gillian Flynn erotic thriller, Netflix’s Cujo remake and A24’s Breakthrough.

Fresh details on A Quiet Place Part III keep Paramount’s survival-horror sequel moving; the franchise’s next chapter remains active after the breakout two-film run. No release date is set yet.

Two-hour runtime locked for Robert Eggers' medieval folk-horror Werwulf ahead of its Christmas Day 2026 release. Willem Dafoe leads with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Lily-Rose Depp, Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie in the cast.

Curry Barker drops Mama Bear on YouTube as a quick-turn horror short while his post-Obsession pipeline stays hot; Blumhouse-Atomic Monster, Spooky Pictures and Universal are already next up for the filmmaker.

Shudder sets Nov. 27, 2026 for Paolo Strippoli’s folk-horror feature; the Fandango/Nightswim/SPOK/Vision co-production carries an estimated €3.87M budget and stars Michele Riondino, Giulio Feltri and Paolo Pierobon.

Mark Savage’s possessed Jeffrey Dahmer doll horror film Jeffrey Dollmer has released its first trailer and is set for a November VOD and digital release.