Fantastic Fest is returning to Austin, Texas, this fall, taking over the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar from September 17-24, 2026. As always, the festival is packed with world premieres, major genre releases and the kind of completely unexpected discoveries that make it one of our favorite places to find what’s next in horror.
We dug through this year’s massive lineup and pulled out a handful of films we’re particularly excited about, including the World Premiere of Pathetic Fallacy.
Directed by Adam Egypt Mortimer (Daniel Isn’t Real, Archenemy), the psychedelic supernatural odyssey stars Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi and Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day).
The 98-minute film follows a man reeling from the devastating loss of his wife who embarks on a surreal journey to somehow bring her back.
Who doesn’t wanna see Mortimer get weird and psychedelic with Mescudi and Rothe?
Horror fans don’t wait until October for a good scare. Each month, more than 53 million hours of horror are streamed on Tubi, from blockbusters and cult classics to Tubi Originals and emerging voices. Now, Tubi is giving fans a year-round destination for the genre with the Terror on Tubi Hub, evolving its fan-favorite seasonal celebration into a permanent home for horror.
Featuring more than 13,000 hours of horror content, Tubi gives fans the freedom and accessibility to follow their obsessions wherever they lead. Tubi’s depth of horror content means viewers can start with their favorite slasher, supernatural thriller or creature feature, uncover a forgotten hidden gem, find an emerging filmmaker or next-generation creator, and keep going down incredibly specific rabbit holes across the genre.
The Terror on Tubi Hub brings this breadth together in one place, with curated collections that evolve throughout the year, giving devoted fans and curious newcomers fresh ways to explore and go deeper into horror. This fall, the Hub will also feature the premieres of new Tubi Original films and creator-led programming alongside fan-favorite movies and TV series.
“Horror isn’t seasonal. For millions of fans, it’s their version of comfort viewing: something they return to ritualistically all year round,” said Adam Lewinson, Chief Content Officer at Tubi. “We custom-built Terror on Tubi to give that fandom a home so they can indulge in what they already love and discover something unexpected.”
The Terror on Tubi Hub is available across web, mobile, and connected devices, wherever the fear finds them. The Hub will also launch in international markets across Canada, the U.K., Australia, Mexico and Latin America, with each market featuring a locally tailored selection of horror content curated to reflect the distinct tastes of fans in the region.
Tubi Original Feature Films:
BUZZKILL: When a group of sorority sisters finds themselves trapped with a vengeful killer, party-girl Nora knows that the drunker she gets, the more her tipsy memories start revealing clues about who’s murdering her friends. But she’d better hurry, or her next vodka soda might be her last.
R.L. STINE’S PUMPKINHEAD 2: Based on the story by R.L. Stine, this continuation to the wildly popular movie begins when a new Pumpkinhead curse awakens in Redhaven, and Sam and Becka must stop it before it claims the entire town.
Tubi Creator Exclusive Series
CARTER’S HAUNTED HOUSE: A next-level expansion of Carter’s iconic annual haunted house—now turned into a full behind-the-scenes build-out and terrifying experience. The audience follows Carter from wild ideation and design meetings to shopping trips, set builds, and casting his creator friends… who then must survive the final haunted experience.
CREEPERS: In a post-apocalyptic wasteland where only teenagers and a handful of struggling adults remain, radiation is turning some teens into unpredictable “Creepers”, monsters hiding in plain sight. As they fight to survive and rebuild society, the biggest threats aren’t just the creatures outside but the ones their friends might suddenly become.
UNLIKELY CO-HOSTS: Kelsi Davies will travel the world to uncover haunted locations, but she isn’t making this journey alone. Joining her will be some truly unexpected cohosts, from Adam McArthur, lead voice actor from “Jujutsu Kaisen” and a skeptic that is slowly becoming a believer, to other voice actors from Demon Slayer, WWE stars like Scarlett Bordeaux and Shotzi, and paranormal enthusiasts like George Lopez, who actively wants to investigate with Kelsi.
GHOST HUNTING: A group of skeptical comedians confront the unknown as The Try Guys dive into ghost hunting, exploring reportedly haunted locations and testing their fears in search of proof, laughs, and whatever might be lurking in the dark.
UNLISTED:Desperate to stay relevant, four washed-up content creators livestream their search for a missing YouTuber linked to a chilling conspiracy video. As they venture deep into the woods in hopes of answers, a fantastical herb and clicks, they uncover something sinister…proving not all content is meant to go viral.
Fan Favorites:
“28 Weeks Later”: Six months after the military declares Britain safe from the mysterious rage virus that ravaged the nation, a terrifying new nightmare soon begins.
“Are You Afraid of The Dark”: Members of The Midnight Society tell scary stories from American folklore in this classic children’s horror anthology series on Nickelodeon.
“The Descent”: A spelunking trip turns to horror when a cave collapse entombs a group of friends in darkness, making them prey to the flesh-eating creatures below.
“Event Horizon”: In 2047, a team of astronauts embarks on a mission to retrieve a missing spaceship but discovers something far more terrifying than expected.
“Final Destination”: After a vivid premonition prevents seven people from dying in a plane crash, the would-be victims must figure out how to escape Death’s fateful hand.
“The Following”: Nine years after a lit professor was sent to death row for mutilating 14 students, he unleashes a cult of believers to complete his unfinished story.
“Pet Sematary”: The Creed family leaves the city for the country, but their idyllic new life is short-lived when the cemetery next door unleashes its evil curse.
“Queen of the Damned”: After a century of sleep, the vampire Lestat takes up as the frontman for an undead rock band while unwittingly awakening the dangerous Queen Akasha.
DC’s Absolute Universe continues to absolutely tear up the comic book industry.
Absolute Batman became the biggest-selling ongoing comic series of 2025, with the larger Absolute line helping propel DC past Marvel in comic shops. And this isn’t just fan perception: according to ICv2’s ComicHub data, DC overtook Marvel in direct-market share in late 2025 and widened that lead during the first quarter of 2026.
It’s a pretty remarkable reversal. The last comparable moment was probably DC Rebirth in 2016, when DC briefly overtook Marvel in market share for the first time in nearly three years.
The Absolute Universe has obviously struck a nerve, and Marvel’s answer arrives this October with the Midnight Universe.
And, look, on the surface it feels a little reactionary.
What makes Absolute Batman, Absolute Wonder Woman and Absolute Superman so exciting isn’t simply that they’re darker or more hardcore. They’re genuinely rethinking these characters and their mythology from the ground up. Bruce Wayne becoming a working-class Batman while Joker is the billionaire is such a simple fucking flip, but it fundamentally changes everything about their relationship.
Marvel appears to have looked at that success and gone: What if ours were horror?
Marvel officially describes Midnight as a new universe where its creators have free rein to transform some of the company’s biggest characters into monsters. The entire thing launches October 7 with three books: Midnight Spider-Man by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and ScieTronc, Midnight X-Men by Jonathan Hickman and Matteo Della Fonte, and Midnight Fantastic Four by Benjamin Percy and Kev Walker.
Well, now we’ve seen pages from the Midnight Spider-Man ashcan, and that Fly homage suddenly makes a hell of a lot more sense.
This Peter Parker isn’t simply bitten by a radioactive spider.
According to Marvel’s official description, Oscorp transforms Peter into a hideous spider hybrid while pursuing eternal life. And the preview pages appear to take that concept into full-blown Cronenbergian body horror.
Peter seemingly isn’t just gaining the abilities of a spider.
He’s become merged with one.
Most grotesquely, the familiar spider emblem on his chest appears to be an actual spider embedded within his body, its legs stretching across his torso as part of him.
It’s fucking disgusting.
It also makes that The Fly homage feel much less like a cool variant-cover gimmick and much more like Marvel telling us exactly what kind of transformation story we’re getting.
Think Seth Brundle becoming Brundlefly, except now it’s Peter Parker slowly becoming whatever the hell Spider-Man actually means in this universe.
It sounds like the same horror logic is being applied across the other two books.
Midnight X-Men throws mutants into a New York overrun by vampires, with mutant “Empyres” and vampires seemingly headed toward war. That makes its gorgeous Fright Night homage pretty damn appropriate.
Then there’s Midnight Fantastic Four, which Marvel describes as beginning when an obsessive scientist explores dimensions humanity probably should have left the fuck alone, leaving himself and three others “warped in strange and horrifying ways.” Writer Benjamin Percy has specifically described his approach as cosmic, Lovecraftian dread.
And yes, the Horror Homage cover by E.M. Gist sure as hell appears to be invoking John Carpenter’s The Thing.
So maybe we’re looking at three pretty clear horror templates:
Spider-Man meets The Fly.
X-Men meets Fright Night.
Fantastic Four meets The Thing.
That’s considerably more interesting to me than simply making everyone “dark.”
I’m still staring at this entire Midnight experiment with one eyebrow raised. It feels a bit try-hard and very much like Marvel seeing what’s happening across the street with Absolute and wanting its own version immediately.
But Marvel has also had enormous success taking its superheroes into horror before with Marvel Zombies.
And if these Spider-Man pages are any indication, they’re not fucking around.
An actual spider living inside Peter Parker’s chest? Yes, please.
Another huge announcement out of D23 over the weekend was the reveal of new details for Indiana Jones and the Myth of the Jade Serpent, the previously announced Indiana Jones attraction coming to Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom.
The attraction will replace the now-closed fan-favorite DINOSAUR, and while there had been plenty of speculation that Disney might simply bring Disneyland’s Indiana Jones attraction to Florida, we now know this will be a completely new adventure.
And hilariously, it’s going directly after Indy’s greatest fear: snakes.
The story finds guests rendezvousing with Dr. Jones as he explores a mysterious Maya temple near an underground cenote. According to local legend, the passage leads directly into the Maya Underworld, which is protected by an enormous serpentine creature known as the Tsukán.
Things obviously go horribly wrong.
Riders are accidentally sucked through a portal into the Underworld, where they’ll encounter monstrous bats, gigantic scorpions, fire, flames and, yes, lots and lots of snakes.
The Tsukán will appear throughout the attraction before riders eventually come face-to-face with the creature in a massive final confrontation. Disney revealed a first look at the gigantic, hand-sculpted Audio-Animatronics figure at D23, and this thing is absolutely enormous.
Why’d it have to be snakes?
Disney also revealed that the attraction’s Indiana Jones Audio-Animatronic will be the first to actually carry Harrison Ford’s likeness, which I somehow never realized wasn’t the case at Disneyland.
So, no, Animal Kingdom isn’t simply getting a reskinned version of the existing Indiana Jones ride. We’re going to the Maya Underworld, battling monsters and eventually staring down a gigantic snake.
The horror world has lost one of its great practical effects visionaries.
Screaming Mad George, the legendary special makeup and creature effects artist whose surreal creations helped define some of horror’s most unforgettable imagery, passed away on February 10, 2026, at the age of 69. His family announced the news this weekend, explaining that they had kept his passing private for the past five months to give themselves time to grieve.
Born in Osaka, Japan, George moved to New York at 18 to study fine art at the School of Visual Arts. He fronted the punk band The Mad before teaching himself special makeup effects, eventually catching the attention of legendary makeup artist Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London), who invited him to California.
George would go on to work on Predator, Big Trouble in Little China, Poltergeist II, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Bride of Re-Animator, Freaked and countless others, but horror fans perhaps know him best for his astonishing work on Brian Yuzna’sSociety. The film’s infamous “shunting” sequence remains one of the most outrageous and influential displays of practical effects ever put on screen.
Interestingly, George never really considered himself a horror artist. He considered himself a surrealist, influenced by artists including Salvador Dalà and Hieronymus Bosch, and saw even his most grotesque creations as explorations of transformation, imagination and beauty.
He was also an important mentor to the generation that followed. His S.M.G. Inc. studio became an early training ground for effects artists including Greg Nicotero and Robert Kurtzman, while George later returned to Osaka and devoted much of his life to teaching and mentoring young artists at Osaka University of Arts.
George is survived by his wife, Miki, and their daughter, Alice. A memorial gathering is planned for the first anniversary of his passing.
His family and representatives have shared an extensive remembrance of George, his extraordinary career, his final years and the person behind the monsters.
Warner Bros.’ The End of Oak Street, which is basically Jurassic Park in the suburbs, opened this weekend with a solid $21 million domestically and another $26 million internationally, giving the sci-fi popcorn blockbuster a $47 million global opening.
That was good enough for third place domestically behind two absolute monsters: Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which remained #1 with $70 million, and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which took second with another $23.2 million.
Considering that competition, I think Oak Street ate pretty well.
The David Robert Mitchell film, starring Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, was made for a reported $80 million, which is actually fairly modest when you consider the scale of what’s on screen. It’s a big dinosaur blockbuster, but it wasn’t made for Jurassic World money.
Reviews have also been strong, currently sitting at 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, although audiences were a little less enthusiastic with a B CinemaScore. So maybe I’m being overly optimistic about the legs here, but I think word of mouth could keep this one going.
My biggest question is why Warner Bros. opened it here in the first place.
We’re at the tail end of summer, kids are heading back to school, and theaters are incredibly crowded. Spider-Man is a phenomenon, The Odyssey refuses to die, and Oak Street is being asked to fight for oxygen against all of it.
In retrospect, it’s kind of perplexing.
This feels like exactly the kind of original popcorn movie that could have really popped with a cleaner summer release date. Maybe this was always the plan. Maybe Warner Bros. saw this as a smaller play. But now that we’ve actually seen the movie and the response to it, I can’t help wondering what it might have done with a better slot.
Still, $47 million worldwide against an $80 million production budget isn’t a bad place to start. If it holds and eventually performs well enough, maybe there’s even a sequel or some larger universe here. Because, well, that’s what everyone does now.
Meanwhile, there’s another horror-adjacent movie worth watching at the specialty box office.
Jane Schoenbrun’sTeenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is also killing it at the specialty box office. The MUBI release debuted last weekend with $249,606 from just five theaters, an absolutely killer $49,921 per-theater average. It expanded this weekend and has now pushed its domestic total past $1.1 million, with nearly $1.4 million worldwide to date. Not bad at all for an extremely niche, sexually charged queer slasher that hasn’t even gone wide yet. The real test comes as MUBI continues expanding the film across the country.
The film initially opened August 7 in just a handful of theaters in New York and Los Angeles, with sold-out screenings throughout opening weekend, before expanding into additional markets this weekend. MUBI continues to roll it out into more theaters over the coming weeks.
And I really like this strategy.
Camp Miasma is a very specifically targeted movie, and New York and Los Angeles are obviously ideal markets for it. The real question is whether that word of mouth can carry over as it moves into more of the country.
All I know is I haven’t seen it yet, I’m really fucking excited, and it sucks that I have to wait this long.
But maybe that’s part of the fun.
I kind of miss this.
Who else is planning to see Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma when it finally opens near them?
I find fans tend to fear the remake. We worry any new iteration of our favorite films “won’t get it”. We mourn for “originality”. Some even weep at the thought of a new take somehow swatting the original down like a pesky insect. But that’s the wrong way to view them. Remakes are an opportunity to expand on old ideas for a modern audience. They’re a chance to take what worked about a story and transform it into something else, like a caterpillar entering a cocoon to become a beautiful butterfly. Best of all, they inform a fresh audience of the original’s existence, giving new life to that story.
In horror, there are countless remakes that not only prove themselves worthwhile, but outdo what came before. Think films like The Blob (1988), The Thing (1982), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), and, of course, David Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986). Forty years ago, the master of body horror signed on to reimagine the Vincent Price classic. And, forty years ago, he unleashed a monster movie masterpiece that has endured for decades thanks to a heavy helping of nauseating practical effects, tragic themes, and devastating performances.
Based on the 1958 film starring Price, Cronenberg’s The Fly opens on the gentle meeting of journalist Veronica (Geena Davis) and awkward scientist Seth (Jeff Goldblum). Seth promises to show Veronica an invention that “will change the world as we know it”. Unable to quiet her curiosity, she takes the stranger up on his offer and follows him to the warehouse where he lives. There, she discovers he wasn’t kidding. Seth has invented teleportation pods. But the pods struggle to transport living things. Instead, they leave behind a bloody mess. Veronica agrees to document Seth’s research and write a tell-all book. Soon, a romance forms between the two. Until one night, Seth suspects his new love is cheating on him with her ex-boyfriend/editor, Stathis (John Getz). Upset and drunk, he enters the pods himself, unaware he’s been joined by a simple housefly. Now, Seth is turning into something that has never existed. He’s becoming…Brundle-Fly.
A Whole New Insect
Courtesy of 20th Century Fox
For his Fly, Cronenberg strives for what the best remakes do by telling a story almost entirely unlike the previous version. Whereas the Price film plays more like a silly slice of sci-fi camp (minus one terrifying moment during the ending), Cronenberg’s take couldn’t be further from that tone.
The stylistic switch becomes immediately apparent in Howard Shore’s score that plays over the opening credits. The composer lures us in like moths to the flame with yearning notes that build into booming bellows of pain and horror. Not unlike the terror that befalls the characters, which begins so small they hardly notice it. Cronenberg has noted before that he sees the title credits as easing viewers into a dream (an observation I happen to agree with). The filmmaker accomplishes that beautifully with The Fly. But what lies ahead is no pleasant dream. The audience doesn’t know it yet, but we’ve just entered a sickening nightmare of horrors that only become more real as we age.
An undisputed master of his craft, Cronenberg understands that the horror of any situation works best when we care about the characters. So, the filmmaker doesn’t start with scares or some nasty fly creature ripping open bodies. Instead, we’re invited into the gradual romance between Veronica and Seth. And, my god, does that make what proceeds hurt ten-fold. Even now, I’m listening to the soundtrack and tearing up at the thought of it.
Neither Davis nor Goldblum were nominated for an Academy Award for their roles, but they should’ve been. The two have a natural chemistry that buzzes. Their love feels genuine. Sweet. Easy. The most rewarding romances often are. I have a hard time believing Seth hasn’t had much experience with the flesh, as he puts it. I mean, come on, look at him. But the warmth between the two? That I never doubt for a second.
A Man That Can’t Be Fixed
Courtesy of 20th Century Fox
Each actor provides nuances that may go unnoticed the first couple of watches yet deepen the emotional journey the more times you see The Fly. With Veronica, Davis shows us a woman falling head over heels in love. One scene has the two in bed, where she calls Seth cute, only for him to reply, “Am I?” She lets out the softest of sighs over his innocence before giving him a deep kiss. She can’t resist him, and I can’t blame her.
Goldblum, on the other hand, litters his performance with small tics. At first, they’re charming quirks. But, as the fly takes over, those small twitches and breaks in speech become horrific. We’re watching a man lose control of himself as he becomes a shadow of who he was. That transformation is what makes The Fly one for the ages.
Made during the AIDS crisis, many critics believed at the time that Seth’s slow disintegration was a metaphor for the deadly disease. That surprised Cronenberg, who viewed the change as something a bit simpler than that. Rather than represent one single condition, Seth’s transformation is more a terrifying interpretation of age, disease, cancer…unavoidable debilitations of the body that tear the victim apart until there’s nothing left.
I regret to say that I’ve seen the effects of such diseases a few times in my life (fuck cancer). The relentlessness of it is unimaginable. You spend every second of every day wishing you could shoo it away. But you can’t, and it kills you. The only thing worse than watching a loved one go through such a thing is going through it yourself. The Fly depicts both.
Be Very Afraid
Courtesy of 20th Century Fox
Through Davis, we become the observer. The signs of Seth’s disease start small. Strange hairs on his body. Loads of sugar in his coffee. Things you may shrug off as simply odd. And then his face begins to change. He gets angrier. Meaner. More violent. Before she knows it, he hardly even looks like a person anymore. Surely not the man she fell in love with. The painful truth of her experience comes in the form of a shocking new change each time she returns to Seth. Diseases like cancer work quicker than you can imagine. One week, a person looks like themselves. A month, maybe two later, they’re skin and bones. Nothing I could write here could properly prepare anyone for that kind of shock. But The Fly comes as close as possible.
Seth shows us the other side of disease. The victim’s side. Those aforementioned small changes quickly turn to deformations. His hair falls out. His teeth break off. He loses an ear. The moment his fingernails all peel away kicks me in the gut when he says to himself, “Is this how it starts? Am I dying?” It hits because it’s an experience most of us have either had or will have. I’ve had my cancer scares where I’ve wondered if the end was approaching. The older you get, the more your own body betrays you. That’s the ultimate tragedy of The Fly.
Cronenberg’s early work mostly dealt with the flesh. Rabid…Videodrome…The Brood…explorations of what the body was capable of. For me, The Fly is his final word on the subject. After years of fascination with the flesh, his remake expresses a filmmaker who has concluded that, for all the wonders of the human body, it fails us. It breaks down, weakens, changes, until one day we look in the mirror and don’t recognize our own face. A downer observation, I know, but it’s why The Fly resonates so deeply. Because, in one way or another, what happens to Veronica and Seth happens to us all. It doesn’t matter how many years go by; It’ll always be scary. The older you get, the scarier The Fly gets.
With few exceptions, the greatest monster movies have always been those that suffer tragedy more monstrous than the creatures themselves. The Wolf Man and the curse of losing control; Frankenstein’s Monster and the inability to find meaningful companionship; The Fly and the shredding of a relationship and the couple in it before they even have a chance. It gives us an intimate tale of a monster, while also unleashing mind-blowing practical effects.
A Disease with a Purpose
Courtesy of 20th Century Fox
Created by Chris Walas and Stephan Dupuis, the effects work to heighten the ugliness of Seth’s disease. As I’ve said, conditions like cancer aren’t pretty. And The Fly, well, it presents such things in their most horrific form possible.
Our first glimpse at the gruesomeness of it all comes after Seth tests the pods with that first baboon. Unable to understand the flesh and recreate it, the poor thing ends up an inside-out pile of baboon tartare. It’s the first moment of horror we experience in the film. Some filmmakers would tend not to go so heavy on the gore right away. Cronenberg isn’t like most filmmakers. By showing us such a gruesome image so early on, he preps the audience by saying, get out now if you can’t stomach it, because you haven’t seen anything yet.
He’s not exaggerating, either. The Fly is a horror show of body fluids, tumors, and the shriveled pieces of one poor bastard. Goldblum spent hours in the makeup chair. That time paid off with utterly hideous makeup, one that allows the actor’s devastating expressions to come through wonderfully. There’s a reason the film won the 1987 Oscar for Best Makeup (a rare win for the genre). And that’s before getting into the stunning, towering fly that eventually sheds Seth’s body like a cocoon. Not a beautiful butterfly, but a terrifying monster.
Cronenberg’s vision has claimed the title it deserves as a top-tier remake. In my mind, it’s a top-five creature feature as well. Few films are as brilliant, poetic, heartbreaking, and outright terrifying as The Fly. So, here’s to forty years of a classic, and forty more to come. If I’m still alive and kicking then, I know it will strike a greater fear in me at that point than it ever has before.
Until then, here’s to living it up with a little coffee with my sugar.
I grew up going to the theme parks twice a year with my parents. My dad is a huge Disney collector, and I grew up knowing many of the legendary animation artists before they passed away. Obviously, a lot of it is a nostalgia grab, which I guess is a crime to some people who have no heart.
But I love the escapism of the Disney parks. And I can understand that if you didn’t experience this stuff as a kid, maybe it’s harder to connect with it as an adult.
For me? It’s practically a necessity for my functionality. LOL. It’s my mental health.
So excuse me while I get excited about everything Disney unveiled last night at D23 in Anaheim.
The focus was largely on the theme parks, and while Disney didn’t unload a ridiculous number of announcements, the few they made were pretty hefty.
One of the biggest surprises was a tease involving EPCOT’s Journey Into Imagination, which Disney basically ripped the heart and soul out of when the original attraction disappeared. Dreamfinder is finally coming back, reuniting with Figment for what Disney is calling a new journey into imagination.
What exactly does that mean? They didn’t really say.
It could mean a substantial reimagining of the attraction, or something considerably smaller involving Dreamfinder elsewhere in the pavilion. The messaging was frustratingly vague, so I guess we chill and wait.
But the really big announcement, especially for horror fans, was Villains Land.
Disney first announced plans for the villains-themed Magic Kingdom expansion back in 2024, but now we finally know what the hell is actually going inside it.
And it sounds awesome.
The land has its own mythology involving a Wishing Well corrupted by an evil wish, unleashing dark magic that spreads across the surrounding forest and attracts Disney’s villains.
Disney revealed two major attractions, including a Maleficent roller coaster that will race around her enormous castle and eventually bring riders face-to-face with the sorceress herself. Disney also teased new technology being developed specifically for the attraction.
The other is a dark ride built around the Magic Mirror from Snow White. Guests will descend underground beneath the Evil Queen’s palace before entering the Mirror Realm, where they’ll encounter villains from throughout Disney history.
Disney says Villains Land will be massive, comparable in scale to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
And yeah, Universal beat them to the punch with Dark Universe, which is already leaning hard into horror and the adult audience. But Disney finally seems to understand that the people who grew up with these parks are still here, and we want new shit to get excited about too.
Glenn Close even showed up dressed as Cruella de Vil, which immediately made me wonder whether Disney is cooking up something involving her down the road. Nothing was announced, to be clear, but give me some insane Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride meets Test Track attraction with Cruella trying to run me off the road and take my money.
For horror fans who also love Disney, though, Villains Land is the big one.
A poisoned Wishing Well. Maleficent’s castle. An underground Magic Mirror ride. Disney villains everywhere.
Disney is finally letting the Magic Kingdom get a little scary.
The original decision was particularly bizarre because, according to the developers, the problem wasn’t Michael Myers, the game’s gruesome kills, or any of the other carnage taking place around Haddonfield. Instead, the Australian board refused classification because of the presence of a controlled substance.
At the time, that ruling also appeared to kill the game’s release in New Zealand. Now, after receiving additional guidance from New Zealand’s Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC), the developers have found a way forward.
Here’s the newly released statement in full:
So, to clarify the situation: Halloween: The Game remains unavailable for sale in Australia, while New Zealand will regain access to the digital version. Based on the statement, the physical edition remains unavailable in New Zealand.
The irony remains pretty spectacular considering Halloween: The Game carries an ESRB rating in the United States for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, and Use of Drugs.
Developed by IllFonic and co-published by Gun Interactive, Halloween: The Game takes players back to Haddonfield on Halloween night, 1978, allowing them to either become the Boogeyman himself or fight back against Michael Myers as the residents of the Illinois suburb. The game features both single-player and multiplayer modes.
Thankfully, none of this impacts the game’s release elsewhere. Halloween: The Game arrives September 8, 2026, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, with Advance Access beginning September 4 for the Deluxe Edition.
Well, if there was any question whether Inde Navarrette was about to become one of Hollywood’s biggest new stars, I think we can put that to rest.
After an absolutely insane breakout year thanks to Curry Barker’sObsession, Navarrette has officially joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Rogue in Marvel Studios’ upcoming X-Men.
The news was announced last night at D23, where Marvel unveiled its new generation of mutants, with Sadie Sink as Jean Grey, Kit Connor as Cyclops, Christopher Abbott as Professor X, Maya Boyd as Storm, Samara Weaving as Emma Frost, and Adam Driver as Mister Sinister. Thunderbolts* filmmaker Jake Schreier is directing, with the film dated for May 5, 2028.
But let’s talk about Navarrette, because what a fucking year.
Obsession became one of those genuine out-of-nowhere horror phenomena, transforming a tiny independent production into a global box office monster and making Navarrette’s Nikki one of the year’s most recognizable new horror characters.
Since then, Navarrette has been everywhere, from major advertising campaigns to seeing her Obsession character invade Halloween Horror Nights this fall. And now she’s Rogue.
Navarrette had previously been attached to Invertigo, a survival thriller from the producers of Fall about a group of young people trapped hundreds of feet in the air on a malfunctioning roller coaster. We reported on that project earlier this year, although things have been pretty quiet on that front since.
Whatever happens there, it’s safe to say her career just entered an entirely different stratosphere.
And I love this casting.
Rogue is one of the great X-Men characters, a mutant whose ability to absorb another person’s memories, powers, and life force through physical contact makes something as simple as touching another human being potentially deadly.
Which makes Navarrette’s transition from Nikki to Rogue particularly funny for those of us still obsessed with her breakthrough horror role.
This time, if you try to touch her, you die.
Navarrette also joins a long tradition of performers who used horror as an early launching pad toward enormous careers. Jamie Lee Curtis had Halloween. Johnny Depp had A Nightmare on Elm Street. Jennifer Aniston had Leprechaun. Patricia Arquette had A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Anya Taylor-Joy broke through with The Witch. And Kevin Bacon was memorably dispatched in the original Friday the 13th early in his career.
Whether Navarrette continues returning to horror remains to be seen. I certainly hope she does. But right now, it feels like we’re watching another genre star graduate into the big leagues in real time.
From a tiny horror movie to one of Marvel’s most coveted mutant roles in the span of a year.
Marvel is getting ready to launch its new horror-soaked Midnight Universe this October, and one of the newly revealed variant covers for Midnight Fantastic Four #1 pays homage to one of the greatest horror movies ever made: John Carpenter’s The Thing.
The artwork comes from E.M. Gist and is officially designated Cover D, the “Midnight Horror Homage Variant.” Marvel describes this particular line of covers as being inspired by classic horror imagery.
In the first issue, an obsessive scientist delves into the secrets of the universe perhaps best left unknown to humankind, leaving himself and three others warped in strange and horrifying ways. What horrible secrets lie in the new dimensions they have discovered? And can humanity survive the discovery?
That makes Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece a particularly fun movie to reference. The Thing famously takes body horror to some absolutely insane places as its shape-shifting alien organism assimilates and imitates its victims, and Gist’s grotesque artwork certainly appears to be playing in that same sandbox.
Midnight Fantastic Four comes from writer Benjamin Percy and artist Kev Walker, and hits comic shops October 7, alongside Midnight Spider-Man #1 and Midnight X-Men #1.
The new poster for Fall 2: Deadpoint, Lionsgate’s high-stakes survival thriller, hangs on for dear life.
In the film: “Overwhelmed by her sister Hunter’s death, Jax (Harriet Slater) connects with Luce (Arsema Thomas), Hunter’s fearless friend. To heal, they attempt the infamous plank walk of Mount Kwan in Thailand. After a sudden rockslide leaves them stranded on a fragile plank 3000 feet in the air, Jax must confront her deepest fears and fight for survival to find closure.”
The trailer delivered everything you’d expect from a Fall sequel, looking packed with the kind of low-budget thrills this franchise is known for. It appears exhilarating and suspenseful, content to be a straightforward thriller that prioritizes entertainment over complexity.
I was a big fan of the first Fall, and after watching the trailer, I can’t wait to see this one in theaters on September 2.
Directed by Jigsaw and Predestination filmmakers Michael and Peter Spierig, the film has been rated PG-13 for “strong language, some violent content/bloody images and drug material.”
The second installment in the breakout franchise that stars Harriet Slater (Tarot), Arsema Thomas (“Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story”), and Tom Brittney (Greyhound).
Original Fall writer-director Scott Mann co-wrote the script with Jonathan Frank.
The sequel reunites producers Mark Lane and James Harris of Tea Shop Productions (47 Meters Down, Obsession), Capstone’s Christian Mercuri, David Haring, and Mann via the Flawless banner.
Mann is already locked in to return to the director’s chair for Fall 3.
In the first film, when a high-rise climb goes wrong, best friends Becky and Hunter find themselves stuck at the top of a 2,000-foot TV tower… now, two friends are trapped on the side of a mountain.
EXCLUSIVE: What’s worse than a weekend intervention? An intervention with a blood-sucking vampire!
That’s the situation the protagonists of Feed find themselves in, as we learned in the previously released trailer. Now, Dread Central has an exclusive clip from the upcoming vampire horror movie that teases some of the supernatural nastiness waiting for them.
The clip finds our protagonist staring into a mirror as something begins stirring outside in the dark, rain-soaked mud. Hands suddenly burst through the ground as the lights begin flickering and things get increasingly creepy.
Then she starts choking.
Whatever is happening to her, it isn’t pleasant. She begins pulling what looks like a medical tube from deep inside her throat before catching something horrific in the mirror behind her. Cue the scream.
EXCLUSIVE: Something horrific emerges from the mud before a woman begins pulling a medical tube from deep inside her throat in this deeply unsettling clip from 'FEED'. pic.twitter.com/EHHz1oFNE3
The film follows a weekend intervention for the grieving Orla that turns deadly when her blood awakens the Dearg-Due, an ancient vampire. As the creature begins infecting her friends and shattering their minds, Orla is offered a horrifying choice: become its next host and reunite with her dead family or destroy the vampire and lose them forever.
Maybe it’s because I just watched these movies, but Feed is giving me vague Lee Cronin vibes, with shades of Evil Dead Rise and The Mummy in the way it approaches its supernatural horror, gore, and violence. At least, one can hope.
Grace Collender, Clinton Liberty, Daisy Jelley, Niamh Hogan, Rhys Mannion, and Oskar Smith star.
Marco Van Belle wrote and directed the film, with Jacqueline Kerrin and Dominic Wright producing.
Sink your fangs into Feed when it bleeds onto VOD and Digital August 14.
FX is opening the door toAmerican Horror Story: 13, with a first teaser revealing a parade of familiar faces… and nightmares… from the franchise’s past.
The footage confirms Jessica Lange is back as “Murder House” matriarch Constance Langdon, while Evan Peters reprises his “Cult” role as Kai Anderson. Sarah Paulson, Angela Bassett and Emma Roberts return to the world of “Coven” as Cordelia Goode, Marie Laveau and Madison Montgomery, respectively. Also making ominous reappearances are “Freak Show” killer Twisty the Clown, played by John Carroll Lynch, and the original season’s Rubber Man.
For its unlucky 13th outing, the long-running horror franchise is putting an anthology inside its anthology, with FX rolling out 13 half-hour episodes.
The season premiere is set for Thursday, Sept. 24 at 9pm ET/6pm PT on FX and Hulu, notes Variety. The show’s premiere night and week two will each feature three episodes, followed by a pair of episodes releasing each Thursday leading up to the 13th and final episode on October 29.
If you needed any further evidence that Buddy isn’t actually a children’s movie, its newly minted R rating should do the trick.
Casper Kelly’s twisted horror comedy has officially been rated R for “bloody violence, some drug content and language,” which sounds fairly standard for a horror movie until you get to the final four words of the rating:
“All involving children.”
Well, alrighty then.
Buddy comes from Casper Kelly, the filmmaker behind the brilliantly bizarre viral short Too Many Cooks, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jamie King. The film takes the warm and fuzzy world of a 1990s children’s television show and turns it into something considerably more sinister.
The official synopsis explains that a group of children spend their days singing, dancing, and learning life lessons inside the colorful world of “It’s Buddy!,” hosted by a bright orange unicorn named Buddy. Everything begins to fall apart when one of the children refuses to play along and Buddy isn’t particularly happy about it.
Keegan-Michael Key voices Buddy, with Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Topher Grace, Michael Shannon, and Patton Oswalt also starring. The film premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was reviewed for Dread Central.
Buddy arrives in theaters August 28, 2026, from Roadside Attractions and Saban Films.
Last month, we learned the news that the highly controversial and undisputed masterpiece, Ken Russell’sThe Devils, had received a 4K restoration featuring the filmmaker’s official director’s cut for the first time.
Now, a stunning new poster has been released for the restoration, recreating the unforgettable image of Vanessa Redgrave’s Sister Jeanne suspended by chains during the film’s descent into religious hysteria. The artwork strips away everything around her, leaving only Jeanne, the chains, and the inverted cross, perfectly capturing The Devils’ collision of religion, sexuality, blasphemy, and madness.
Russell’s most notorious film is set in “17th-century France, where Father Urbain Grandier’s protection of the city of Loudun from the corrupt Cardinal Richelieu is undermined by a sexually repressed nun’s accusation of witchcraft.”
The film stars Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave.
Having premiered to rapturous excitement at Cannes earlier this year, this restoration is cut to Russell’s specific direction. No other formal director’s cut exists. It references the edit he privately constructed in 2004, providing the uncut and unfiltered theatrical experience that the filmmaker always envisioned.
The new 4K restoration of Russell’s masterpiece was assembled from the original camera negative. The film’s sound has been remastered from the original English composite 35mm Mag Film, transferred at 96kHz, plus other original film elements in selected spots as needed.
The picture and sound restoration was performed by Warner Bros. Post Production Creative Services, Water Tower Color, and Warner Bros. Sound, with reconstruction of the director’s cut undertaken by Lucida Productions in London.
Go to hell with Ken Russell’s The Devils when the new director’s cut arrives in theaters for one week beginning October 16 via Warner Bros. Clockwork.
Potentially very good. See below. It turns out that the announcement is official according to the Carrie Bradshaw of the Sanderson bunch (Sarah Jessica Parker): there will be a "Hocus Pocus" sequel, premiering on Disney+.
