MONTH IN REVIEW: APRIL 2026

It's not always easy to keep track of the world of horror day-to-day. So here's a round up of what's happened last month and a glimpse of what we can expect in the coming weeks...

The sunnier, milder weather has made it much more tempting to spend time outdoors. Which is just as well, because there hasn’t been a huge amount for horror fans this month. Well, that’s not entirely accurate – we’ve been a little slow getting a couple of reviews onto the site, so there are a few releases we haven’t covered yet. Still, it’s felt like a fairly quiet April overall.

We kicked things off with Thrash, an 80-minute shark attack movie directed by Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow). A coastal town, a category 5 hurricane, and a swarm of hungry bull sharks – you know the setup. It sounds like it should be a lot of fun, right? And to be fair, it is. It’s also undeniably silly. Despite being pitched as something like “Crawl with sharks,” it never reaches the same level of tension or suspense as Aja’s creature feature. Instead, it leans fully into the absurd. The characters aren’t the sharpest, but the sharks are vicious, there are some solid action beats, and plenty of gore. Throw in a couple of completely ridiculous one-liners (“I need you to go down there and see how big my opening is”), and you’ve got a quick, entertaining dose of sharksploitation.

Next up was something quite different – a more intimate and insidious horror in Ian Tuason’s Undertone. The film follows a podcaster who moves back into her family home to care for her dying mother, only to receive a series of unsettling anonymous audio recordings that begin to unravel her grip on reality. It’s an effectively eerie chiller that relies heavily on its genuinely unnerving sound design. There’s something inherently creepy about watching someone alone at night, headphones on, listening to disturbing audio in an empty room, and Tuason builds that tension to near-unbearable levels. The ending doesn’t quite land, but everything leading up to it is strong. Made in Tuason’s family home on a budget of around half a million dollars, it’s gone on to take over $20m at the box office – a very impressive result. His next project is a new Paranormal Activity film, which feels like a perfect fit.

Then came Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, which has certainly divided opinion – particularly among critics. General audiences have been a bit kinder, and we probably fall somewhere in the middle. It feels less like a traditional Mummy film and more like an Exorcist or Evil Dead-style spin-off, and it does run a little long and isn’t terribly original. That said, there’s plenty of grisly fun to enjoy (the toenail scene alone is worth mentioning), and it’s a very polished-looking production. With over $70m in ticket sales, it’s performed solidly at the box office.

That just about covers it. A quick mention as well for Dolly, which landed on Shudder towards the end of the month. It follows a young woman named Macy who is abducted in the woods by a deranged, mask-wearing lunatic intent on raising her as her child. Yes, it’s as unsettling as it sounds. We’ve seen it but haven’t managed to review it yet – not because it’s bad, but simply due to lack of time (poor form on our part). It definitely hasTexas Chain Saw Massacre vibes and, while it doesn’t break much new ground, it should appeal to fans of more savage, grindhouse-style horror. Again, a couple of moments that'll have you grimacing.

Looking ahead to May, things start to pick up with several strong releases on the horizon. Out on the 1st (so already available) is Damian McCarthy’s Hokum. We’re big fans of his previous films, Caveat and Oddity - both slightly offbeat but genuinely unsettling. This marks his first theatrical release, with a larger budget and Adam Scott starring as a journalist who travels to a remote inn to scatter his parents’ ashes, only to become fixated on the legend of a witch haunting the honeymoon suite. Expect plenty of eerie, creepy shit. Early word is very positive, and our review will be up soon.

On the 8th, Affection arrives on VOD. Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day) plays a woman suffering from a condition that causes violent seizures and resets her memory, leaving her unable to recognise her husband or child - assuming they really are who they claim to be. Early reviews suggest this could be one to keep an eye on.

Then on the 15th, Curry Barker’s Obsession hits cinemas. Like McCarthy, this is Barker’s first theatrical release following the success of his ultra-low-budget found footage debut Milk and Serial. The film centres on a man who turns to supernatural means to make a woman fall in love with him, only to discover that some desires come with consequences. It’s generating a lot of buzz and very strong reviews, so definitely one to catch on the big screen.

Hunting Season lands on Amazon Prime on the 17th. More of a thriller than a straight horror, it stars Mel Gibson as a reclusive survivalist who, along with his daughter, rescues an injured woman from a river, only to become entangled in a violent web of revenge.

On the 22nd, there are a couple of notable releases. Shudder brings us zombie flick This is Not a Test, following a group of students sheltering in their high school during an outbreak, while Paramount (hopefully) releases André Øvredal’s Passenger, which sees a young couple witness a gruesome highway accident before being stalked by a demonic presence.

A week later, A24’s The Backrooms arrives in cinemas. Expanding on the viral YouTube series, this liminal horror follows a psychologist venturing into a dimension beyond reality to find a missing patient. It’s directed by Kane Parsons, the original creator of the series and he’s only 20 years old, which is pretty remarkable. On the same day, sMOTHERed lands on Shudder. This Indonesian horror shares some thematic similarities with Affection, focusing on a man with fractured memories who returns home to find an elderly woman claiming to be his mother… whether she actually is remains to be seen.

Finally, on the 31st, Speed Demon arrives on VOD. The premise? A nun and a priest trapped on a possessed train, starring William H. Macy. That alone has us interested.

For physical media fans, Send Help (4th), Return to Silent Hill (4th), and The Bride (18th) all get Blu-ray/DVD releases this month.

Right onto the news. Here is a rundown of what happened in April.

• Let’s start with the shit stuff first. Patrick Muldoon tragically passed away suddenly at the age of 57. The Days of Our Lives star was best known to genre fans for his role as Zander Barcalow in Starship Troopers.

• Stranger Things: Tales from '85 was officially renewed for Season 2, just five days after its series premiere on Netflix. The next chapter will pick up directly from the cliffhanger finale of the first season.

• Parker Finn, the director of the Smile franchise, is officially set to write, direct, and produce a remake of Andrzej Żuławski’s 1981 cult horror classic, Possession. The project was the subject of a major bidding war among top studios and streaming services. Margaret Qualley and Callum Turner have been cast as the leads.

• Curry Barker (previously mentioned!) has officially been tapped by A24 to write and direct a "reimagining" of the 1974 horror classic, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Barker has stated his take will focus on characters audiences actually care about and want to see survive, describing the vision as both "brutal" and having "heart"

• Ben Leonberg is set to direct Ankle Snatcher, an adaptation of a short story by best-selling horror author Grady Hendrix about a man named who is haunted by the childhood trauma of his mother's murder.

• A sequel to the 2013 zombie blockbuster World War Z was officially confirmed to be in development by Paramount Pictures. No cast or crew details confirmed as yet.

• A new theatrical Chucky movie is currently in development with franchise creator Don Mancini set to write and direct. The film is intended as a scarier "reset" for the franchise, aiming to recapture the darker tone of the original Child's Play movies and 2013's Curse of Chucky.

• MGM+ has officially renewed FROM for a fifth and final season. Filming is expected to begin later in 2026 in Nova Scotia and a 2027 release is likely. Showrunners John Griffin, Jeff Pinkner, and Jack Bender have stated that this final season will provide answers to the show's biggest mysteries…

• A remake of John Carpenter's 1981 classic Escape from New York is currently in development at StudioCanal. No director or cast have been confirmed, but John Carpenter has signed on as an executive producer.

• Peackock’s The 'Burbs has been officially renewed for Season 2. The series, which reimagines the 1989 Tom Hanks cult classic, became a massive success for the streamer, generating over 1.7 billion viewing minutes in its debut season.

• A new project set in the Longlegs universe is officially in development. It sounds like it will be more a standalone spin-off or expansion of the established lore rather than a direct sequel. Nicolas Cage will return as star and producer and Osgood Perkins will direct.

Ok let’s wrap this up with some trailers that emerged in April (and that are worth checking out)

The Terror: Devil in Silver - the third season of AMC's horror anthology series based on the 2012 novel The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle. Dan Stevens stars!

Insidious: Out of the Further – they just can’t stop making these can they! This time it’s about a young mother who discovers she can not only enter The Further but also bring its malevolent spirits back into the real world. Lin Shaye’s back too, baby!

The End of Oak Street - Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell (It Follows) it’s about a suburban neighbourhood that’s ripped from its foundation and transported to an unknown, prehistoric environment after a mysterious cosmic event.

Water Horse - an Australian found-footage horror-thriller directed by Jennifer Van Gessel, focusing on a paranormal investigator probing mysterious, connected disappearances at a lake.

Pitfall – A slasher movie described the film as a blend of Friday the 13th and 127 Hours. What’s not to like!?

All done! Til next time!