MONTH IN REVIEW: JULY 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...

There's a drought here in the UK. It's not really rained where I live for about a month. There's a hosepipe pan. My lawn looks like a desert wasteland. And last night I slept downstairs because it was just too hot to sleep up in my bedroom. Thanks climate change, you asshole. I mention the weather (as I usually do at the beginning of these things) because horror movies have nearly been as scarce as rainfall in July it feels like. There were only three releases we covered this month. We debated whether to review Christopher Nolan's epic The Odyssey, but decided against it. There are scenes of horror in there for sure. That Cyclops was rather terrifying. As were those giant soldiers that appeared from the woods, like military versions of that tall gangly dude from It Follows. But hey, it's not a genre film (although it is a very, very good one for the record). Anyway, the horror month started off with Evil Dead Burn, the eagerly anticipated follow-up to the generally very well-liked Evil Dead Rise (2023). Burn doesn't really have anything to do with Rise, apart from the inclusion of deadites and a post credit scene. It focuses on a family reunion at a secluded house after a funeral, where hell breaks loose when family members start turning into deadites. It's also a bit different in terms of tone and style. French director Sébastien Vaniček imbues the film with an extra level of nihilism and it looks and feels like one of those New French Extremity flicks we got in the early noughties, like Frontiers and Haute Tension. Some may find the brutality and bloodletting a bit too relentless, but there are threads of dark humour within Burn too and some of the horror elements are really great (the scene with the dentures!). It's finished its theatrical run now but turned in $65m at the box office, which is more than three times it cost to make. But still half of what Rise took, which is a real shame. We've got another Evil Dead film to look forward to in 2008 (Wrath), which will hopefully round out an extremely solid horror franchise reboot trilogy.

Unfortunately the other two July releases weren't quite as good. Saccharine was released on Shudder on the 24^th and follows a lovelorn medical student who becomes terrorised by a sinister force after taking part in a dodgy weight loss programme. It's director Natalie Ericka James' least successful feature to date (Relic and Apartment 7A are both much better) and although it's a well made film and the lead (Midori Francis) is rather good, it's over-long and messy. Then on the 29^th, shark flick The Devil's Mouth hit Prime. Now we love sharksploitation flicks as much as the next genre fan but this is one of the poorer additions to this ever expanding sub genre. The set up is simple. Five American friends become trapped in a cave system in Thailand and are terrorised by an aggressive bullshark that's found its way in there after a storm. It's basically Black Water: Abyss (2020) with a shark instead of a croc. But it's not as good. The action and gore is too PG-13 to really hit home and the friend group is just plain annoying. When you're rooting for the shark, you know something's not right. Kathryn Newton's good though, as always. Check it out if you're a shark completist, I guess.

Things look like they might perk up somewhat in August though, with a raft of interesting releases.

Blumhouse's Soulm8te, a spinoff of M3GAN, is finally coming out. It's skipping cinemas and going straight to VOD though and will be available on the 1^st. It's about a grieving widower who buys a (sexy) robot to cope with the death of his wife. What could go wrong? It also sounds a lot like Subservience (starring Megan Fox)...

On the 7^th, there's a trio of titles to keep an eye out for. On Netflix, The Last House is released - about a family who are suddenly sealed inside their home with no way out, and must work together to survive against both their dwindling resources and the mysterious, looming threat that is keeping them trapped. Zom-com horror Queens of the Dead lands on Shudder too. This is about a group of drag queens and club kids who face off against the undead when trapped at a big warehouse party. Sounds fun! On the big screen Ice Cream Man is out and it looks like it's going to be as gory as you'd expect from an Eli Roth movie. An idyllic suburban town descends into madness when a mysterious ice cream man rolls into town. The sweet treats he's flogging start turning the kids into little rampaging psychopaths. It's like an inverse Mom and Dad (2017).

A week later (14th) psychological horror Hellcat is released on Shudder. A woman wakes up in a moving camper trailer with a horrifying wound. She's warned by the driver that they have one hour to get to a doctor, or she'll succumb to an unimaginably awful fate. It's been well received on the festival circuit. On the same day, The End of Oak Street hits cinemas. This is about a family that has to band together to navigate their new surroundings after a cosmic event transports their suburban neighbourhood to someplace unknown. Now this isn't pure horror – more of a sci-fi survival thriller, but the inclusion of dinosaurs and the fact it's directed by David Robert Mitchell (It Follows) means that it's of interest for sure.

On the 21^st, the biggest release of the month is in cinemas too – Indisious: Out of the Further. This is the SIXTH Insidious movie, which seems mad. But when you consider the previous entry (Red Door) took $180m at the box office and cost less than a tenth of this to make, you can see why they keep making em. Expect more bombastic scares and over-the-top effects. Lin Shaye is back too, which is always good news. Also at select cinemas is the wonderfully titled Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow) and starring Gillian Anderson, the film focuses on a queer director who is hired to direct a new installment of the long-running slasher franchise Camp Miasma. The director becomes fixated on the prospect of casting the reclusive actress who played the final girl in the original film. As the two women begin to work together, they descend into a frenzy of psychosexual mania. Looks a bit trippy and has been getting some really positive early critical reviews. A week later (28^th) The Whisper Man arrives on Netflix. A widowed crime writer looks to his estranged father, a retired police detective, for help after his 8 year old son is abducted. He then discovers a connection between his son's abduction and the decades-old case of a convicted serial killer known as The Whisper Man. Maybe more crime thriller than horror but it looks quite dark. Plus the cast is stellar (Robert De Niro, Michelle Monaghan, Adam Scott, Michael Keaton, John Carroll Lynch, Hamish Linklater). Penny Lane is Dead is out on Shudder too. This one's about a sweltering Australian summer gathering that turns deadly when three close friends at a beachside house must fight for survival after a prank goes wrong.

For physical media collectors, Hokum is out on DVD the 10^th and meta-slasher Big Baby on the 24^th.

Onto the news...

• Firstly, we sadly lost a couple of horror icons in July.

  Sam Neill passed away aged 78. You probably don't need me to tell you why this guy is so beloved. Not just by genre fans, but by all cinemagoers. He was a lovely man too by all accounts. We also lost director Chuck Russell unexpectedly aged 74. He directed the excellent remake of The Blob (1988) as well as the best of the Elm Street sequels, Dream Warriors (1987).

• Speaking of A Nightmare on Elm Street, looks like we're getting a reboot – with Paramount licensing the rights from the Craven estate. 'We look forward to bringing the world of Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street to a new and completely engaged generation of fans,” Iya Labunka said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

• Frightfest announced that Tubi will be sponsoring this years event and also released the full schedule for the festival - a record-breaking 82 features across five screens. This year there are twenty-four world premieres, with sixteen countries represented, spanning four continents. Tickets can be purchased at www.frightfest.co.uk.

• Although the third season of The Terror hasn't been released yet, Executive producer David W. Zucker confirmed that season 4 is officially moving forward in development, with producers having already closed the deal on the next literary horror source material. Although they're not saying what that is yet!

• They Follow, the upcoming sequel to smash hit It Follows, has added ten more exciting names to its cast list. Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children), Justine Lupe (Succession), Anna Mirodin (Ivan), Jayne Taini (Unbelievable), Michael Gandolfini (Daredevil: Born Again), Tom Pecinka (Stereophonic), Melora Walters (Magnolia), Ben Krieger (Song Sung Blue), Natalie Shinnick (The Brutalist) and Jan Hoag (The Fabelmans).

• Julius Avery (Overlord) is set to direct Crush, a real-time survival thriller about a lone female hiker in the everglades who wakes up to find herself trapped in the coils of a massive python!

• Sony Pictures is developing Hollow, a new gothic and erotic reimagining of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Sydney Sweeney will star as Katrina Van Tassel, with Lindsey Anderson Beer (Pet Sematary: Bloodlines) attached to write and direct.

• Amazon MGM Studios has officially greenlit an eight-episode live-action RoboCop series for Prime Video, led by showrunner Peter Ocko and executive producer James Wan.

• Mike Flanagan has officially joined the creative team for Amazon's live-action Warhammer 40,000 project. While initially conceived as a massive cinematic universe encompassing both movies and television, Flanagan's immediate focus is a live-action TV series adaptation for Prime Video.

Although July was a bit thin on the ground in terms of releases, we did get a host of cool looking trailers to whet our appetites for the coming months. Here are the ones worth checking out.

• Don't Move: Follows a prehistoric arachnid that terrifies a stranded group of campers who hike into the wrong woods.

• Bad Karaoke: A touring wedding cover band that discovers a cursed, bloodthirsty karaoke machine in the back of a dive bar. When they begin to sing, the machine unleashes a wave of violent and creative kills, targeted specifically at those who sing poorly.

• Crystal Lake: A24's Friday 13^th prequel series, starring Linda Cardellini as Pamela Vorhees.

• Sundown: Three generations of women reunite in a remote cabin to avenge a loved one's death, only to discover their captive isn't who he seems to be, and his family is closing in, waiting for sundown.

• It Ends: Friends on a late-night food run become trapped on an infinite highway with otherworldly terrors lurking beyond. Confined in their Jeep Cherokee, they must decide whether to accept their fate or attempt escape.

• Resident Evil: Zach Creggers reboot sees a medical courier finds himself in a desperate fight for survival against bloodthirsty, mutated creatures.

• Other Mommy: Adaptation of Josh Malerman's acclaimed 2024 horror novel Incidents Around the House. The plot follows an eight-year-old girl named Bela who forms an increasingly terrifying bond with a malevolent, shape-shifting entity lurking in her home's closet.

• Onslaught: An Army sniper unleashes her lethal skills to protect her young daughter from a rogue squad of genetically engineered soldiers. Directed by Adam Wingard.

And that's that! Oh, we also wrote up another retro review for Death Weekend. It's a bit of a hidden gem actually. Well, if 70s Canadian exploitation flicks are your thing!Til next time.