Our Most Anticipated Horror Movies at Fantastic Fest 2026
From Resident Evil to Victorian Psycho
by Alex Kaan 16 September 2026
Magnify Films
From Zach Cregger’s follow-up to Weapons (Resident Evil) to a Robert Pattinson-led psychological horror with Oscar buzz (Primetime), Fantastic Fest returns in its 21st edition for another week of horror fun.
This year’s line-up for the Austin-based famed genre film festival includes a vampire horror comedy with Isabelle Huppert as Elizabeth Báthory (The Blood Countess), the return of The Love Witch director Anna Biller (The Face of Horror), and on the television front, another Mike Flanagan reimagining of a Stephen King classic (Carrie).
Fantastic Fest runs from September 17th to 24th.
Pathetic Fallacy
Courtesy of Fantastic Fest
In this psychedelic horror odyssey, Scott Mescudi (X, Trap), better known as Kid Cudi, plays a grieving man who travels to a new-age mountain town after the loss of his wife (Jessica Rothe of Happy Death Day). Once there, he stumbles into an alternate universe that gives him a chance at bringing her back. But at what cost?
Corpus
Brainstorm Media
In this bloody, timely B-movie, a tech startup’s revolutionary AI chatbot turns homicidal on the eve of its launch, ruthlessly killing team members. As it sets its sights on world domination, the survivors must band together to stop the sinister force before it’s too late. Piper Curda (Hoppers) and Noel Fisher (Shameless) star.
The Blood Countess
Magnify Films
From the writer of The Piano Teacher and starring Isabelle Huppert, this lesbian vampire horror comedy sees avant-garde auteur Ulrike Ottinger transport real-life 16th-century alleged serial killer (and rumoured bloodsucker) Elizabeth Báthory to modern-day Vienna.
The Face of Horror
Good Chaos
Adapting the Japanese ghost story Yotsuya Kaidan for medieval England, the latest from Anna Biller (The Love Witch) follows a wronged woman (Kristine Froseth) as she plots her revenge on her devious knight husband (Jonah Hauer-King) in this gory Hammer Horror-esque fable.
Primetime
A24
A blend of psychological horror and crime thriller, A24’s latest sees Robert Pattinson — in a performance that has already lit up the internet — play Chris Hansen, the host of Dateline’s controversial reality series To Catch a Predator. Phoebe Bridgers and Skyler Gisondo also star, while Ari Aster (Hereditary) produces.
Victorian Psycho
Bleecker Street
Adapted from Virginia Feito’s novel of the same name (billed as Jane Eyre meets American Psycho), the film follows a governess (Maika Monroe) who arrives at a remote manor, where staff members begin to inexplicably disappear in this Gothic horror story.
No Rest for the Wicked
Courtesy of Fantastic Fest
Described as a supernatural spin on Portrait of a Lady on Fire with echoes of a Robert Eggers film, this 19th-century-set Danish Gothic horror blends queer romance and vampirism for a folkloric story of a fisherman who falls for a charming, mysterious drifter.
Resident Evil
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Rebooting the film series based on the beloved survival horror video game series, Zach Cregger’s first effort since last year’s smash-hit Weapons follows a medical courier (Austin Abrams) whose botched late-night delivery to Raccoon City sends him into a harrowing fight for survival in a snowy wasteland.
River
IFC and Shudder
When two embittered sisters, played by scream queens Jane Levy (Evil Dead) and Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day), and their younger brother (Max Mattern of Cape Fear) take out the family motorboat to scatter their father’s ashes, a masked killer turns the cathartic trip into a nerve-shredding slasher nightmare.
Mr. Creamjeans’ Hidey Hole
Courtesy of Fantastic Fest
In this Troma-inspired horror comedy, a blackmail victim is guided to a nightmarish erotic museum curated by Mr Creamjeans, billed as “the Willy Wonka of smut”. Forced to view four of the museum’s seedy exhibits, his grip on reality begins to slip, straight into a world of sweat and other fluids.
Upiro
Courtesy of Fantastic Fest
In this 1755-set Spanish vampire film, a young woman is sent to a remote monastery to atone for her sins. Once there, she encounters a mysterious blood disease connected to a horrifying figure: an upyr, the Slavic precursor to the vampire.
HALF
Courtesy of Fantastic Fest
In this Indian horror and “curry western” hybrid, twin half-blooded vampires (Ranjith Sajeev and Aiswarya Raj) are attacked by a group of vicious desert highway hijackers. Once recovered, they set out on a quest for revenge filled with gory martial arts action.
The Spiral
Propaganda Italia
On a dark and stormy night, Alice’s (Romana Maggiora Vergano) life is upended when her mother (Jasmine Trinca) knocks on her door to deliver a terrible secret about a Faustian bargain made 27 years earlier. Paolo Strippoli’s psychological horror follows last year’s The Holy Boy, the Italian director’s acclaimed Wicker Man-esque folk horror.
The Glorious Dead
Courtesy of Fantastic Fest
Family filmmaking collective The Adams Family returns with a practical effects-driven monster movie about a small-town sheriff (Toby Poser) and her deputy (Zelda Adams) facing the apocalypse. Co-director John Adams says, “It’s about waking up in America in 2026.”
The Cycle
Courtesy of Fantastic Fest
In this horror mystery already acquired by Shudder and praised by Stephen King as “special”, the body of a man missing for 36 years is discovered at the scene of a horrific crime, leaving his daughter (Deborah Ann Woll of True Blood) to unravel his dark past.
Play House
Courtesy of Fantastic Fest
Renovating a run-down house to win back his ex, a man discovers a series of creepy VHS tapes of an unaired children’s TV show. The more he watches, the more the show’s darkness seeps into his life in this alluring horror film, which won the inaugural Fantastic Pitches competition and its $100,000 grant at last year’s festival.
Bloody Tennis
Shudder
From the producers of Mother Mary, this Shudder Original follows a young athlete (Sandra Guldberg Kampp) who travels to an elite tennis academy hidden deep in Southern Europe. She falls headfirst into a cutthroat world of obsession and fierce competition, but something sinister is lurking beneath the surface.
Platypus
Courtesy of Fantastic Fest
Shot on Super 8 film, this dreamy, lo-fi queer slasher follows a small-town schoolgirl plagued by nightmares of a masked killer named “Platypus”. As her visions become more vivid and her unfortunate friends fail to take her warnings seriously, she must stop him before she joins his expanding body count.
Kick On
Courtesy of Fantastic Fest
When four friends in Melbourne decide to extend their night of partying with a visit to the drug-dealing son of a notorious mobster, they wind up as witnesses to a murder. The group must now fight to survive the night in this uber-gory Aussie thriller filled with broken bones and body horror gags.
Bonus: Carrie
Prime Video
Arriving 50 years after Brian De Palma’s classic film adaptation, Stephen King’s debut novel about a bullied girl (Summer H. Howell) with telekinetic powers is getting a modern miniseries reimagining from The Haunting of Hill House showrunner Mike Flanagan. Matthew Lillard co-stars.