As the year 2016 concludes, many would consider it to be a landmark year for horror, both on and off the movie screen.

In terms of cinema, horror was a genre that enjoyed some big critical and box office hits in 2016, be they blockbuster franchise sequels (The Conjuring 2), creative high-concept films (Don’t Breathe), or breakout indie hits (The Witch).

It will be hard for 2017 to top this year’s horror offerings, but as you will see in our 2017 Horror Movie Preview, there are some promising films coming our way.

Underworld: Blood Wars (Jan. 6th)

Underworld has always straddled the line between action and supernatural horror, but since this fifth installment is a bloody war between vampires and werewolves, it qualifies. 

 

The Bye Bye Man (Jan. 13th)

 

This film sounds like it has the potential to introduce a great new horror metaphor: that there is an evil entity behind mankind’s worst acts. Things get horrific when  a group of three friends look too closely into the Bye Bye Man’s history. 

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (Jan. 27th)

Love it or hate it, it’s the end of a long road spent killing the undead alongside Mila Jovovich and Co. Respect the milestone. 

 

Rings (Feb. 3rd)

This reboot of The Ring has been delayed, but its talented cast (like Vincent D’Onofrio, Johnny Galecki, Lizzie Brocheré) has us wondering if one of the scariest movies of the 2000s has a real shot at new (after)life. 

Get Out (Feb. 24th)

This one has potential to be explosive for a lot of reasons, taking the racial tensions of modern America and turning it into a horror parable about a young black man’s trip to the deranged world of privelge at his white girlfriend’s estate home. 

 

Kong: Skull Island (March 10th)

This King Kong reboot had a wonderfully “horror genre” tone to its first trailer, and it seems like that tone is going to work very well for the overalll film. Don’t miss out. 

Alien: Covenant (May 19th)

FINALLY, after all the bad Alien sequels (3 & 4), the horrible AVP spinoffs, and the weird misstep that was Prometheus, Ridley Scott is going to bridge the Prometheus / Alien gap with a proper sci-fi/horror gore fest. 

The Mummy (June 9th)

Tom Cruise has made many different types of great movies, so seeing him take on a big action/horror property is going to be exciting. The fact that this kicks off a whole action/horror universe of movies is pretty great, too. 

 

Annabelle 2 (Aug. 11th)

That creepy doll from The Conjuring gets its third feature film, with a second prequel story of how the haunted doll came to be. This chapter tells of the dollmaker who created Annabelle, and how it connects to the tragic loss of his daughter. 

IT (Sept. 8th)

The Stephen King classic has created quite an early social media buzz thanks to Hemlock Grove star Bill Skarsgård looking super freaky as the new Pennywise The Clown. 

Friday the 13th (Oct. 13th)

The Crazies director Breck Eisner is bringing back Jason Vorhees, and while details are scant, we at least know they abandoned those dreaded plans for a found-footage movie; it will be a Hard-R period piece film; and it’s coming out on a Friday the 13th in October. That’s a must in our book. 

 

Insidious: Chapter 4 (Oct. 20th)

Franchise stars Lin Shaye, Leigh Whannell and Angus Sampson will return for the story of how psychic medium Elise Rainer (Shaye) first tangled with the demon entity we met in the first film.