New year, new horror. Heck yeah. On the heels of increasingly exciting genre lineups over the last few years, and coming off the wild high horror high that was 2018, we're living in a bit of a horror golden age. That means that it's a particularly exciting year to look at the crop of horror movies coming up in 2019. Like last year, it's a diverse mix -- studio horror, indies, possible awards contenders, and campy B-movies alike. No matter what kind of horror you're into, 2019 probably has something for you.

While there are always some fun surprises that pop up on the calendar along the way, this year’s lineup is already stacked, We've got challenging and unpredictable fare like Climax and Velvet Buzzsaw, festival titles like Piercing and One Cut of the Dead, some big-hype horror sequels with Annabelle 3 and It: Chapter 2, the return of Pet SemataryChild's Play and The Grudge. And that's just skimming the surface. Check out the rest below.

For more movies to put on your radar, be sure to check out our most anticipated movies of 2019 and to keep up with all the horror movies to know, be sure to check out our full horror movies release date calendar.

The Final Wish

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Image via Cinedigm

Release Date: January 24th

Director: Timothy Woodward Jr.

Cast: Lin Shaye, Tony Todd, Michael Welch, Melissa Bolona, Spencer Locke, Jean Elie

Final Destination creator Jeffrey Reddick brings his flourish for inescapable, fated carnage (and movies with the word "final" in the title) to a new tale of terror and death with The Final WishMichael Welch stars as a young man who returns to his hometown after his father's death and has to face his devastated mother (Lin Shaye) and the demons of his family's past. But when he discovers a mysterious item in his father's belongings, he unleashes a true force of terror that taps into the old "be careful what you wish for" Moneky's Paw dilemma. Final Destination staple Tony Todd is on hand too!

Piercing

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Image via Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

Release Date: February 1st

Director: Nicolas Pesce

Cast: Mia Wasakoska, Christopher Abbot, Laia Costa

Nicolas Pesce‘s The Eyes of My Mother was a gorgeously-shot, somewhat divisive horror throwback that demonstrated a spectacular knack for technical execution and disturbing imagery from the debut feature director. For his sophomore film Piercing, Pesce leaves behind the black-and-white Hitchcokian vibes in favor of a lush, stylish giallo throwback with one seriously twisted romance at its core. The film stars Christopher Abbot as an Average Joe husband and father who’s just absolutely desperate to kill someone. When he stages a business trip to purge himself of his dark desires, he orders a hooker (Mia Wasikowska in her best performance yet), who has some deviant desires of her own. Surreal and strangely sexy with a surprising amount of humor and tenderness beneath the depravity, Piercing is a surprising and impressive followup for the filmmaker that will make you even more curious what he’s going to do with The Grudge.

Velvet Buzzsaw

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Image via Netflix

Release Date: February 1st

Director: Dan Gillroy

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, John Malkovich, Billy Magnussen, Toni Collette, Natalia Dyer, Zawe Ashton, Daveed Diggs

Nightcrawler is one of the best movies of the last ten years, so any reunion between writer-director Dan Gillroy and actor-producter Jake Gyllenhaal would be cause to get excited -- but the fact that Velvet Buzzsaw is a horror movie about art criticism just makes their new project that much more delicious. And talk about a cast that doesn't quit. Set in the glitzy, pretentious Los Angeles art scene, Velvet Buzzsaw is all about killer art -- literally. After a batch of paintings are discovered by an unknown artist, a supernatural force uses the pieces to exact its revenge. Throw in Gyllenhaal giving an unhinged, a horrifying animatronic called "hobo man" and Toni Collette doing... well anything, really, and you've instantly created a must-watch movie.

The Prodigy

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Image via Orion Pictures

Release Date: February 8th

Director: Nicholas McCarthy

Cast: Taylor Schilling, Jackson Robert Scott, Brittany Allen

The Pact director Nicholas McCarthy and Midnight Meat Train screenwriter Jeff Buhler team for the new psychological horror The Prodigy. Orange Is the New Black star Taylor Schilling leads The Prodigy as the mother of a young boy (Jackson Robert Scott), who takes her son to therapy when he starts showing signs of evil possession. There's not a lot of buzz on this one yet, though McCarthy praised the script for going from a conventional creepy kid film to "a movie that's gotta be made," and said he had to re-edit a section of the film because test audiences screamed so loud they missed the dialogue.

Climax

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Image via Wild Bunch

Release Date: March 1st

Director: Gaspar Noé

Cast: Sofia Boutella,

Look, you walk into a Gaspar Noe film and you more or less know what you’re going to get — saturated colors, disorienting camera work, truly depraved humor, and grisly violence. It’s what he does. And his latest provocation, the kinetically-charged dance horror Climax, has all those qualities, but it’s also one of the most accessible and most enjoyable (?) movies he’s ever made. The bonkers film follows a prestigious troupe of diverse and sexy young dancers to a warehouse where they settle in to rehearse and party. Problem is, someone spiked the sangria with a bad dose of LSD, and it’s not long before the dance-offs and sexual dynamic boil over into an outright hellish nightmare. Led by one hell of a performance from Sofia Boutella, who continues to find new ways to put her impressive physical skills to use in film, Climax is a strange brew that is alternately invigorating and exhausting, delicious and disgusting. It’s sexy and sinister with a pitch black streak of humor, but it is never ever boring and it will keep your anxiety flowing from the first sip of Sangria until the sun, mercifully, rises on this parade into hell.

Happy Death Day 2U

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Image via Universal Pictures

Release Date: February 13th

Director: Christopher Landon

Cast: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Ruby Modine, Suraj Sharma, Rachel Matthews, Phi Vu

Happy Death Day was one of the best surprises of 2017; a snappy time-loop slasher film with a brassy lead character (Jessica Rothe) and a sharp script that kept the Groundhogs Day-style surprises coming until the credits rolled. While a sequel might seem like a risky idea on paper, everything we've seen from Happy Death Day 2U so far makes me hopeful that Blumhouse and writer-director Christopher Landon managed to capture lightning in a bottle twice, because this slasher sequel looks surprisingly smart and self-aware in all the best ways. When we caught up with Rothe last year, the actress teased a sequel idea that wouldn't just repeat the beats of the first film, but elevate the material into a " a Back to the Future type of genre film where the sequel joins us right from where we left off [and] explains a lot of things in the first one that didn’t get explained." Sign me right the hell up, especially with a concept that allows for so much cheeky fun.

Us

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Image via Universal Pictures

Release Date: March 15th

Director: Jordan Peele

Cast: Winston Duke, Lupita Nyong’o, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker

Jordan Peele’s directorial debut Get Out was a veritable sensation in 2017, bringing horror to the Oscars and sparking all kinds of timely and necessary discussions about “post-racial America”. It was also a damn entertaining modern day spin on Twilight Zone style horrors that’s just as sharp and witty as you’d expect from the former Key and Peele co-creator. So obviously I was already excited for his second film Us, which he’s described another social-minded horror movie in the vein of Get Out, but then the trailer dropped. Holy shit, that trailer is amazing and so unnerving, a surreal spin on the home invasion genre that’s all about the way we become own worst enemies — literally, we’re talking creepy-ass dopplegangers here. If the trailer’s any indication, Peele is shaping up to be an essential voice in a golden age of horror.

Pet Sematary

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Image via Paramount Pictures

Release Date: April 5th

Directors: Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer

Cast: Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, John Lithgow

Stephen King’s darkest book is getting new life on screen from Starry Eyes filmmakers Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer. Pet Sematary weilds grief and the fear of mortality with the force of a truck, crashing through the illusions of safety or rationality we wrap around ourselves for comfort and stripping life down to its barest fragility. It’s a scary and deeply upsetting novel, one of King’s best, and it’s in the hands of two filmmakers who have proved they’re not afraid to get bleak and dark with their material. Then they went and cast the thing, and it’s honest to god perfection; Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, and freakin’ John Lithgow as Jud Crandall. You really couldn’t ask for more. There’s a lot left in the mythology of King’s book that wasn’t touched in. Mary Lambert’s 1989 remake and I’m excited to see how deep and how dark Kolsch and Wydmyer decide to go with the material. If we’re living in a resurgence of King adaptations, Pet Sematary is one of the most exciting titles you can have on the lineup.

The Curse of La Llorona

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Image via New Line Cinema

Release Date: April 19th

Director: Michael Chaves

Cast: Linda Cardellini, Patricia Velásequez, Raymond Cruz, Marisol Ramirez

One of the greatest Latin American legends finally gets the Hollywood treatment with New Line's The Curse of La Llorona. Inspired by the legend -- a mournful ghost who wanders the river looking for her children (who she drowned in a fit of rage) bringing grief and tragedy to any who hear her cries -- La Llorona has the potential to be one of the biggest horror hits of the year, tapping into a potent cultural icon and landing in a prime release date. If the blockbuster territory launch date doesn't convince you that the studio believes in this movie, set your sights on director Michael Chaves, who was hand-picked by the studio to take over The Conjuring 3 before La Llorona even hit theaters.

BrightBurn

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Image via The H Collective

Release Date: May 24th

Director: David Yarovesky

Cast: Elizabeth Banks, David Denman, Meredith Hagner, Jackson A. Dunn, Matt Jones

This surprisingly little project immediately caught everyone's eye thanks to two factors: producer James Gunn and a superman-but-evil story line that promises a keen mashup of horror and superhero cinema. Sounds pretty good. Elizabeth Banks stars in BrightBurn as the Martha Kent in the equation, an Earth woman who adopts an alien baby with her husband when the child comes crash-landing onto the planet. But this kid is no Man of Steel, ad the child quickly develops dangerous abilities no one knows how to control. The trailer boasts strong visuals and a sly tonal reversal, and while "Evil Superman" isn't exactly the most original concept, there are some genuinely unnerving and chilling moments in there.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

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Image via Warner Bros.

Release Date: May 31, 2019

Director: Michael Dougherty

Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Vera Farmiga, Kyle Chandler, Sally Hawkins, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Charles Dance, Bradley Whitford, Thomass Middledtich, David Strathairn, Ken Watanabe

Sweet, glorious monster madness is upon us, from the director of Trick ‘r Treat and Krampus, no less. Apparently the folks at Warner Bros. took those “not enough monster” critiques to heart after Gareth Edwards' Godzilla and the King of monsters is getting some iconic company for his sequel. Mothra, Rodan, and mother-flippin’ King Ghidorah are coming out to play for the Kaiju-packed sequel, which also recruits a great new cast including Millie Bobbie BrownVera FarmigaKyle Chandler, and O’Shea Jackson Jr. The trailers for Godzilla: King of the Monsters so far tease a Giant Monsters All-Out Attack-style Kaju epic with gorgeous creature designs (including a little evolution in the design of Godzilla himself), and I’ve never related to anything harder than Ken Watanabe wanting to be Godzilla’s pet.

Child's Play

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Image via MGM and Orion Pictures

Release Date: June 21, 2019

Director: Lars Klevberg

Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Bryan Tyree Henry, Gabriel Bateman, David Lewis,

Don Mancini's long-running Chucky franchise somehow managed to avoid remakes and reboots for three decades, which makes the new Child's Play somewhat heartbreaking for diehard fans. That said, Mancini's story will live on in his upcoming Chucky series, leaving the new Child's Play something of a mystery. Early marketing teased a new look for the killer doll and we know that Aubrey Plaza is playing the mother who unwittingly buys her kid a killer BFF, but otherwise we'll have to wait for a trailer to see what approach the creative team is taking with the re-imagined material. We'll also be waiting to see what director Lars Klevberg has up his sleeve -- the filmmaker's debut horror features, Polaroid, is still sitting on the shelf in the wake of the Weinstein bankruptcy so Child's Play will be a long-awaited coming out party for the filmmaker.

 

Grudge

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Image via Lions Gate Films

Release Date: June 21, 2019

Director: Nicolas Pesce

Cast: Betty Gilpin, Andrea Risebourough, Jacki Weaver, John Cho, William Sadler, Lin Shaye, Demian Bichir, Frankie Faison

The Eyes of My Mother wasn't for everybody, but there's no denying that Nicolas Pesce's feature film debut conjured some heavyweight dread -- and dread is the main ingredient you need to pull off if you're going to update the essential J-Horror juggernaut The Grudge. That, and style, and oh boy does Pesce have style. Between Eyes of My Mother and Piercing (that's right, he's got two to watch for this year), Pesce has proven himself a director with a firecracker knack for visuals, and while he's unlikely to try to resurrect the instantly identifiable imagery of the J-Horror craze, there's no doubt he's going to bring a stylistic flourish to the table. Then there's the cast, which is frankly , a ridiculous wealth of riches. This is a bold move for Sony, especially on the heels of Rings utterly bombing out in theaters, but as a big fan of Pesce's work, I've got a hunch this could be one of the surprise sensations of the year. The only thing working against it right now is a shared release date with Child's Play, so unless one of the studio's backs down, it will be fascinating to see which horror reboot takes home the bigger mid-summer haul.

47 Meters Down: Uncaged

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Release Date: June 29th

Director: Johannes Roberts

Cast: John Corbett, Nia Long, Sophie Nelisse, Corinne Foxx, Sistine stallone, Brianne Tju, Davi Santos, Khylin Rhambo

If there's one axiom I know to be true, it's that people just love a good shark movie in the summer. 47 Meters Down director Johannes Roberts returns to the shark-infested seas for a sequel this June, and with a clever twist, he's adding another deep-sea phobia to his cinematic anxiety attack -- claustrophobia. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged will follow a group of deep-sea diving teens, who stumble onto a stunning under water city, only to find that the deeper they swim into the caves, the closer they get to the lair of "the deadliest shark species in the ocean." Gulp. 47 Meters Down was incredibly dark and the ending definitely wasn't for everybody, but Roberts' sharp direction left me in a legit panic so I'm excited to see what kind of wringer he's gonna put me through when you add being trapped in a cave to the equation. The Descent but underwater? Sounds like a big nope-nope-nope (and by that I mean yes) to me!

Untitled Annabelle Film

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Image via New Line

Release Date: July 3, 2019

Director: Gary Dauberman

Cast: McKenna Grace, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Madison Iseman

I was all-in on the third Annabelle movie from the moment James Wan described it as "Night at the Museum with Annabelle." Set in the Warren's holding room for dangerous artifacts (with Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson returning as the Warrens, no less) the next Annabelle will follow the Warren's daughter into battle with all kinds of supernatural evils when Annabelle sets loose the demons and dangers of the Warren's collection. That's just a phenomenal idea for an Annabelle sequel -- not to mention it sounds a bit like the Avengers of the Conjuring-verse. The other wildcard here is New Line favorite Gary Dauberman, the screenwriter behind Annabelle and the It franchise, who makes his directorial debut with Annabelle 3. All the pieces are in place for a horror sensation -- and with a holiday weekend release date, New Line looks to have a lot of confidence in the film.

New Mutants

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Image via 20th Century Fox

Release Date: August 2, 2019

Director: Josh Boone

Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Maisie Williams, Charlie Hutton, Alice Braga, Antonio Banderas, Henry Zaga, Blu Hunt

One of the biggest curiosities of the year, New Mutants was completed and expected to drop in theaters in 2018 when the studio sent the film back to reshoots, reportedly to add more straight up horror to the mix. Touted as a YA branch of the X-Men franchise with horror elements a la Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Warriors, New Mutants boasts The Fault in Our Stars writer-director Josh Boone behind the camera and a cast of buzzy young actors as the titular New Mutants, but reports of conflict between the studio and the filmmaker, and the fallout of the upcoming Disney-Fox merger have left the fate of the film in question. Scary teenage mutants sounds like a killer pitch, but New Mutants is also facing the fact that YA superhero shows have boomed since the film went into production -- what is New Mutants going to bring to the table that people can't get weekly on The Gifted, Runaways, or Cloak and Dagger? While studio meddling and the changing pop culture landscape are a bit of a wildcard for the film, here's hoping New Mutants comes through with the studio superhero horror movie we all want.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

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Release Date: August 9th

Director: André Øvredal

Cast: Michael Garza, Austin Abrams, Gabriel Rush, Austin Zajur and Natalie Ganzhorn

Alvin Schwartz's beloved children's horror book is finally getting the big screen treatment, and it's got one heck of a creative team behind the scenes. Trollhunter and The Autopsy of Jane Doe filmmaker Andre Øvredal is directing with Guillermo Del Toro (who was previously attached to direct) producing and co-writing. (The script started with Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan (Saw IV-Saw 3D), before getting a draft from John August (Big Fish), and ultimately passing into the hands of Dan and Kevin Hagerman of The Lego Movie, who wrote it alongside Del Toro.) Inspired by all three of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Books, which were themselves inspired by famous folklore and urban legends, the film follows a group of teens investigating a string of horrific deaths in their town. Nobody loves ghost stories and folklore more than GDT and Øvredal has a proud track record of his own, which means this one has the players in place to do something special with the book that gave a lot of kids their first good scare.

Untitled Ari Aster Project

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Image via A24

Release Date: August 9th

Director: Ari Aster

Cast: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Will Poulter, William Jackson Harper, Vilhem Blomgren, Ellora Torchia and Archie Madekwe

Ari Aster set a dangerously high bar for himself with his immaculate first feature, Hereditary, a construct of precision filmmaking so fastidious and well-orchestrated it was impossible not to marvel at the technical rigor. Hereditary was also, pardon my language, a fucking terrifying horror movie that sent you out of the theater feeling like your soul got punched in the dick. It was my pick for the #1 horror movie of 2018 and almost a year after I saw it for the first time, I still can’t shake it. So yeah, obviously it’s exciting to imagine what Aster is going to do for his sophomore feature, another team-up with A24 that follows a couple to a remote mid-summer festival in Sweden, which quickly devolves into a “violent and bizarre competition at the hands of a pagan cult.” Everything about that is exciting. It has the potential for a complete stylistic shift from the hyper-structured household horrors of Hereditary with an excellent ensemble cast and the possibility of some Wicker Man-esque cult shenanigans. Hereditary was one of the best films of 2018, and it’s a fine piece of luck that we only have to wait ’til August for a new Aster/A24 movie.

It: Chapter 2

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Image via New Line / Warner Bros.

Release Date: September 6th

Director: Andy Muschietti

Cast: Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Skarsgard, Bill Hader, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Jay Ryan, Xavier Dolan, Jack Dylan Grazer, Jaeden Lieberher, James Ransone, Jeremy Ray Taylor

Andy Muschietti’s IT adaptation was a bonafide phenomenon 2017, raking in an insane $124 million at the domestic box office in its opening weekend alone, and going on to earn the crown as highest-grossing movie in horror history. It was a pitch-perfect blend of nostalgia and coming-of-age drama, with some of the scariest creature designs and thrilling set-pieces of any studio horror in recent memory. Now, Muschietti has a major challenge ahead of him — live up to that, my dude. Fortunately he’s got a killer cast of newcomers to play the adult Losers, led by Jessica ChastainBill Hader, and  James McAvoy, and I can’t wait to see how Bill Skarsgard’s Pennywise interacts when he’s picking on people his own size. IT was one of the best King adaptation ever made, and there are many, and it’s going to be a thrill to see how Muschietti opts to handle the insanity of King’s cosmic ending.

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

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Image via Nickelodeon

Release Date: October 11th

Director: D.J. Caruso

Cast: TBD

Just in time for Halloween comes one very nostalgic reboot. Nickelodeon's 90s horror series Are You Afraid of the Dark? is getting an update from It and Annabelle writer Gary Dauberman with Disturbia helmer D.J. Caruso on board to direct. The Midnight Society will live on in an original story from Dauberman, which the writer promises won't age-down the material too much in order to keep the tone of the "really disturbing episodes and... really dark episodes" fans got in the show. Goosebumps and Stranger Things certainly fared well as Halloween throwbacks and if Are You Afraid of the Dark can bring a few more scares to the family-friendly equation, this one could end up being the talk of the town come All Hallow's Eve.