July is loaded. Five theatrical horror releases land across the month, and there is barely a dead weekend on the calendar. Here is the wire rundown of what drops and when.
LOCKBOX — July 3. Daniel Stamm, the director behind The Last Exorcism, opens the month for Dark Castle and Aura Entertainment. The script comes from Emmy-winning playwright Justin Yoffe, adapting the Knifepoint Horror podcast tale Winthrop. Carla Gugino leads as Ellen, a woman who retreats to a rural town after her mother's death and takes in her traumatized cousin — only to face an otherworldly entity hunting the boy. Lou Taylor Pucci and Katharine Isabelle co-star.
EVIL DEAD BURN — July 10. The franchise returns, and it is being billed as the most savage chapter yet. Infested director Sebastien Vanicek takes the reins, co-writing with Florent Bernard, in what may pick up the thread from Evil Dead Rise. Souheila Yacoub leads a widow who seeks comfort with her in-laws at a remote family home, then watches them turn into Deadites one by one. Tandi Wright and Hunter Doohan round out the reunion from hell.
THE BAY — July 17. Shark season arrives right on cue. Writer-director Phil Volken drops his creature feature to theaters and VOD the same day, timed to the Jaws-adjacent Shark Week wave. Francesca Eastwood headlines as one of two friends fighting to survive after their tour boat sinks inside a shark sanctuary. The animatronic threat comes courtesy of effects house Bischoff's.
PINOCCHIO UNSTRUNG — July 24. The Twisted Childhood Universe expands again. Rhys Frake-Waterfield, of Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, delivers the fifth Poohniverse entry, set inside an elite London prep school where a wooden boy carves himself toward humanity one piece at a time. Richard Brake plays an obsessive Geppetto, Robert Englund voices the Cricket, and Todd Masters supplies a practical animatronic Pinocchio.
HER PRIVATE HELL — July 24. Nicolas Winding Refn breaks a decade-long feature silence the very same day. The Neon Demon director returns with a giallo-tinged nightmare scored by Pino Donaggio. Sophie Thatcher leads as a young woman searching for her father inside a mist-choked future metropolis, her path crossing an American GI on his own hellbound rescue. Charles Melton, Kristine Froseth and Diego Calva fill out the ensemble.
Also on the radar this month:
- Night Nurse — select theaters, July 10 (psychological thriller).
- Dead Media — theaters July 16, digital July 28 (haunted-DVD horror comedy).
- The Devil's Mouth — Prime Video, with Kathryn Newton (YA shark horror).
- Nightborn — Shudder, July 31 (dark fable).
Mark the dates. It is a full month.
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