For horror fans, numerous upcoming projects arriving in the genre are guaranteed to make 2026 a scarily exciting year. For longtime fans, the next installments of popular franchises are gearing up to use nostalgia and resurfacing storylines to their benefit. In gaming and film alike, some announcements are garnering both negative and positive traction.
CAPCOM is releasing the ninth installment of the “Resident Evil” franchise, “Resident Evil Requiem.” 30 years after the Raccoon City incident, the game follows a new protagonist, Grace Ashcroft, the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft, an investigative reporter who was murdered in 2020 by a mysterious hooded figure while investigating the mysterious deaths that occurred at the Wrenwood Hotel.
Now, eight years later, Grace Ashcroft, now an intelligence analyst for the FBI, is working on a mysterious case of an unidentified disease linked to the deaths of numerous individuals whose bodies are being abandoned. In the “Creators' Message” video published to CAPCOM’s YouTube channel, the creators of the show breakdown details of the upcoming game, including Grace Ashcroft’s identity as a protagonist.
Differing from previous protagonists, Grace Ashcroft is a more skittish-introverted personality. The creators reasoned that they wanted to create a character that would be experiencing the horrors in the game from the same perspective as the player.
Grace Ashcroft is seen in the reveal trailer working on a case report titled “Incident: Fourth Victim of Unidentified Disease,” when she is interrupted by her supervisor, who lets her know that there is a fifth body. The case forces Grace Ashcroft to go back to the Wrenwood Hotel, where her mother was murdered.
With numerous mini-games and online features added to the storyline of the Raccoon Incident, “Resident Evil Requiem” is the first game in the present main continuity to return to the nuclear wasteland.
While Grace Ashcroft is a new character to the franchise, the Ashcroft family has long been members of the franchise. Alyssa Ashcroft, Grace Ashcroft’s mother, was an investigative reporter for The Raccoon Press before the destruction of the city. Being one of the survivors of the bio-terrorism and government destruction of the city, we follow Alyssa Ashcroft through the gameplay of “Resident Evil Outbreak,” Resident Evil’s first multiplayer game in the franchise.
Alyssa Ashcroft investigated Umbrella and their experimentation that created the T and G Viruses, which resulted in her investigating the Spencer Mansion, ending with her partner, fellow journalist Kurt, being killed. Alyssa Ashcroft was also infected with the Epsilon virus but was cured after receiving a vaccine.
While “Resident Evil” is a lore-heavy franchise, many questions are left for the gameplay to answer, including Grace Ashcroft being called the “chosen one” by a mysterious figure, along with the reasoning behind Alyssa Ashcroft’s murder.
There is some disappointment with the recent announcement that there will be no multiplayer features and no current plans for a demo, but the game content provides something to look forward to.
That same bittersweet optimism is being felt by another horror fandom. The first trailer for “Scream 7” was released Oct. 30 with apprehension from the fandom.
Neve Campbell will be reprising her role as legendary final girl Sidney Prescott, along with Courteney Cox as author and reporter Gale Weathers. Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding are also coming back as franchise favorite twin duo, Mindy and Chad Meeks-Martin. The niece and nephew of Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy), who died in “Scream 2.”
In the trailer, we are introduced to the newest psychopath to don the “Ghostface” mantle while tormenting an unsuspecting couple in the house of Stu Macher, which has become synonymous with the killings. The house, now an Airbnb-type attraction, is wrecked as we see Ghostface take their next victims before calling to haunt Sidney Prescott once again.
A new addition to the cast is Sidney Prescott’s daughter, Tatum Prescott, played by Isabel May. Tatum Prescott is now the newest to be stalked by Ghostface, as we see Sidney Prescott and Tatum Prescott fight to survive the psychotic killers' onslaught of attacks. This includes a scene of them trying to escape through a space in the walls, as the killer stabs the wall, realizing they were there.
Tatum Prescott, who tells her mother, “I want to be a fighter like you,” is definitely proving the statement in the trailer where there are numerous scenes flashed showing Tatum Prescott and the rest of our “Stab” survivors in mortal danger.
The question of who is “Ghostface” is all the more prevalent in this installment of the franchise, with the killers commenting to Sidney Prescott, “Nice little town you found, you and your pretty daughter. It reminds me of where we grew up.” Leaning into the fact that this may be a character that has been introduced before.
While the trailer looks promising, there is still apprehension from fans, causing backlash due to the firing of Melisa Barrera, who played Sam Carpenter, the daughter of Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich). Barrera was fired due to her posting about the Israel-Gaza conflict, in which a spokesperson for Spyglass told Vairety, it was due to them deeming it as hate speech.
“Spyglass’ stance is unequivocally clear,” the Spyglass spokesperson told Variety. “We have zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into hate speech.”
This has since caused backlash for the franchise, with writers for publications like the Los Angeles Times pointing out Hollywood’s double standard. Stating how Barrera’s post from a Raz Segal, a respected Israeli historian whose life work is on preserving the history of the Holocaust and Jewish history, was deemed more offensive than Noah Schnapp‘sposts saying “Zionism is sexy” and “Hamas is ISIS.”
Barrera’s co-star Jenna Ortega, who played Sam’s sister Tara Carpenter, also left the franchise, which caused more fan speculation. Some are even calling for the film to be boycotted.
With a mixture of reactions to the upcoming content, horror fans have a lot to look forward to. “Resident Evil Requiem” is set to be released on Feb. 26, 2026, with “Scream 7” following it a day later, Feb. 27.
