From Evil Dead director Sam Raimi‘s long-awaited return to the genre with Send Help and Nia DaCosta‘s thought-provoking zombie sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, to Kane Parsons‘ record-breaking directorial debut Backrooms and the near-perfect gem Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, 2026 has already been a great year for horror. But standing taller than the rest is Obsession, the breakout masterpiece from YouTuber Curry Barker, which broke a frankly jaw-dropping number of records during its theatrical run.
Turning a sub-$1 million budget into over $500 million worldwide, the film became the highest-grossing non-animated original film of the past decade and the highest-grossing original horror movie of this century, to name just two of its many records. Once again, the horror genre has demonstrated that it is the most fruitful avenue for financial success on a low budget, something that the team behind the exciting upcoming horror feature Play House should also benefit from.
Directed and co-written by Nicolas Curcio, who recently earned writing credits on the hit animated sports comedy GOAT, Play House is set to make its world premiere at Fantastic Fest, just in time for spooky season. As part of Collider’s Exclusive Preview series celebrating 21 years of Fantastic Fest, we can officially debut the new image from the film below, teasing the analog, VHS-fueled nightmares that await in this hair-raising horror. A synopsis for the film reads:
“While renovating a dilapidated house to win back his ex, a young man discovers VHS tapes of an unaired TV show in the basement. But as the show’s dark history surfaces, it seeps into his life, threatening his last chance at reconciliation.”
Collider Exclusive · Horror Survival Quiz Which Horror Villain Do You Have the Best Chance of Surviving? Jason Voorhees · Michael Myers · Freddy Krueger · Pennywise · Chucky
Five killers. Five completely different ways to die — if you’re not smart enough, fast enough, or self-aware enough to avoid it. Only one of them is the villain your particular set of instincts gives you a fighting chance against. Eight questions will figure out which one.
🏕️Jason
🔪Michael
💤Freddy
🎈Pennywise
🪆Chucky
01
Something feels wrong. You can’t explain it — you just know. What do you do? First instincts are the difference between the survivor and the first act casualty.
02
Where are you most likely to find yourself when things go wrong? Setting is everything in horror. Where you are determines which rules apply.
03
What is your most reliable survival asset? Every survivor has a quality the villain didn’t account for. What’s yours?
04
What kind of fear is hardest for you to fight through? Knowing your weakness is the first step to not dying because of it.
05
You’re with a group when things start going wrong. What’s your role? Horror movies are brutally clear about who survives group situations and who doesn’t.
06
What’s the horror movie mistake you’re most likely to make? Honest self-assessment is a survival skill. Denial is not.
07
What’s your best weapon against something that can’t be stopped by conventional means? Every horror villain has a weakness. The survivors are always the ones who find it.
08
It’s the final scene. You’re the last one standing. How did you make it? The final survivor always has a reason. What’s yours?
Your Survival Odds Have Been Calculated Your Best Chance Is Against…
Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.
Camp Crystal Lake · Friday the 13th
Jason Voorhees
Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.
He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.
Haddonfield, Illinois · Halloween
Michael Myers
Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.
But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.
Elm Street · A Nightmare on Elm Street
Freddy Krueger
Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.
You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.
Derry, Maine · It
Pennywise
Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.
The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.
Chicago · Child’s Play
Chucky
Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.
You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.
Who Stars in ‘Play House’?
The inaugural winner of Fantastic Pitches, a micro-budget genre initiative headed by Fantastic Fest and Chroma, Play House has assembled a talented young cast to bring writers Curcio and Kirby Gladstein‘s twisted vision to life. After his breakout in Prime Video’s Daisy Jones & The Six, Tony Award nominee Will Harrison leads Play House, joined by the likes of Jessica Sula (Split), Jordan Gonzalez (The Long Walk), and James Urbaniak (Oppenheimer). Divide/Conquer, the genre production company behind the M3GAN films, executive-produced the project.
Fantastic Fest 2026 is held at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin, Texas, from September 17 through 24. Check out our exclusive image above and stay tuned here at Collider for further sneak peeks at the projects heading to the genre festival this year. More information on each title can be found at the official Fantastic Fest film guide.
