This Week in Horror: Hulu Orders The X-Files and the OConnells Return

Every October the genre gets a little sentimental about the dead, but this week felt like an exhumation with a press schedule. Hulu ordered a new X-Files. Universal titled a Mummy sequel after the book that wakes Imhotep. Hammer’s parent company acquired the rights to everything Susan Hill has written, and DC told us its Swamp Thing still has a pulse. Even Z Nation is lurching back toward the camera.

I’m not complaining. A resurrection is only as good as the person holding the spell book, and a surprising number of these have the right people attached. The one show that chose to end on purpose turned out to be the most exciting thing on the list. Here’s what mattered.

Hulu Says Yes to Ryan Coogler’s X-Files

Hulu has ordered Ryan Coogler’s X-Files reboot to series, eight months after it picked up the pilot. Danielle Deadwyler and Himesh Patel play two decorated FBI agents assigned to a long-shuttered division for unexplained cases. They are new characters, not Mulder and Scully. Coogler wrote and directed the pilot, Jennifer Yale is showrunner, and Chris Carter stays on as an executive producer.

What gets me is the bench. Deadline’s report puts Amy Madigan, Steve Buscemi, Ben Foster and Devery Jacobs in supporting roles, and Ludwig Goransson scored the pilot. That’s a prestige cast for a show built on flashlights and government basements. There’s still no premiere date, and no returning cast members from the original run have been announced, so anyone hoping for a Gillian Anderson cameo should keep the hope private for now.

The Mummy Sequel Names the Book That Started It All

Universal used the franchise’s X account to title the sequel The Mummy: Book of the Dead and date it for October 15, 2027, one year after the October 15 title announcement. Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz return as Rick and Evelyn O’Connell, with John Hannah, Oded Fehr and Kevin J. O’Connor also listed. Radio Silence (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett) directs from a David Coggeshall script. Weisz hasn’t played Evelyn since 2001, which makes this the first time in 26 years the two leads share the roles the series was built on.

I love the title more than I expected to. The Book of the Dead is the black volume Evelyn reads aloud at Hamunaptra, the one that drags Imhotep out of his sarcophagus. Naming a legacy sequel after the object that caused the original disaster is either a confession or a dare. Radio Silence spent the last few years on Ready or Not, two Scream films and Abigail, so I’m betting on the dare. Filming started in September and Universal still hasn’t released a synopsis.

DC’s Horror Wing Grows a Little Moss

Two stories this week made the same argument for DC Studios. First, critics coming out of early screenings started posting first reactions that call Clayface brutal, gory body horror, with most of the praise going to Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen. More than one critic reached for The Fly and Darkman. Not everyone was sold, with one reaction calling it an odd third entry for a DCU still working out what it is.

Then co-CEO Peter Safran told Deadline on the Clayface premiere carpet that James Mangold’s Swamp Thing script is being written right now. Mangold has described it as a simple Gothic horror standalone, and Safran cited the director’s availability as a factor in the wait. There’s no date. Still, the swamp monster is the DC project its studio chief chose to talk up on a horror premiere carpet, and I read that as a studio noticing where its horror bets are landing. One more thread for the week: Clayface director James Watkins also made Hammer’s 2012 Woman in Black.

Other Mommy Won the Weekend and Lost the Room

Other Mommy opened to $27.8 million domestically from 3,365 theaters, beating forecasts that sat around $20 million, and then collected a D+ CinemaScore. Rob Savage directed Jessica Chastain for Universal and Blumhouse Atomic Monster on a budget of about $19 million. Critics were at 20 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. The worldwide opening came to $45.7 million.

Meanwhile Resident Evil was reported at roughly $320.2 million worldwide in our October 13 report, making it the biggest film of Zach Cregger’s career, on a $75 million budget. Hideo Kojima saw it and wrote that it plays like holding the controller yourself, which is exactly what Cregger said he was going for. So one horror movie is selling tickets with fans behind it and the other is selling tickets despite them. A D+ is not a verdict on quality, since Hereditary carries the same grade. I’d still want a second weekend number before anyone calls this one misunderstood.

Yellowjackets Finally Brings Them Home

Paramount+ released the teaser for the fourth and final season of Yellowjackets, and it’s new footage of the survivors’ homecoming. The last season premieres Friday, November 20, on Paramount+ with the Premium Plan. The teaser runs on Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic,” with new audio she recorded blended into her 1999 MTV Unplugged performance. The guest cast is a nineties yearbook: Molly Ringwald, Devon Sawa, June Squibb, Dulé Hill and Ken Marino, with Elijah Wood returning.

Here’s the twist on this week’s theme. In a stretch of reboots and revivals, the best news came from a show that decided to stop. Laying a cheerful nineties single over a homecoming this series has spent three seasons dreading is a very Yellowjackets joke. Everyone else spent the week digging things up. Yellowjackets is the one finally filling the hole back in.

Quick Hits

• Z Nation crawls back. The Asylum is developing Z Nation: Resurrection, a 10-episode sequel series, and our report notes that Kellita Smith, Keith Allan, Russell Hodgkinson and DJ Qualls are in talks to return. None of those returns is confirmed and no network has been announced.
• A Haunting returns. Radial Entertainment ordered 16 new episodes of A Haunting, its first since 2022, for delivery in September 2027 on its free Paranormal Chronicles channel in select territories.
• Parker Posey goes back to horror. She’ll star in Blumhouse’s Sleepover from Insidious: Out of the Further director Jacob Chase, in theaters October 8, 2027.
• Becky climbs again. Grace Caroline Currey will reportedly return to lead Fall 3, with cameras rolling in 2027.
• Ron Perlman is still waiting by the phone. He told Deadline he’d make Hellboy 3 at 86 if Guillermo del Toro called. No such project is on anyone’s slate.

What’s Coming

Whalefall is in theaters today. Clayface arrives October 23. Yellowjackets begins its final season November 20, and next year Sleepover (October 8, 2027) and The Mummy: Book of the Dead (October 15, 2027) open one week apart.

The Last Word

Most of this week’s news was somebody opening a coffin to see what’s still usable. Some of these will be wonderful and some will be cash grabs with good lighting. The honest test is whether there’s a story left to tell or just a brand left to sell, and I think the O’Connells and Mangold’s swamp monster pass it.

So which of this week’s resurrections are you actually rooting for, and which one should have stayed in the ground?