Eight Filmmakers Who Are Redefining Modern Horror Genre

In the world of current movie-making, a fresh generation of visionaries is pushing the limits of the horror category. Ranging from cultural allegories to graphic chillers, these 8 movie-makers are crafting lasting journeys that reshape terror for a current generation.

The Mind Behind Get Out

The creator behind Get Out has created sharp metaphors delving into the dangers, complexities, and contradictions of African American experience in the US. Peele's impact is evident from the sheer number of followers, with the finest within them supported by the director via his production company.

Master of Historical Horror

A masterful explorer of the least known corners of the bygone eras, this filmmaker of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and Nosferatu is known for uncovering the alien facets of past epochs and presenting them without modern-day revisionism. Eggers' dark journeys into the past open portals to psychosis, desire, and transformation.

Voice of a Generation

The contemporary filmmaker with their pulse closest to the generation’s spirit, as sensitive to the solitudes, and deep connections, of an online-focused era. Filtering ideas of bonding and pop culture by way of trans experiences and the tradition of corporeal fear, creations such as I Saw the TV Glow plumb the strangest fissures of the identity.

Damien Leone

The director's series of Terrifier films is this century’s great scary movie success story, evidence that word of mouth can still produce bona fide successes from skillfully made small-scale bloodshed. Not just the next slasher icon, insane icon Art the Clown is evidence that the public’s craving for violence – gratuitous, hilarious, unbridled – remains endless.

Rose Glass

Merging the division between delusion and reality, with her movies Saint Maud and Love Lies Bleeding, Glass has built a portfolio of intense women compelled to extremes by the intensity of their devotion to twisted values. Given to imaginative endings that challenge straightforward interpretations into doubt, her movies remain – though not so much like a rock in your shoe than a spike in your foot.

Danny and Michael Philippou

From the humble origins of YouTube arrived a duo of filmmakers conquering the cinema landscape with a zeitgeisty brand of provocation. With their movies Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, they staged atrocity exhibitions in between authentic portrayals of how current young people think. Film students pray to them as if they’re newly canonised icons.

Arthouse Horror Pioneer

The director's sleek, metaphor-forward combination of scary movie conventions with independent flourishes won her a Palme d’Or, the first time the festival awarded its top prize to a scary film. Holding the viscera-flecked flag of the New French Extremity, the Titane creator indulges the appetites of the disconnected to stunning outcome.

Na Hong-jin

A member of the most exciting filmmakers to arise from Eastern cinema in modern times, the Seoul-based director has directed one gem of mythical fear (The Wailing) and co-written another (The Medium). Paced with supreme certainty and meticulous mood management, his work transposes conventional structures into frightful, novel shapes.

The listed directors represent the varied and creative future of horror, propelling the edges of terror into fresh territories.