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Across the landscape of current movie-making, a innovative wave of creators is pushing the boundaries of the horror genre. Ranging from societal commentaries to visceral thrillers, these eight directors are producing unforgettable experiences that reimagine terror for a new age.

The Mind Behind Get Out

The director behind Get Out has crafted spring-loaded allegories delving into the dangers, nuances, and contradictions of Black existence in the America. Peele's effect is evident from the multitude of followers, with the best within them supported by Peele himself by way of his Monkeypaw.

Robert Eggers

A masterful uncoverer of the darkest corners of the bygone eras, this director of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and Nosferatu excels in revealing the foreign elements of distant history and depicting them without present-day alteration. Eggers' unholy journeys into the past open portals to madness, desire, and transcendence.

Jane Schoenbrun

The millennial filmmaker with their finger most in touch with the millennial spirit, as sensitive to the solitudes, and significant relationships, of an internet-besotted age. Channeling themes of bonding and mainstream entertainment by way of gender transition and the legacy of body horror, works such as I Saw the TV Glow plumb the most unsettling fractures of the self.

Damien Leone

Leone’s series of Terrifier features is this century’s major horror achievement, evidence that audience buzz can still generate genuine hits from well-executed microbudget gore. More than the next horror villain, insane figure Art the Clown is confirmation that the public’s craving for blood – excessive, humorous, unrestrained – remains unslakable.

Rose Glass

Obscuring the division between delusion and reality, with her films Saint Maud and Love Lies Bleeding, The director has created a collection of driven protagonists driven to the edge by the strength of their commitment to distorted values. Prone to surreal endings that question straightforward interpretations into suspicion, her films stay with you – though not so much like a pebble in your shoe than a spike in your sole.

YouTube Sensations

Emerging from the humble origins of digital platform arose a team of filmmakers taking over the world with a current brand of shock. With their films Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, they staged atrocity exhibitions in between credible portrayals of how modern youth think. Film students look up to them as if they’re recently made saints.

Arthouse Horror Pioneer

Her sleek, symbolism-rich combination of genre trappings with arthouse flourishes gained her a Palme d’Or, the first time the Cannes Film Festival awarded its premier award to a scary film. Bearing the gore-stained flag of the French horror movement, the Titane director delves into the desires of the alienated to stunning result.

Na Hong-jin

A member of the most exciting artists to emerge from the Asian continent in modern times, the Seoul-based director has directed one jewel of mythical fear (The Wailing) and co-scripted one more (The Medium). Structured with supreme certainty and meticulous atmosphere crafting, his work transposes Hollywood templates into frightful, unique shapes.

These creators embody the wide-ranging and innovative direction of scary cinema, driving the edges of terror into new dimensions.