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Within the landscape of modern movie-making, a innovative wave of artists is pushing the limits of the horror film genre. From cultural commentaries to visceral thrillers, these eight filmmakers are producing memorable journeys that reimagine dread for a current age.

Jordan Peele

The creator of Get Out has created spring-loaded symbolic tales exploring the perils, complexities, and paradoxes of Black life in the US. His influence is evident from the abundance of imitators, with the best within them supported by Peele himself by way of his Monkeypaw.

Robert Eggers

A skilled explorer of the least known recesses of the history, this filmmaker of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and Nosferatu excels in finding the alien aspects of historical periods and presenting them without contemporary revisionism. Eggers' unholy journeys into the past create doorways to madness, longing, and transformation.

Voice of a Generation

The modern filmmaker with their focus most in touch with the millennial heartbeat, as attuned to the isolation, and significant relationships, of an online-focused time. Filtering themes of connection and mainstream entertainment by way of trans identity and the history of physical terror, works such as I Saw the TV Glow delve into the eeriest fissures of the identity.

Damien Leone

The director's series of Terrifier films is this decade's significant horror success story, testament that audience buzz can still produce true blockbusters from expertly crafted microbudget gore. Beyond the new slasher icon, insane poster boy Art the Clown is evidence that the viewers' thirst for gore – gratuitous, hilarious, unrestrained – remains insatiable.

Blurrer of Realities

Blurring the boundary between hallucination and reality, with her movies Saint Maud and Love Lies Bleeding, Glass has built a gallery of powerful protagonists compelled to extremes by the intensity of their devotion to twisted values. Given to imaginative grand finales that challenge straightforward understandings into suspicion, her movies remain – though less like a pebble in your footwear than a spike in your sole.

YouTube Sensations

Emerging from the humble origins of digital platform came a pair of siblings taking over the world with a zeitgeisty style of provocation. With their movies Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, they created violent spectacles in between realistic depictions of how modern young people act. Film students look up to them as if they’re newly declared icons.

Arthouse Horror Pioneer

The director's polished, symbolism-rich fusion of genre trappings with arthouse styles earned her a Palme d’Or, the historic moment the Cannes Film Festival presented its premier award to a scary film. Bearing the blood-soaked banner of the French horror movement, the Titane filmmaker delves into the desires of the disconnected to stunning result.

Asian Horror Visionary

Among the most exciting talents to arise from Eastern cinema in the past decade, the Korean director has directed one jewel of traditional terror (The Wailing) and co-written a second one (The Medium). Paced with supreme assurance and precise tonal control, his movies converts conventional structures into horrifying, unique forms.

These eight creators embody the diverse and creative direction of horror, propelling the edges of fear into new territories.