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Across the realm of current cinema, a fresh cohort of creators is stretching the boundaries of the horror film style. Ranging from societal allegories to visceral chillers, these 8 filmmakers are crafting unforgettable journeys that reimagine dread for a modern age.

The Mind Behind Get Out

The director behind Get Out has developed pointed metaphors examining the dangers, nuances, and conflicts of Black existence in the America. His impact is obvious from the multitude of followers, with the finest within them nurtured by the director via his production company.

Robert Eggers

A skilled explorer of the darkest recesses of the past, this filmmaker of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and Nosferatu excels in uncovering the alien elements of distant history and depicting them without contemporary reinterpretation. His dark journeys into the past open portals to madness, craving, and transcendence.

Jane Schoenbrun

The modern creator with their focus closest to the generation’s heartbeat, as sensitive to the isolation, and meaningful bonds, of an internet-besotted time. Filtering ideas of connection and pop culture by way of trans identity and the legacy of physical terror, films such as I Saw the TV Glow plumb the strangest fractures of the psyche.

Damien Leone

The director's trilogy of Terrifier features is this decade's major horror success story, proof that fan support can still create bona fide blockbusters from skillfully made low-budget gore. More than the modern Jason or Freddy, psychotic figure Art the Clown is evidence that the public’s thirst for violence – gratuitous, comical, unchecked – remains endless.

Blurrer of Realities

Merging the division between hallucination and the real world, with her works Saint Maud and Love Lies Bleeding, Glass has created a collection of driven women compelled to limits by the depth of their devotion to warped beliefs. Known for surreal endings that question straightforward interpretations into suspicion, her films remain – though less like a rock in your shoe than a sharp object in your foot.

Danny and Michael Philippou

Emerging from the early beginnings of online video arrived a duo of filmmakers taking over the cinema landscape with a zeitgeisty brand of controversy. With their films Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, they created violent spectacles in between realistic depictions of how today’s youth behave. Aspiring directors pray to them as if they’re recently declared icons.

Julia Ducournau

The director's polished, symbolism-rich combination of scary movie conventions with arthouse flourishes won her a top Cannes prize, the first time the festival presented its highest honor to a horror picture. Bearing the blood-soaked flag of the French horror movement, the Titane filmmaker explores the desires of the alienated to remarkable outcome.

Na Hong-jin

One of the most exciting artists to come forth from Asia in modern times, the Seoul-based director has made one jewel of folk horror (The Wailing) and co-written a second one (The Medium). Structured with absolute assurance and precise atmosphere crafting, his work transposes conventional structures into frightful, original forms.

These filmmakers embody the varied and creative path of horror, propelling the limits of fear into new dimensions.