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In the world of modern filmmaking, a innovative generation of creators is expanding the boundaries of the horror category. Ranging from cultural metaphors to visceral thrillers, these eight filmmakers are crafting memorable journeys that redefine dread for a new age.

Jordan Peele

The creator behind Get Out has created sharp symbolic tales exploring the risks, subtleties, and contradictions of Black life in the US. Peele's influence is evident from the multitude of followers, with the finest within them nurtured by the filmmaker by way of his production company.

Master of Historical Horror

A skilled excavator of the darkest corners of the past, this filmmaker of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and Nosferatu specializes in uncovering the foreign aspects of past epochs and showing them devoid of present-day reinterpretation. Eggers' sinister time machines create doorways to insanity, desire, and transformation.

Jane Schoenbrun

The modern filmmaker with their finger most in touch with the generation’s spirit, as attuned to the isolation, and deep connections, of an online-focused time. Channeling concepts of connection and popular media through gender transition and the history of body horror, works such as I Saw the TV Glow explore the most unsettling cracks of the self.

Gore Maestro

Leone’s trilogy of Terrifier films is this era's great scary movie triumph, proof that audience buzz can still generate genuine blockbusters from well-executed microbudget violence. More than the new horror villain, insane poster boy Art the Clown is confirmation that the public’s craving for blood – gratuitous, comical, unbridled – remains unslakable.

Rose Glass

Obscuring the division between hallucination and actuality, with her works Saint Maud and Love Lies Bleeding, Glass has assembled a collection of driven female characters compelled to the edge by the depth of their devotion to distorted ideals. Given to surreal climaxes that call simple readings into doubt, her films linger – though not so much like a pebble in your footwear than a spike in your foot.

YouTube Sensations

From the primordial ooze of digital platform arrived a duo of brothers taking over the cinema landscape with a current type of controversy. With their films Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, they staged violent spectacles in between authentic depictions of how modern teenagers behave. Aspiring directors pray to them as if they’re recently canonised saints.

Julia Ducournau

The director's refined, symbolism-rich combination of horror elements with art film flourishes won her a top Cannes prize, the historic moment the event presented its premier award to a scary film. Holding the viscera-flecked flag of the French horror movement, the Titane filmmaker explores the appetites of the disconnected to remarkable result.

Asian Horror Visionary

One of the most exciting artists to come forth from the Asian continent in modern times, the Seoul-based creator has directed one jewel of traditional terror (The Wailing) and collaborated on a second one (The Medium). Arranged with supreme confidence and exact tonal control, his films converts conventional structures into horrifying, novel styles.

These eight filmmakers embody the varied and innovative direction of the horror genre, driving the limits of fear into unexplored dimensions.