🔗 Share this article

In the landscape of contemporary cinema, a new generation of creators is pushing the edges of the scary movie genre. Ranging from societal commentaries to intense fright-fests, these eight filmmakers are producing lasting journeys that reshape fear for a current generation.

Jordan Peele

The director behind Get Out has developed pointed allegories exploring the dangers, subtleties, and conflicts of Black life in the America. Peele's impact is clear from the abundance of copycats, with the top of them supported by Peele himself by way of his studio.

Robert Eggers

A masterful excavator of the most obscure recesses of the bygone eras, this director of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and Nosferatu is known for finding the alien elements of distant history and depicting them free from modern-day revisionism. His sinister time machines unlock gateways to insanity, craving, and transcendence.

Jane Schoenbrun

The contemporary creator with their finger closest to the generation’s spirit, as aware of the solitudes, and deep connections, of an digitally-obsessed era. Weaving ideas of connection and popular media through trans identity and the history of physical terror, creations such as I Saw the TV Glow explore the most unsettling cracks of the psyche.

Gore Maestro

The director's series of Terrifier movies is this era's major horror success story, proof that word of mouth can still create genuine successes from expertly crafted microbudget gore. Beyond the modern slasher icon, deranged icon Art the Clown is confirmation that the public’s thirst for blood – excessive, hilarious, unbridled – remains insatiable.

Blurrer of Realities

Blurring the line between delusion and actuality, with her works Saint Maud and Love Lies Bleeding, Glass has created a portfolio of powerful women driven to the edge by the strength of their commitment to distorted ideals. Given to imaginative climaxes that call straightforward interpretations into question, her works linger – though less like a stone in your footwear than a nail in your sole.

Danny and Michael Philippou

Emerging from the primordial ooze of YouTube arose a duo of filmmakers conquering the world with a trendy style of controversy. With their works Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, they created shocking displays in between credible portrayals of how current young people act. Aspiring directors look up to them as if they’re newly canonised heroes.

Arthouse Horror Pioneer

The director's sleek, metaphor-forward combination of genre trappings with arthouse flourishes gained her a Palme d’Or, the historic moment the event presented its premier award to a horror picture. Holding the blood-soaked standard of the extreme cinema wave, the Titane filmmaker explores the appetites of the alienated to spectacular result.

Na Hong-jin

Among the most thrilling talents to arise from Eastern cinema in modern times, the Seoul-based filmmaker has crafted one jewel of traditional terror (The Wailing) and collaborated on one more (The Medium). Arranged with total assurance and exact tonal control, his films converts conventional structures into horrifying, original shapes.

These eight filmmakers represent the diverse and creative path of scary cinema, pushing the boundaries of terror into new realms.