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In the world of modern cinema, a fresh cohort of artists is expanding the edges of the horror film category. From social metaphors to visceral chillers, these 8 filmmakers are crafting memorable adventures that redefine fear for a current age.

Jordan Peele

The filmmaker of Get Out has crafted pointed allegories delving into the dangers, complexities, and conflicts of Black life in the US. His influence is clear from the sheer number of imitators, with the top of them nurtured by the filmmaker through his Monkeypaw.

Robert Eggers

A skilled uncoverer of the least known recesses of the past, this creator of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and Nosferatu excels in finding the foreign facets of distant history and presenting them devoid of contemporary alteration. Eggers' unholy journeys into the past open portals to psychosis, craving, and transcendence.

Voice of a Generation

The modern director with their pulse closest to the younger spirit, as attuned to the solitudes, and significant relationships, of an online-focused age. Weaving concepts of relationships and pop culture by way of gender transition and the legacy of corporeal fear, creations such as I Saw the TV Glow delve into the strangest fissures of the identity.

Damien Leone

The director's series of Terrifier features is this century’s great scary movie achievement, proof that audience buzz can still generate bona fide blockbusters from skillfully made low-budget gore. Not just the modern slasher icon, psychotic icon Art the Clown is evidence that the audience's desire for blood – excessive, hilarious, unchecked – remains insatiable.

Rose Glass

Merging the division between fantasy and reality, with her films Saint Maud and Love Lies Bleeding, Glass has assembled a gallery of powerful female characters driven to extremes by the intensity of their commitment to warped beliefs. Given to surreal climaxes that call straightforward interpretations into suspicion, her movies linger – though not so much like a rock in your footwear than a spike in your sole.

Danny and Michael Philippou

From the early beginnings of online video came a team of siblings dominating the cinema landscape with a zeitgeisty type of provocation. With their works Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, they created atrocity exhibitions in between authentic representations of how current teenagers act. Aspiring directors look up to them as if they’re newly declared heroes.

Julia Ducournau

The director's refined, allegory-driven fusion of scary movie conventions with arthouse styles earned her a prestigious award, the historic moment the Cannes Film Festival gave its top prize to a horror picture. Holding the blood-soaked banner of the French horror movement, the Titane director indulges the desires of the disconnected to stunning outcome.

Asian Horror Visionary

Among the most thrilling artists to emerge from Eastern cinema in modern times, the Seoul-based filmmaker has directed one masterpiece of traditional terror (The Wailing) and co-scripted another (The Medium). Paced with total certainty and exact atmosphere crafting, his movies transposes Hollywood templates into horrifying, original forms.

These eight filmmakers represent the varied and groundbreaking future of the horror genre, pushing the limits of dread into new dimensions.