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Across the realm of modern cinema, a innovative wave of visionaries is stretching the limits of the scary movie genre. From societal metaphors to visceral fright-fests, these eight directors are creating lasting experiences that reimagine fear for a current generation.

Jordan Peele

The creator behind Get Out has created pointed symbolic tales delving into the dangers, nuances, and paradoxes of African American experience in the America. Peele's influence is clear from the abundance of imitators, with the finest within them guided by Peele himself via his studio.

Master of Historical Horror

A masterful uncoverer of the most obscure corners of the bygone eras, this creator of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and Nosferatu excels in revealing the foreign facets of historical periods and showing them without contemporary reinterpretation. Eggers' dark time machines unlock gateways to psychosis, longing, and transcendence.

Voice of a Generation

The millennial creator with their pulse most attuned to the millennial spirit, as sensitive to the loneliness, and deep connections, of an internet-besotted age. Filtering ideas of relationships and pop culture via gender transition and the history of corporeal fear, works such as I Saw the TV Glow delve into the most unsettling fissures of the psyche.

Gore Maestro

Leone’s series of Terrifier movies is this era's great scary movie success story, proof that word of mouth can still generate true successes from skillfully made microbudget gore. More than the new slasher icon, insane poster boy Art the Clown is confirmation that the audience's craving for blood – gratuitous, hilarious, unchecked – remains endless.

Blurrer of Realities

Merging the boundary between fantasy and reality, with her movies Saint Maud and Love Lies Bleeding, Glass has created a collection of driven protagonists compelled to limits by the intensity of their devotion to distorted beliefs. Known for fantastical climaxes that question simple understandings into doubt, her works linger – though not so much like a rock in your shoe than a sharp object in your sole.

YouTube Sensations

From the primordial ooze of online video came a pair of filmmakers dominating the film industry with a trendy type of shock. With their movies Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, they created atrocity exhibitions in between authentic depictions of how current youth act. Cinema enthusiasts idolize them as if they’re recently made icons.

Julia Ducournau

Her refined, allegory-driven fusion of genre trappings with independent styles won her a top Cannes prize, the initial instance the festival gave its top prize to a scary film. Holding the viscera-flecked flag of the New French Extremity, the Titane director explores the cravings of the alienated to stunning result.

Na Hong-jin

One of the most intriguing filmmakers to arise from Eastern cinema in recent years, the South Korean filmmaker has directed one masterpiece of folk horror (The Wailing) and co-written another (The Medium). Arranged with supreme confidence and exact mood management, his work converts conventional structures into horrifying, original shapes.

These eight directors embody the wide-ranging and creative future of horror, driving the limits of dread into new territories.