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In the world of modern movie-making, a fresh generation of creators is expanding the limits of the horror film category. From cultural metaphors to graphic chillers, these eight filmmakers are crafting lasting experiences that reshape terror for a modern age.

The Mind Behind Get Out

The filmmaker behind Get Out has developed sharp metaphors examining the perils, subtleties, and conflicts of Black life in the US. His impact is clear from the abundance of imitators, with the finest of them nurtured by Peele himself via his studio.

Master of Historical Horror

A skilled explorer of the least known recesses of the history, this director of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and Nosferatu specializes in uncovering the unfamiliar elements of distant history and depicting them without contemporary alteration. Eggers' sinister journeys into the past open portals to insanity, craving, and transcendence.

Jane Schoenbrun

The millennial filmmaker with their focus most attuned to the millennial spirit, as attuned to the loneliness, and significant relationships, of an online-focused era. Channeling ideas of relationships and pop culture by way of trans experiences and the legacy of corporeal fear, works such as I Saw the TV Glow explore the most unsettling fissures of the identity.

Gore Maestro

The director's series of Terrifier movies is this era's major scary movie success story, proof that fan support can still produce bona fide successes from well-executed microbudget bloodshed. More than the modern Jason or Freddy, psychotic poster boy Art the Clown is confirmation that the viewers' thirst for violence – over-the-top, humorous, unchecked – remains insatiable.

Rose Glass

Obscuring the boundary between delusion and reality, with her works Saint Maud and Love Lies Bleeding, Glass has built a gallery of intense women driven to extremes by the intensity of their devotion to distorted beliefs. Prone to fantastical endings that question straightforward interpretations into doubt, her films linger – though less like a stone in your footwear than a sharp object in your foot.

Danny and Michael Philippou

Emerging from the early beginnings of online video arrived a duo of siblings conquering the world with a trendy style of controversy. With their works Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, they created atrocity exhibitions in between realistic representations of how today’s youth behave. Cinema enthusiasts look up to them as if they’re recently canonised heroes.

Arthouse Horror Pioneer

Her refined, symbolism-rich combination of genre trappings with art film flourishes won her a prestigious award, the first time the event presented its premier award to a horror picture. Holding the blood-soaked banner of the extreme cinema wave, the Titane filmmaker delves into the appetites of the alienated to spectacular effect.

Na Hong-jin

One of the most thrilling artists to emerge from Eastern cinema in recent years, the Seoul-based filmmaker has made one gem of traditional terror (The Wailing) and co-written a second one (The Medium). Arranged with total assurance and precise mood management, his films transposes conventional structures into horrifying, unique styles.

These eight filmmakers signify the diverse and groundbreaking direction of horror, propelling the boundaries of terror into new territories.