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Across the landscape of modern movie-making, a fresh cohort of creators is stretching the boundaries of the horror film style. Ranging from cultural commentaries to intense chillers, these eight movie-makers are producing unforgettable experiences that reshape fear for a current generation.

The Mind Behind Get Out

The director of Get Out has developed spring-loaded allegories delving into the risks, complexities, and paradoxes of Black life in the America. Peele's influence is obvious from the sheer number of copycats, with the best of them guided by the filmmaker via his production company.

Robert Eggers

A masterful uncoverer of the darkest recesses of the past, this director of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and Nosferatu specializes in uncovering the unfamiliar facets of distant history and presenting them without present-day alteration. His dark historical explorations unlock gateways to madness, desire, and transformation.

Jane Schoenbrun

The millennial filmmaker with their finger closest to the younger heartbeat, as attuned to the isolation, and significant relationships, of an internet-besotted era. Channeling concepts of connection and popular media by way of gender transition and the history of physical terror, creations such as I Saw the TV Glow explore the strangest fissures of the self.

Damien Leone

Leone’s trilogy of Terrifier films is this era's great horror triumph, testament that fan support can still generate bona fide successes from skillfully made microbudget bloodshed. More than the modern horror villain, insane figure Art the Clown is confirmation that the viewers' craving for violence – excessive, comical, unchecked – remains unslakable.

Rose Glass

Blurring the line between delusion and actuality, with her works Saint Maud and Love Lies Bleeding, Glass has created a collection of powerful female characters driven to limits by the intensity of their devotion to warped beliefs. Given to surreal climaxes that challenge easy readings into doubt, her films stay with you – though less like a rock in your shoe than a spike in your foot.

Danny and Michael Philippou

Emerging from the early beginnings of YouTube came a team of brothers conquering the cinema landscape with a trendy brand of shock. With their works Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, they staged violent spectacles in between realistic portrayals of how current young people act. Cinema enthusiasts idolize them as if they’re recently made icons.

Arthouse Horror Pioneer

The director's polished, metaphor-forward fusion of scary movie conventions with independent styles earned her a top Cannes prize, the historic moment the festival gave its highest honor to a scary film. Bearing the viscera-flecked standard of the extreme cinema wave, the Titane director indulges the desires of the isolated to spectacular effect.

Na Hong-jin

One of the most thrilling talents to emerge from Asia in the past decade, the Seoul-based creator has made one gem of mythical fear (The Wailing) and co-scripted another (The Medium). Paced with absolute confidence and exact atmosphere crafting, his movies converts conventional structures into horrifying, original shapes.

These creators embody the diverse and groundbreaking path of the horror genre, pushing the limits of dread into fresh realms.