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Across the world of contemporary filmmaking, a fresh cohort of visionaries is pushing the boundaries of the horror genre. From social commentaries to intense chillers, these 8 movie-makers are creating lasting adventures that reshape terror for a new era.

Jordan Peele

The filmmaker behind Get Out has created spring-loaded symbolic tales examining the risks, nuances, and conflicts of Black existence in the America. Peele's effect is evident from the abundance of followers, with the finest within them supported by Peele himself via his Monkeypaw.

Master of Historical Horror

An expert uncoverer of the most obscure corners of the past, this filmmaker of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and Nosferatu excels in revealing the alien elements of past epochs and showing them free from modern-day reinterpretation. His dark historical explorations open portals to psychosis, longing, and transcendence.

Voice of a Generation

The modern director with their finger most in touch with the generation’s spirit, as sensitive to the isolation, and deep connections, of an digitally-obsessed age. Channeling ideas of bonding and pop culture via gender transition and the legacy of physical terror, works such as I Saw the TV Glow delve into the strangest fissures of the self.

Damien Leone

The director's three-part saga of Terrifier features is this era's great scary movie success story, evidence that word of mouth can still generate genuine blockbusters from skillfully made low-budget gore. More than the next slasher icon, psychotic icon Art the Clown is evidence that the audience's craving for blood – excessive, comical, unbridled – remains endless.

Rose Glass

Blurring the division between delusion and reality, with her movies Saint Maud and Love Lies Bleeding, The director has built a portfolio of powerful female characters pushed to limits by the depth of their devotion to distorted values. Known for imaginative endings that question straightforward understandings into doubt, her films stay with you – though less like a stone in your shoe than a nail in your foot.

YouTube Sensations

From the primordial ooze of online video came a team of brothers taking over the world with a zeitgeisty brand of controversy. With their movies Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, they staged shocking displays in between realistic depictions of how today’s young people behave. Cinema enthusiasts pray to them as if they’re freshly canonised icons.

Arthouse Horror Pioneer

Her sleek, metaphor-forward combination of horror elements with art film flourishes gained her a top Cannes prize, the historic moment the event awarded its top prize to a horror picture. Bearing the blood-soaked flag of the extreme cinema wave, the Titane filmmaker delves into the desires of the disconnected to stunning effect.

Na Hong-jin

Among the most intriguing artists to emerge from Asia in recent years, the South Korean creator has directed one gem of mythical fear (The Wailing) and co-written one more (The Medium). Paced with total confidence and meticulous tonal control, his films transforms conventional structures into terrifying, original shapes.

The listed filmmakers represent the diverse and groundbreaking future of scary cinema, propelling the limits of terror into unexplored realms.