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Across the world of current filmmaking, a fresh generation of visionaries is pushing the limits of the horror film category. Ranging from social commentaries to graphic thrillers, these eight movie-makers are producing lasting journeys that reimagine terror for a current age.

Jordan Peele

The creator behind Get Out has developed spring-loaded symbolic tales exploring the dangers, nuances, and contradictions of African American experience in the US. Peele's effect is evident from the multitude of imitators, with the finest of them supported by the filmmaker by way of his Monkeypaw.

Master of Historical Horror

A masterful uncoverer of the darkest pockets of the past, this director of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and Nosferatu excels in finding the alien facets of distant history and presenting them free from modern-day alteration. His dark time machines create doorways to insanity, desire, and transformation.

Voice of a Generation

The contemporary creator with their pulse closest to the millennial heartbeat, as attuned to the isolation, and significant relationships, of an digitally-obsessed era. Filtering themes of bonding and mainstream entertainment via trans identity and the history of corporeal fear, works such as I Saw the TV Glow plumb the eeriest cracks of the psyche.

Damien Leone

Leone’s series of Terrifier films is this era's major scary movie achievement, proof that fan support can still generate true hits from expertly crafted low-budget gore. More than the modern slasher icon, psychotic icon Art the Clown is confirmation that the viewers' thirst for violence – over-the-top, hilarious, unbridled – remains unslakable.

Blurrer of Realities

Blurring the boundary between fantasy and the real world, with her films Saint Maud and Love Lies Bleeding, The director has built a gallery of powerful protagonists compelled to the edge by the intensity of their devotion to distorted beliefs. Prone to fantastical climaxes that call simple understandings into suspicion, her movies linger – though less like a rock in your shoe than a sharp object in your sole.

Danny and Michael Philippou

From the primordial ooze of YouTube arose a duo of filmmakers conquering the cinema landscape with a current brand of controversy. With their films Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, they staged shocking displays in between realistic portrayals of how modern young people behave. Film students pray to them as if they’re recently declared icons.

Arthouse Horror Pioneer

The director's sleek, symbolism-rich blend of scary movie conventions with art film flourishes earned her a top Cannes prize, the initial instance the Cannes Film Festival gave its top prize to a horror picture. Holding the gore-stained flag of the New French Extremity, the Titane creator explores the desires of the alienated to stunning outcome.

Asian Horror Visionary

A member of the most exciting talents to arise from Eastern cinema in the past decade, the South Korean creator has directed one masterpiece of traditional terror (The Wailing) and collaborated on one more (The Medium). Structured with supreme confidence and precise mood management, his movies transposes mainstream formulas into horrifying, novel forms.

These eight creators represent the varied and innovative direction of horror, propelling the boundaries of terror into unexplored realms.