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In the world of contemporary movie-making, a fresh cohort of artists is stretching the edges of the scary movie style. From societal commentaries to intense thrillers, these eight movie-makers are producing memorable adventures that reshape terror for a new era.

The Mind Behind Get Out

The director of Get Out has crafted sharp symbolic tales delving into the perils, nuances, and contradictions of Black life in the US. His impact is clear from the multitude of imitators, with the best within them nurtured by Peele himself through his studio.

Robert Eggers

A masterful uncoverer of the least known recesses of the history, this director of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and Nosferatu is known for uncovering the foreign facets of distant history and depicting them free from present-day alteration. His dark journeys into the past create doorways to psychosis, craving, and elevation.

Jane Schoenbrun

The contemporary filmmaker with their pulse most in touch with the younger spirit, as aware of the solitudes, and deep connections, of an digitally-obsessed era. Channeling ideas of bonding and popular media via trans experiences and the tradition of physical terror, creations such as I Saw the TV Glow delve into the most unsettling fractures of the psyche.

Gore Maestro

The director's three-part saga of Terrifier movies is this decade's major horror achievement, evidence that audience buzz can still generate bona fide hits from expertly crafted microbudget gore. Beyond the new Jason or Freddy, psychotic icon Art the Clown is confirmation that the public’s desire for violence – over-the-top, hilarious, unbridled – remains endless.

Rose Glass

Obscuring the line between fantasy and actuality, with her movies Saint Maud and Love Lies Bleeding, The director has built a collection of driven female characters compelled to the edge by the intensity of their commitment to warped values. Known for surreal grand finales that call straightforward readings into suspicion, her films linger – though not so much like a rock in your shoe than a sharp object in your foot.

YouTube Sensations

Emerging from the early beginnings of YouTube arose a team of siblings conquering the film industry with a current type of controversy. With their works Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, they created violent spectacles in between realistic portrayals of how today’s young people behave. Cinema enthusiasts pray to them as if they’re newly made heroes.

Julia Ducournau

The director's sleek, symbolism-rich combination of genre trappings with art film flourishes won her a prestigious award, the first time the event presented its highest honor to a terror movie. Carrying the viscera-flecked standard of the New French Extremity, the Titane filmmaker delves into the appetites of the alienated to remarkable effect.

Na Hong-jin

A member of the most thrilling filmmakers to come forth from Eastern cinema in modern times, the South Korean director has directed one gem of traditional terror (The Wailing) and collaborated on a second one (The Medium). Paced with total certainty and exact mood management, his work converts conventional structures into terrifying, unique shapes.

These filmmakers represent the varied and creative future of scary cinema, driving the boundaries of fear into unexplored territories.