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Across the world of modern movie-making, a fresh generation of creators is stretching the edges of the horror film category. Ranging from social allegories to visceral chillers, these eight directors are crafting lasting adventures that reshape terror for a new age.

Jordan Peele

The director behind Get Out has created spring-loaded allegories delving into the dangers, nuances, and conflicts of Black existence in the United States. Peele's influence is obvious from the multitude of imitators, with the top within them guided by Peele himself via his Monkeypaw.

Robert Eggers

A skilled excavator of the darkest corners of the history, this creator of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and Nosferatu specializes in uncovering the unfamiliar facets of past epochs and depicting them devoid of contemporary alteration. Eggers' dark historical explorations unlock gateways to insanity, longing, and elevation.

Jane Schoenbrun

The contemporary filmmaker with their pulse most attuned to the younger spirit, as sensitive to the loneliness, and meaningful bonds, of an internet-besotted era. Weaving ideas of connection and popular media via gender transition and the history of body horror, works such as I Saw the TV Glow delve into the strangest fractures of the psyche.

Damien Leone

The director's three-part saga of Terrifier films is this decade's great horror success story, evidence that audience buzz can still produce bona fide successes from skillfully made microbudget bloodshed. Beyond the new horror villain, psychotic poster boy Art the Clown is proof that the audience's craving for violence – over-the-top, comical, unbridled – remains unslakable.

Blurrer of Realities

Blurring the boundary between delusion and the real world, with her works Saint Maud and Love Lies Bleeding, Glass has created a portfolio of driven protagonists pushed to the edge by the intensity of their commitment to distorted values. Given to surreal endings that question easy interpretations into suspicion, her movies remain – though not so much like a pebble in your shoe than a nail in your foot.

YouTube Sensations

From the humble origins of YouTube came a team of filmmakers taking over the film industry with a current type of provocation. With their movies Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, they created shocking displays in between realistic representations of how current young people think. Cinema enthusiasts pray to them as if they’re recently canonised saints.

Julia Ducournau

The director's sleek, metaphor-forward blend of scary movie conventions with independent styles gained her a prestigious award, the first time the event presented its highest honor to a horror picture. Carrying the blood-soaked standard of the French horror movement, the Titane filmmaker explores the cravings of the isolated to remarkable outcome.

Na Hong-jin

A member of the most exciting artists to emerge from the Asian continent in recent years, the Seoul-based filmmaker has directed one jewel of mythical fear (The Wailing) and co-scripted one more (The Medium). Arranged with supreme confidence and precise atmosphere crafting, his work converts conventional structures into terrifying, original styles.

These directors represent the wide-ranging and creative path of horror, propelling the boundaries of fear into unexplored territories.