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Within the realm of contemporary movie-making, a innovative wave of creators is stretching the boundaries of the horror film category. From social commentaries to graphic thrillers, these eight movie-makers are creating memorable experiences that reimagine fear for a new era.

Jordan Peele

The creator of Get Out has developed pointed metaphors examining the perils, nuances, and contradictions of Black existence in the US. His effect is clear from the multitude of copycats, with the finest within them nurtured by Peele himself via his Monkeypaw.

Robert Eggers

A masterful explorer of the most obscure pockets of the history, this director of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and Nosferatu excels in revealing the alien aspects of historical periods and presenting them free from modern-day reinterpretation. Eggers' unholy journeys into the past create doorways to madness, craving, and transformation.

Jane Schoenbrun

The contemporary director with their focus most in touch with the millennial spirit, as aware of the loneliness, and significant relationships, of an internet-besotted era. Filtering themes of connection and popular media by way of trans identity and the history of body horror, films such as I Saw the TV Glow explore the most unsettling cracks of the psyche.

Gore Maestro

The director's trilogy of Terrifier films is this era's major scary movie achievement, proof that word of mouth can still produce bona fide blockbusters from expertly crafted low-budget bloodshed. Not just the new horror villain, psychotic figure Art the Clown is proof that the viewers' thirst for blood – gratuitous, comical, unrestrained – remains insatiable.

Rose Glass

Merging the division between delusion and the real world, with her films Saint Maud and Love Lies Bleeding, Glass has created a portfolio of intense female characters compelled to the edge by the intensity of their devotion to distorted beliefs. Given to imaginative endings that challenge easy understandings into suspicion, her movies stay with you – though not so much like a pebble in your footwear than a nail in your sole.

Danny and Michael Philippou

From the humble origins of YouTube arrived a pair of filmmakers dominating the cinema landscape with a trendy type of shock. With their movies Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, they presented atrocity exhibitions in between realistic representations of how current teenagers behave. Cinema enthusiasts look up to them as if they’re newly made saints.

Julia Ducournau

Her polished, metaphor-forward fusion of scary movie conventions with art film flourishes earned her a prestigious award, the first time the festival gave its highest honor to a scary film. Carrying the blood-soaked standard of the New French Extremity, the Titane director delves into the cravings of the alienated to spectacular effect.

Na Hong-jin

A member of the most exciting artists to come forth from Eastern cinema in modern times, the Korean filmmaker has made one gem of traditional terror (The Wailing) and co-scripted another (The Medium). Arranged with absolute assurance and precise tonal control, his films converts Hollywood templates into frightful, novel styles.

The listed creators represent the varied and creative future of the horror genre, pushing the edges of dread into fresh territories.