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Across the world of contemporary cinema, a innovative cohort of visionaries is stretching the boundaries of the scary movie style. Ranging from societal allegories to visceral fright-fests, these eight movie-makers are creating memorable journeys that reimagine fear for a current era.

Jordan Peele

The director of Get Out has developed spring-loaded allegories exploring the dangers, nuances, and contradictions of Black existence in the America. Peele's impact is obvious from the sheer number of copycats, with the finest among them supported by Peele himself through his production company.

Robert Eggers

A masterful explorer of the most obscure recesses of the bygone eras, this creator of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and Nosferatu specializes in revealing the foreign elements of distant history and showing them free from contemporary alteration. Eggers' sinister time machines unlock gateways to psychosis, longing, and transcendence.

Jane Schoenbrun

The modern director with their finger most in touch with the younger pulse, as sensitive to the loneliness, and meaningful bonds, of an internet-besotted era. Channeling themes of connection and mainstream entertainment via trans identity and the history of body horror, films such as I Saw the TV Glow explore the most unsettling fissures of the identity.

Gore Maestro

The director's series of Terrifier movies is this decade's significant horror achievement, evidence that word of mouth can still generate genuine hits from well-executed microbudget violence. Beyond the new horror villain, deranged poster boy Art the Clown is proof that the audience's desire for gore – excessive, hilarious, unchecked – remains unslakable.

Rose Glass

Merging the line between delusion and the real world, with her films Saint Maud and Love Lies Bleeding, The director has created a portfolio of driven women driven to extremes by the depth of their commitment to distorted beliefs. Given to imaginative grand finales that challenge straightforward interpretations into question, her movies remain – though less like a stone in your footwear than a nail in your foot.

YouTube Sensations

Emerging from the primordial ooze of online video arrived a team of filmmakers dominating the world with a current type of controversy. With their movies Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, they presented atrocity exhibitions in between authentic portrayals of how today’s youth act. Film students pray to them as if they’re freshly canonised heroes.

Arthouse Horror Pioneer

Her sleek, symbolism-rich blend of horror elements with independent touches earned her a prestigious award, the first time the Cannes Film Festival awarded its premier award to a scary film. Bearing the blood-soaked flag of the extreme cinema wave, the Titane filmmaker delves into the cravings of the disconnected to stunning outcome.

Na Hong-jin

A member of the most intriguing talents to come forth from Eastern cinema in modern times, the Korean filmmaker has crafted one jewel of traditional terror (The Wailing) and co-written a second one (The Medium). Structured with total certainty and precise atmosphere crafting, his films transposes conventional structures into frightful, unique forms.

The listed filmmakers represent the varied and groundbreaking path of scary cinema, pushing the limits of dread into unexplored dimensions.