The Future of Terror: Horror Directors to Watch

Written by Scott Edwards

​As October is the greatest month of the year, I usually like to get in the swing of things and provide all of you with a list of horror movies that will get you in the mood. But this year I am a little worried as our favorite horror movie directors are starting to get long in the tooth and passing on to the next life. So instead of giving you some of the best movies to watch, it might be time to find out who will be carrying the torch forward for our most beloved genre. So without further ado, here are the directors, in no particular order, who should keep the screams coming for us horror fans.

Adam Wingard – Never heard of him? Neither did I until I saw the movie You’re Next and was blown away by what was brought to the screen.  I never expected a story about money and revenge to keep me glued to my seat, but it did and even gave me a reason to hide my blender. Doing segments for V/H/S and The ABC’s of Death as well, he has dabbled in a couple different horror sub-genres and was also the mind behind the latest version of the Blair Witch, which I still need to see. 

---

​Adam Robitel – (There is not an alphabetic order to these, it just happened, I promise.) The Taking of Deborah Logan was a movie that blew me away and it put him on my watch list for years to come. I did not know that grandmothers could be so scary, but when they play with snakes in the garden and are able to eat children's heads in one bite, well, it will be a while until I visit my grandparents again. He also did the screenplay for Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, which is my favorite of the series since you can actually see a ghost and he is currently working on the next installment of the great Insidious story that has captured our hearts.

---

Anthony DiBlasi – This is the man behind one of my favorite movies (one that I stumbled upon on Netflix), Last Shift, which sent chills down my spine. I know that some of it had to be because of the casting, but I am sure that the direction had a big part in it as well and I am still not sure if the main character has special powers or not. Then last year, DiBlasi put out another movie, Most Likely to Die which was for lack of a better term, bloody evil. It revolves around a group of old classmates who come together and find out that they are being killed by someone that has a beef with them from high school and nobody is able to fight off the killer. This is a special kind of film, one made in the modern age that employs a classic feel when you watch it.

---

​James Cullen Bressack – I was just browsing Netflix one night and 13/13/13 showed up on my recommended list. I flipped on the movie and was shocked by what was happened on the screen before my very eyes. I still cannot get the sight of a young woman pulling the skin off of her arm out of my mind. Then James also had a movie called Pernicious where three girls are terrorized by a ghost child which actually turned out to be pretty fun for the setting. And just an honorable mention for Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lampreys which was just fun all around with lampreys executing incredibly creative kills in every possible way.

---

​Rob Zombie – He might be one of the oldest people to be on this list, but he just started making movies a little over ten years ago, so we can still consider him a young director. Everyone says that his best movie was The Devil’s Rejects, but I am a huge fan of The Lords of Salem. I don’t know if House of 1000 Corpses was really ground breaking, but it was a fun movie, and while the ending took a turn for the strange, it did not take away from the story and our favorite characters returned in the sequel to show how crazy the family really was. He also has a new movie that is just hitting the big screen in 31 that looks freaky as hell, and yes, it has clowns terrorizing people.

---

Ivan Zuccon – I do have a guilty pleasure movie here in Wrath of the Crows and while other people may not have liked it as much as I did, it tells you one truth, that everybody is guilty in one way or another. One of the things that I liked most about this movie was that it made sure that you understood that there was no escape, no matter how innocent you might try to be, that and Tiffany Shepis told me to watch it. I also enjoyed Colour from the Dark which had a different spin on the H.P. Lovecraft story and there really was no light at the end of the tunnel in that film. I also see that he will be directing a remake of Re-Animator, so I cannot wait to see what he brings to a classic story.
​
There are the horror directors that I am going to keep an eye on for the future and hopefully they will continue to bring the screams that we love to hide from for many years to come. I only picked directors that have made a living off of making horror movies and left off the folks that only dabble in the genre, since these are the folks that are really doing the heavy lifting right now. There are also some good honorary mentions with Ted Geoghegan, the man behind We Are Still Here, Fede Alvarez, the man who delivered us the blood soaked version of Evil Dead and Debbie Rochon, the woman behind the scenes of the tasty Model Hunger. I know that there are plenty more great horror movie directors out there, I just picked movies that I enjoyed watching and went from there.
​
So there you have it, a roundabout way to give you a Halloween movie watch list if you would like to call it that. I hope it helps if you are looking for a new scary movie to watch and that this gives you an idea of where I would like to see the horror industry kind of take us as time moves on. With the horror genre starting to get another kick start with some recent box office successes, I hope that more of these movies at least get a chance to make it to more screens around the nation, it is apparent that people want to see them in a dark room, surrounded by strangers, who will be screaming along with them for the scary parts. My only advice to this list of up and comers...keep the stories original, if you do a remake, make it your own story, keep the blood flowing and heads exploding. Until next time, Stay Scared.

---