My Top 3 Modern Horror Film Directors
In honor of Halloween this weekend, it feels right to talk about something spooky. Each year feels less and less Halloweeny for me, but scary movies still keep me in the spirit.
I grew up on classics like The Exorcist (1973), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and Jeepers Creepers (2001), but today’s horror films interest me more for being nuanced and original.
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Modern horror film directors like Ari Aster, Gaspar Noé, and Yorgos Lanthimos create horror from unique perspectives that give new meaning to the genre. I’m not a huge horror fan, but I’m always down for a thought-provoking horror film, and these directors never disappoint.
Ari Aster
Ari Aster is an American director best known for his A24 horror films. I’ve seen most of his films, with Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019) at the top of my list. Both explore themes of death, grief, ritualistic sacrifice, and worship.
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Both films show that when we’re consumed by negative emotions, we become vulnerable to dark forces. Grief is a natural human emotion, but when left unchecked, it festers and spreads, affecting those closest to us.
These films also explore the act of sacrifice for tradition and community, which reminds me of inheriting generational trauma through values that no longer serve (and even harm) us.
Gaspar Noé
Gaspar Noé is an Argentine director known for his extreme psychological horror and drama films. The two that disturbed me the most were Irreversible (2002) and Climax (2018) because of its raw depictions of sexual violence and drug use, especially the traumatic subway underpass scene in Irreversible (iykyk).
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I would not recommend watching his films if those topics are sensitive for you, but I include him here because he portrays the human condition in its most brutal and honest form. He shows us that the worst monsters are often human.
Yorgos Lanthimos
Yorgos Lanthimos is a Greek director known for his dark humor and psychological horror films like The Lobster (2015) and The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), two films with themes of sacrifice and control.
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Both explore how far people will go to survive uncontrollable circumstances. The real horror lies in the terrifying choices we’re forced to make when our own lives or the lives of our loved ones are on the line.
