10 Great Horror Directors



Steven Speilberg: Best known for creating entire worlds, considering script, storytelling, cinematography, tension, humor, and believable and likeable characters. There is a big kid inside this director and it shows when he is feeding us some of the most original plots around.
Duel
Jaws
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Jurassic Park
Minority Report
War of the Worlds


Alfred Hitchcock: The father of horror directing, master of timing, cinematography techniques, tension, and eerie soundtracks. Hitchcock became the yardstick to measure horror movie quality by.
Rope
Psycho
Rear Window
Dial M For Murder
The Birds
Family Plot


John Carpenter:  Modern-day dark storyteller. Carpenter gets that people want atmosphere, eerie music, and most of all a good urban-legend-feeling plot line.
Halloween
The Fog
The Thing
Starman
Prince of Darkness
They Live
Village of the Damned

Brian De Palma:  Twisted characters, twisted situations. De Palma knows how to give make the surreal seem real.
Carrie
The Fury
Dressed to Kill
Mission To Mars
Black Dahlia

Tobe Hooper:  Unusual scenarios and grave situations is Hooper's specialty. He knows how to make a killer believable, but also a hero.
Invader's From Mars
Salem's Lot
Night Terrors
Toolbox Murders
Mortuary 
The Funhouse

Guillermo Del Toro:  His specialty is beautiful atmospheric settings and bleak situations.  Del Toro is a favorite for those who want their horror to be gorgeous while tragic.
Mama
Cronos
The Devil's Backbone
Hellboy
Mimic
Pan's Labyrinth

Wes Craven:  Craven is an expert with unusual situations and locations, miserable odds, and unusual plots.  He is great with tension and trials.
The Hills Have Eyes
Swamp Thing
A Nightmare On Elm Street
The People Under the Stairs
Scream
The Serpent and the Rainbow

George Romero:  Best known for his contribution to the zombie genre, Romero understands that horror is often times about the people in the drama, not about the drama.
Night of the Living Dead
The Crazies
Dawn of the Dead
Creepshow
Day of the Dead
Land of the Dead 

Joe Dante:  Humor and serious creepiness--his trademarks. Dante is over the top awesomeness in the tongue-in-cheek genre of horror.
The Howling
Gremlins
The Burbs
Piranha

James Wan:  Stylish, very dark, and involving often times dolls and creepy music, Wan has a retro feel but a modern style that takes old stories and renews them.
Saw
Dead Silence
Death Sentence
Insidious


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