10 Independent Horror Filmmakers You Should Know About

These directors don't need big budgets or major distribution to scare you out of your wits.

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Complex Original

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The horror genre has been alive, well, and in excellent shape for years now; of course, TV commercials and the trailers playing inside big-chain movie theaters would lead you to believe otherwise. Aside from the occasional mainstream genre film that’s undeniably great, such as Insidious and The Cabin in the Woods, the majority of horror flicks that receive the most attention are nowhere near as strong as many of the ones populating art-house cinemas, straight-to-DVD racks, and Video On-Demand platforms.

This weekend, in fact, yet another superb horror movie will open in limited release, and, unavoidably, go mostly unnoticed by those who don’t seek out the smaller options out there. Titled Lovely Molly, it’s directed and co-written by Eduardo Sánchez, one of the two guys responsible for 1999’s historic The Blair Witch Project.

This new film is a much darker, and, yes, scarier, piece of work, though; in it, Molly (newcomer Gretchen Lodge), a young, happy newlywed, moves into her old family cottage with her husband and gradually loses her mind, either due to a resurfacing drug habit or full-blown demonic possession. Deeply intense and devoid of any levity, Lovely Molly is the kind of horror film that’s sole intention is to completely disturb the hell out of viewers, a mission Sanchez accomplishes in spades.

If only more people were able to see it this Friday. Lovely Molly is just the latest example of a superior scary movie relegated to a theatrical release below too many folks’ radars. Which is the same fate met by the rest of the impressive writers and directors included within our following list of 10 Independent Horror Filmmakers You Should Know About. Your Netflix queue and iTunes library are about to get worked out.

Written by Matt Barone (@MBarone)

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Ti West

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Best movies: The House of the Devil (2009), The Innkeepers (2012), V/H/S (2012)

In damn near every interview he gives, writer/director Ti West has to contend with the “slow burn” questions, inquiries about his signature brand of deliberately measured pacing. Like a real trooper, he always answers them, but there’s often a hint of not-again annoyance.

We can’t blame him, either, because what folks should be concerning themselves with is the fact that West is one of the few modern-day horror filmmakers who truly has a style all his own. Films like the 1980s-set Satanic freak-out The House of the Devil and this year’s charming and shrewd ghost story/slacker comedy The Innkeepers are unmistakably Ti West productions.

And how so? For one, the first two acts of both movies firmly lay the pieces of meticulous dread, hinting at awaiting horrors without giving up the ghosts—pun intended—too soon; then, each flick culminates in an Act Three explosion of insanity. OK, so perhaps that whole “slow burn” thing is totally justified, after all.

Christopher Smith

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Best movies: Creep (2004), Triangle (2009), Black Death (2011)

The genre market needs more daring and original thinkers a la Christopher Smith. Hailing from Bristol, England, the horror specialist has displayed more diversity in his  eight-year career than heavyweights like George A. Romero and Stuart Gordon have in their entire, much longer filmmaking histories. And, best of all, Smith’s movies are all different and all really damn good.

In the spirit of most horror newcomers, Smith went for gory craziness with his debut, 2004’s Creep, about a deformed killer spilling guts inside London’s wretched sewers. He lightened up a smidge two years later with the comedic slasher flick Severance, and then stripped away all humor to write the complicated and downright superb 2009 brain-scrambler Triangle, a spellbinder that deserves to become a new-age cult classic.

Last year, Smith delivered his most thought-provoking picture yet in Black Death, a medieval chiller that starts off in King Arthur territory, twists into a supernatural creeper, and culminates with God-fearing torture and dismemberment. One of our favorite movies of 2011, the grandiose-looking Black Death should have Smith’s phone buzzing with Hollywood studio requests; if not, chalk up another “L” for the majors.

Adam Green

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Best movies: Hatchet (2006), Spiral (2007), Frozen (2010)

If you’re a horror fanatic, you have to love a guy like Adam Green—everything he does is steeped in his fondness for the genre.

In an age where iconic slashers are a thing of the past, Green blessed lovers of fictionalized slaughter with a new killer to root for in Victor Crowley, the disfigured behemoth at the center of the Hatchet franchise. Anyone who’s seen either Hatchet or its 2006 sequel knows that Crowley’s handiwork makes that of Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers look like child’s play (no Chucky doll).

Green is also capable of containing himself, too, as seen in the quieter, kids-stuck-on-a-ski-lift thriller Frozen, as well as Spiral, a twisty descent into a loner’s fractured psychosis that’s arguably the director’s best movie to date. These days, Green and fellow genre staple Joe Lynch are behind the FEARnet sitcom Holliston, where he and Lynch play exaggerated versions of themselves in a Seinfeld-inspired world featuring gore, Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider, and witty inside jokes for the horror crowd. Catch a firsthand look at how people flock to Green at horror conventions and you’ll see just how much they appreciate it all.

Eduardo Sánchez

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Best movies: The Blair Witch Project (1999), Seventh Moon (2008), Lovely Molly (2012)

The pop culture juggernaut that was, and, frankly, still is, 1999’s found-footage smash The Blair Witch Project can’t be an easy project to shake off for a filmmaker. To put things into a hip-hop perspective, it’s like Raekwon and 1995’s seminal Only Built 4 Cuban Linx….

Fortunately for Eduardo Sánchez, one-half of the Blair Witch team (the other half being Daniel Myrick), he’s made his Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… Pt. II in the form of Lovely Molly. And it’s been a long road to reach Molly. It took Sánchez seven years to follow-up Blair Witch, reemerging in 2006 with the underrated extraterrestrial horror film Altered, which he actually bested two years later with the honeymoon-from-Hell supernatural thriller Seventh Moon.

But with Lovely Molly, he’s mastered the genre—yes, it’s better than The Blair Witch Project. Restrained when it needs to be, and brutally hardcore in expertly timed spurts, Sánchez’s downbeat, psychological chiller strips down horror’s often garish “demonic possession” subgenre to a leaner, meaner pitch. It’s taken him 13 years, yet, in the eyes of astute horror aficionados, Sanchez has finally shaken off that Blair Witch stigma.

Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett

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Best movies: A Horrible Way to Die (2010), You’re Next (2012), V/H/S (2012)

As of now, the formidable duo of writer Simon Barrett and director Adam Wingard only have one movie to show off as their we’re-the-real-deal calling card: 2010’s subdued serial killer flick A Horrible Way to Die. It’s about an escaped convict/murderer (A.J. Bowen) who reconnects with an ex-girlfriend (Amy Seimetz) and complicates (i.e., kills several people) her battles against alcoholism and depression.

Though the violence gets extreme, and the mood is predominantly malevolent, A Horrible Way to Die is, at its core, a straight-faced character study. But the next two Barrett/Wingard collaborations promise to rile things up something fierce.

A found-footage horror anthology from six directors, the festival hit V/H/S (scheduled for an October release) is an absolute blast, the kind of audience-response ride that’s both creepy and consistently uproarious—Barrett, for his part, wrote two of the segments, while Wingard directed the wraparound.

Also on deck from the guys is You’re Next, another film fest breakout, in which a family gathering is disrupted by a gang of masked assailants carrying crossbows and machetes. At last year’s Fantastic Fest, held annually in Austin, Texas, critics pegged You’re Next as the “next Scream,” and it was picked up for distribution by the bigwigs of Lionsgate. If the company ever gives the film a proper release date (fingers crossed for Halloween 2012), Barrett and Wingard might be ready for the mainstream’s primetime.

Simon Rumley

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Best movies: The Living and the Dead (2006), Red, White & Blue (2010), Little Deaths (2011)

Genre films don’t get much bleaker than the ones written and directed by Simon Rumley. Thus, if you’re the possessor of a weak stomach or unflinching optimism, proceed toward the Englishman’s work with caution.

On the other hand, those able to handle overwhelming harshness should find much to admire about Rumley’s efforts. Take the disturbed 2006 film The Living and the Dead, for example—showing the horrific turn of events that plagues a mentally unhinged rich kid as he watches over his ill mother, Rumley’s psychological nightmare scenario gets progressively crazier and darker with each scene. By the film’s end, The Living and the Dead is almost on par with Requiem for a Dream in terms of its downbeat paralysis.

As for Red, White & Blue, Rumley’s stateside look at a trio of hopelessly screwed characters…we suggest you kick back a few stiff drinks before watching. Early on, it’s a hypnotically paced examination of random connections, mainly that of a sexually promiscuous girl (Amanda Fuller) and the Iraq vet (the exceptional Noah Taylor) with whom she develops a supportive bond. Once one of her old one-night-stand partners (Marc Senter) finds out some upsetting news, though, Red, White & Blue quickly descends into a cavalcade of dismemberment, torture, and slasher-movie killings, all staged with the bluntness of scissors to one’s eyeballs.

And that’s not even the sickest shit that Rumley has to offer. Such distinction is reserved for “Bitch,” his contribution to the perverse British horror anthology Little Deaths. In an effort to not spoil any of the segment’s demented brilliance, we’ll just say this: The “Bitch” title is a two-sided allusion, referring to both the despicable female character and the kind of four-legged animals that, um, defile her. Yeah, Rumley is a sick bastard. And that’s a compliment.

Jim Mickle

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Best movies: Mulberry Street (2006), Stake Land (2011)

Can you blame anyone for groaning about the thought of yet another vampire movie? Twilight, True Blood, Let the Right One In—whether bad or great, the recent influx of bloodsucker stories has exhausted the classic monster type first popularized in Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. Trust us, though: Jim Mickle’s Stake Land is more than a few neck-bites above the rest, save for Let the Right One In and its excellent U.S. remake, Let Me In.

Despite its admittedly tired, post-apocalyptic setting, Stake Land finds clever ways to re-imagine both the desolate, Mad Max-like landscape and the vampire mythology. Mickle, along with his frequent writing partner (and the film’s star) Nick Damici, presents the undead as ferocious, hideous-looking mutant types, and their attacks are no joke.

The most impressive thing about Stake Land, though, isn’t its creature features, but, rather, how Mickle used his reasonably sized budget and humble resources to give Stake Land the look and feel of an expansive Hollywood production. Just think what he could do if given an actual Hollywood budget.

Jason Eisener

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Best movies: Hobo with a Shotgun (2011)

Subtleties and reservations are clearly foreign to Canadian filmmaker Jason Eisener. One viewing of last year’s terrific exploitation throwback Hobo with a Shotgun proves that statement as correct; starring Rutger Hauer, Hobo puts, yes, a shotgun in the hands of a disgruntled homeless man, and, tossing all kinds of awful people and humanity-killing sights in his way, prods him to leave piles of dead criminals and low-life scum bloodied up in the streets.

In addition to being gleefully overboard with its violence, Hobo with a Shotgun is also funny as sin, tapping into Eisener’s twisted sense of humor that first surfaced in his amazing 2008 short, Treevenge. The premise? Christmas trees, fed up with being uprooted for humans’ holiday needs, start murdering everyone in sight, including little kids.

Hobo with a Chainsaw, in which Rutger Hauer chops down the bloodthirsty plants on December 24th? Somebody get Eisener on the phone, stat!

Jon Knautz

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Best movies: Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer (2008), The Shrine (2011)

Only two films into his still-blooming career, Jon Knautz has already cemented himself as an unclassifiable genre director—his pair of strong flicks couldn’t be any more different.

First, in 2008, the Ontario, Canada, native tapped into that old Evil Dead 2 level of fun with Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, a wild, hilarious, and gruesome tale about a plumber hell-bent on killing ghouls to avenge the slaughtering of his family. At that point, Knautz could’ve fashioned himself into a new-age Sam Raimi, but then he went in a much darker direction.

The Shrine, which was unfairly restricted to a VOD release last year, isn’t an entirely groundbreaking horror movie; the plot, for one, is familiar. A trio of attractive young journalists ventures into a secluded Polish community to uncover the whereabouts of a missing tourist, only to run headfirst into a homicidal cult—see, nothing revolutionary. With Knautz at the helm, though, The Shrine rises above its generic trappings, engaging with strong performances and sporadic bursts of ritualistic gore that build up to a clever surprise of an ending. And with that, he’s earned our trust.

Darren Lynn Bousman

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Best movies: Saw II (2005), Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008), Mother’s Day (2012)

Darren Lynn Bousman and Eduardo Sánchez share a unique career characteristic, one that’s somewhat backwards: They’ve both gone from directing huge mainstream successes to helming smaller, more personally realized projects. In Bousman’s case, his earlier smashes dominated the October box office from 2005 through 2007—Saw II, Saw III, and Saw IV. Once he stepped away from Jigsaw’s franchise, though, Bousman started churning out his most interesting work.

In 2008, he wrote and directed the Gothic horror extravaganza Repo! The Genetic Opera, inspiring legions of cult-like fans to stand up and cheer. Bringing the lavishness down several pegs, his latest indie films—the Satanic mood piece 11-11-11 and the savage remake of the 1980 camp favorite Mother’s Day (his best movie thus far)—have further displayed a director who’s unafraid to dabble in various horror subgenres.

Currently, Bousman is back in his Repo! zone with The Devil’s Carnival, a grandiose, music-driven short designed to evoke that old Rocky Horror Picture spirit. That desire for energetic audience participation has inspired Bousman to travel around the country and screen The Devil’s Carnival as an exclusive roadshow experience. Respect the technique.

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