Most Successful Horror Film Directors

June 2024 · 8 minute read

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At times, it may be difficult to seek out industrial luck in the horror genre. Unless you’re planning on hanging out a watered down film, horror movies have a tendency to be marketed toward a extra grownup target audience and thus don’t usher in as many tickets as a PG-Thirteen film would. And the forms of horror audiences in finding interesting tend to come in developments: for the final couple years, zombie movies have been virtually assured hits, however in the ’80s slasher movies have been all the rage and within the ’70s the in point of fact successful ones tended to be about demons or demonic ownership. The following seven directors had been successful within the genre perhaps because they’ve ridden these waves or, much more likely, they precipitated them in the first position.

7. Oren Peli -  Net Worth: $22.7 Million

Born in Israel and based in the United States, Oren Peli’s theatrical debut was probably the most most successful in recent cinematic history. Made for the cheap of $15,000 and launched in 2007, the primary Paranormal Activity movie become one of the most winning movies ever made, according to The Wrap and The Guardian, making just about $two hundred million in its unique theatrical run. While he has produced all of the successive films within the Paranormal Activity series, the first film remains the only movie he’s directed—regardless that Area 51, centred at the mysterious U.S. Air Force base, is written and directed through him and is about to return out someday this 12 months.

6. George A. Romero - Net Worth: $35 Million

The Walking Dead and World War Z would now not be hits—or, heck, even exist—with out the affect of George A. Romero. Before Night of the Living Dead—directed by means of Romero and co-written with John A. Russo—hit theatres in 1968, the word “zombie” wasn’t typically uttered out of doors of old horror comics. Most of his Dead films—Night, Dawn, Land and Diaryof the Dead—have been theatrical successes, with the primary making $42 million in its original theatrical run to its $114,000 budget, and helped to cement him as a very powerful figure within the horror neighborhood. Romero has also made a lot of non-zombie films, chief among them Creepshow, his 1982 collaboration with horror novelist Stephen King that was a loving tribute to EC horror comics from the Fifties.

5. John Carpenter - Net Worth: $35 Million

With the release of Halloween in 1978, John Carpenter jumpstarted the slasher movie craze that would dominate the Nineteen Eighties, introducing masked killers and unnerving point-of-view shots to mainstream audiences. In spite of Halloween’s good fortune—it made $70 million in theatres—Carpenter chose now not to stick with the slasher style he helped pioneer, and ever since has explored different types of horror. The Fog was once a reasonably conventional ghost tale; The Thing used a shapeshifting alien and paranoia to explore fears of an enemy amongst us; Prince of Darkness combined quantum physics with apocalyptic scripture in an enchanting approach; In the Mouth of Madness combined Lovecraftian horror with self-reflexivity. Though he hasn’t directed as often in recent years, Carpenter has gotten all for video games, directing parts of F.E.A.R. 3, and remains one of the most most influential figures in horror

4. Wes Craven - Net Worth: $40 Million

Before he compelled Freddy Krueger out of his dreams and onto the silver screen in 1984, Wes Craven made his name with two specifically brutal movies in the 1970s: The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes. Both House and Hills were blunt portrayals of human cruelty as well as the lengths other people will move to protect or avenge their family, and except for doing rather well at the field office ($3.1 million and $25 million, respectively) they have been additionally critically well-received, The Last House on the Left particularly—Roger Ebert even gave it three and a half stars out of four. But his primary good fortune got here with the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, a much more fantastical work of horror that made Freddy Krueger a popular culture fixture. Produced for $1.8 million, Nightmare made over $26 million at the box place of job and helped to propel distributor New Line Cinema out of a financial slump.

Craven’s recognition as a horror director didn’t finish there, along with his four-movie Scream sequence managing to be very financially successful while at the similar time satirizing its own slasher genre background. He also broke down the fourth wall and explored the roots—and results—of creativity with 1994’s New Nightmare, which pitted Freddy Krueger in opposition to the actress who played the protagonist in the first Nightmare film. Despite its ordinary premise, New Nightmare fared nicely at the box place of business and received critical praise.

3. James Wan - Net Worth: $50 Million

Along with writer Leigh Whannell, James Wan introduced the bloody “torture porn” subgenre to the mainstream in 2004 with Saw, a gory thriller starring Cary Elwes and Danny Glover that noticed a serial “enabler” of sorts forcing his sufferers to do horrible things for their very own survival. Saw was once an astounding good fortune upon its release—it was once filmed for $1.2 million and made over $100 million, according to field place of job statistics website online The Numbers—and changed into the first film in one of the crucial most stunningly successful film franchises within the last decade.

Though Wan directed most effective the primary film within the collection, he has long gone on to discover the horror style in alternative ways, specializing in the supernatural with Insidious, Insidious: Chapter 2 and The Conjuring. All three have been significant successes in their very own rights and a sequel to The Conjuring is planned for 2015. On a non-horror observe, he is also directing Fast & Furious 7, set to release next yr as nicely.

2. Sam Raimi - Net Worth: $55 Million

Before directing the commercially and—mostly—seriously successful Spider-Man trilogy, Sam Raimi was once easiest referred to as the darkly comedic thoughts in the back of some other trilogy: the Evil Dead sequence. Filmed in 1979 and launched in 1981, the first Evil Dead film used to be a labour of affection for Raimi and his pal (and the film’s megastar) Bruce Campbell. The Evil Dead was made for the cheap of roughly $350,000 and filmed in a real deserted cabin, and right through production Raimi, Campbell and corporate needed to contend with freezing temperatures or even shotgun-wielding woodsmen, according to the observation on the film’s Blu Ray. It was also very successful in theatres, making back its modest finances several occasions over. Raimi and Campbell reunited for The Evil Dead’s two sequels—Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness—which embraced their status as B-movies and intentionally ventured further into slapstick territory.

While the Spider-Man trilogy occupied most of Raimi’s time right through the 2000s, he came again to horror in 2009 with Drag Me to Hell, a supernatural morality play of types starring Alison Lohman as a financial institution officer who inadvertently invokes the wrath of a supernaturally tough customer and is due to this fact cursed. Filmed on a $30 million price range, Drag Me to Hell used to be very successful, incomes over $100 million in combined box place of job and DVD gross sales.

1. John Landis - Net Worth: $70 Million

The man at the back of Animal House and The Blues Brothers, amongst others, also has a style for horror. John Landis’ 5th characteristic film was once An American Werewolf in London, a comedic horror film that paid homage to vintage werewolf flicks like The Wolfman whilst maintaining its tongue planted firmly in its cheek. The 1981 liberate starred David Naughton as an American who is slashed by means of a werewolf and receives its curse while backpacking through northern England and who later will have to come to a decision whether or not to finish his lifestyles or stay a threat to others. The darkly comic film was once a box office success, grossing over $61 million in theatres, and earned Rick Baker an Academy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Makeup for his darkly comedic werewolf transformation sequences.

Landis additionally went on to direct the 1983 song video/quick film of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, which as soon as once more paid tribute to the werewolf genre as well as zombies, and in addition wrote and directed a phase of Twilight Zone: The Movie (whose production resulted within the unlucky deaths of Vic Morrow and two child actors). Though he spent much of the next twenty years directing comedies, Landis returned to horror in 2010 with Burke & Hare, a true-to-life horror comedy about a pair of Irish serial killers who offered their victims’ bodies to a neighborhood doctor for his anatomy lectures. As of 2011, he is reported to be co-writing a monster movie which he plans to shoot in Paris, in line with film website online Collider.

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