6. Wes Craven
I couldn't put this list together without including ONE horror guy, right? Horror directors can be tough to choose between so in the end go with the guy who scared the shit out of you as a child, that's what I say. Wes Craven not only scared the hell out of everyone in the 1980s, he reinvented himself and the genre in the 1990s. We'll start with his early films, The Hills Have Eyes and Last House On The Left. These were punishing films who killed almost every single character by the final frame. Craven then moved on to the series that would define his entire career, A Nightmare On Elm Street. What came with this series was one of cinema's most iconic boogeymen of all time, Freddy Krueger. The twist in the Nightmare series was that Krueger preyed on his victims as they slept. It's an insane setup because it forces all the characters to fight the natural force of sleep and then Krueger once sleep took hold. Some of the most creative kills in the genre happened in this series and none of us will ever forget the sight of Johnny Depp getting sucked into that ceiling. Wes Craven moved from the Nightmare series to the Scream series and redefined the horror genre. He used all of the horror movie cliches known to set new rules. Break the rules and you die, abide and you might yet survive. The only thing certain was the trail of dead bodies to be left behind.