7. Wes Craven
Wes Craven might have spent his early life as an English professor, but those smarts haven't prevented him from having one of the most on-off careers of any filmmaker. Though he has written and directed some of the most famous horror films ever made, he's also peppered his career with plenty of flops, such that his number of failures actually just about outnumbers his successes. Though his career began with two horror hits, The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes, his third major film was the flop Deadly Blessing, though he did recover with Swamp Thing and then, one of his most famous films, A Nightmare On Elm Street. So, it's all good, right? Not a chance; Craven's 5 next films were all critically reviled, and it wasn't until A New Nightmare, the brilliant postmodern spin on the Freddie Krueger franchise, that he was able to get out of his funk. After another flop (Vampire in Brooklyn), Craven hit a late-career stride with his immensely successful Scream and its sequel, as well as his bizarre, surprisingly good non-horror drama Music of the Heart. His most recent career includes flops Scream 3, Cursed and My Soul to Take, and the minor hits Red Eye and Scream 4.