6. John Carpenter
Perhaps proving that horror film directors by their nature have one of the hardest jobs in Hollywood, it seems that John Carpenter, like Craven, is a master of the genre, having delivered some of its most iconic films, but he's delivered a seemingly equal number of clunkers, too. Early in his career as a genre filmmaker, the man was unstoppable, delivering 9 classic, superbly iconic films in a row; Dark Star, Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, The Fog, Escape from New York, The Thing, Christine, Starman and Big Trouble in Little China. And then, Carpenter hit a brick wall from which he never recovered. Prince of Darkness was tepidly received, though he briefly regained his footing with They Live, but sunk once again with Memoirs of an Invisible Man, and the only good thing he's made since is a brief segment in the film Body Bags. Since then, everything he's made has been a dud; In the Mouth of Madness, Village of the Damned, Escape from L.A., Vampires, Ghosts of Mars, and then after a decade away from cinema, The Ward.