10 Greatest Horror Movie Directors Of All Time

Notable films: Rabid, Scanners, The Brood, Videodrome, The Fly

Of all the great horror directors, David Cronenberg is perhaps the most cerebral. While firmly rooted within the horror genre, his films often work as pitch black satires on consumer culture, mass media propaganda and the interplay between humans and technology, sometimes with a subtext of sexual depravity thrown in for good measure.

It's the concept of the merging of man and machine which formed the backbone of Cronenberg's most enduring contribution to cinema and the creation of the body horror sub-genre. After warming up with the promising low budget horror films Shivers and Rabid in the 1970s, Cronenberg's body horror really came into its own with Scanners and Videodrome, released in the early 80s.

Fusing political paranoia with psychic powers and a flair for gross out practical effects, these films represented the beginnings of a wave of horror classics from Cronenberg which included a remake of the 50s B-movie The Fly and an adaptation of William Burroughs' "unfilmable" book Naked Lunch. Each film highlights Cronenberg's absolute mastery of special effects and how they work best when serving a solid storyline, and few horror films have received as much critical acclaim.

Cronenberg moved away from horror movies in the 21st century, but his legacy in the body horror genre is unsurpassed. Were it not for his influence it's unlikely horror fans would have been treated to the films of Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, Dagon) and Brain Yuzna (Society, Bride Of Re-Animator).