Five directors who need to make a horror movie

When it comes to horror films, there is a general consensus that they are looked down at by the other, better genres. Horror is down there with comedy as something of a lowest common denominator, something that commercial and music video directors do to get their break into feature film making. But let’s not forget that Spielberg directed Jaws, Kubrick directed The Shining, and Ridley Scott directed Alien. These are some of the greatest films of all time, made by some of the greatest directors of all time, and they’ll all scare the absolute bejayzus out of you.

So we think there’s a few directors out there who need to switch up their game a little bit, and get into the horror genre pronto.

QUENTIN TARANTINO
He’s not one to shy away from violence, and he was a big supporter of his protégé Eli Roth’s horror films such as Cabin Fever and Hostel. But by and large, Tarantino has given the genre a massively wide berth. Considering his encyclopaedic knowledge of movies, we imagine he’d know exactly how to make a great one, and since we’re playing the wish-fulfilment game, we also want to see him make a sci-fi movie. Let’s take a break from smart-arses being funny and violent towards each other, and send Tarantino into space with space monsters.

MICHEL GONDRY / CHARLIE KAUFMANN
Can you imagine how EFFED UP this would be? The guys behind the genius that is Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, getting all creative and weird with horror? That would be something to behold. Kaufmann has done a very vague take on existential horror before with Synecdoche New York, and Gondry certainly knows how to create a striking visual, so the two of these working together to scare an audience gets us excited in all kinds of ways.

KATHRYN BIGELOW
Too many horror movies are directed by young men who film half naked girls running around screaming at the top of the boobs. We’d like to see Bigelow change all that, with her no-nonsense form of directing, yet still muscular storytelling. This is the lady who beat her ex-husband James Cameron to the Best Director Oscar, with The Hurt Locker winning the award over Avatar, so we like to think that a horror movie from her would have the men in the cinema screens screaming even more than the ladies.

TERRENCE MALICK
In 40 years, Malick has only made 6 movies. But he’s currently got three – yes, that’s right, THREE! – in post-production, as he’s obviously picking up speed on his assembly line. Very few directors can set a tone and a mood quite like Malick, so we imagine that if he wanted to, he could very easily make one of those genre-defying, generation-defining horror movies like The Exorcist or The Shining. Now if someone could only convince him to stop making love stories, we’d be set.