15 Influential Directors Who Changed the Horror Genre Forever

Yes, he directed the Spider-Man trilogy, but Sam Raimi is a true modern man of horror. He directed the Evil Dead series, which follows five college students and their cabin-in-the-woods vacation. Spoiler alert: it's no vacation. It's still considered one of the most pivotal horror films of all time, and it launched a major franchise as a result. Since then, Raimi has mostly shifted away from the horror genre, but there was certainly some psychological terror in the 1998 crime thriller A Simple Plan.