For me some of the more influential directors would be Ridley Scott, Robert Rodriguez, Sam Raimi, Steven Soderbergh, Brett Ratner... Just a few that come to mind...

*FADE OUT*

wes craven , clive barker and Tobe hooper are my picks

He did'int direct a lot of horror movies but my pick is Sam Raimi, I love all of the movies he does.

we cant leave out the evil dead master...:)

I would have to go with George Romero by a landslide. Night of the living dead sparked so many great horror movies, along with his others, like Dawn and Day of the dead, the crazies, and so on.

The Crazies is just too damn underrated. I love that movie.

Gonna have to agree with you on Romero. He's an excellent director. Creepshow and Night Of The Living Dead are my favorite's from him.

After Romero, I'd pick either Craven or Carpenter.

For me it would be John Carpenter and Peter Jackson. Gory stuff.

I must push Sam Raimi... I think every modern horror movie owes a debt to the Evil Dead series. Sam redifined everything we expect from horror films. Also lets not forget Peter Jackson's early works...

Lloyd Kaufman hands down. The only director with character... I mean the guy is an icon. And he does so much for the independent filmmaking community as well, as he appears in numerous indie horror flicks in cameos or whatnot. I bought the special edition "Nikos The Impaler" DVD for Lloyds appearance alone and found a fantastic director in Andreas Schnaas, whose work I've been collecting as well now. I one day hope to have lloyd in one of my projects.

And to make note on Blood Feast 2, I saw a screening of it last March and it was very entertaining. I heard theres plans on releasing a DVD soon so keep your eyes open... its worth a watch and if sales are high it might persuade ol' H.G. to make more like it...