This topic reminds me of a thread that I started at the beginning of this year:
2007 - A Surprisingly Good Year for Horror Movies
You should check it out in regards to some fantastic modern horror films.
At the time, there was a similar thread asking the question whether or not Horror is dead and I thought (and still think) that 2007 brought a lot of innovation and iconic films to the horror genre.
While, of course we are always going to see remakes (Asian horror remakes are SO HOT right now), I feel as though there are a lot of modern horror filmmakers who bring a lot to the stage:
- Rob Zombie - While I wasn't a huge fan of his Halloween remake, I thought that House of a Thousand Corpses was an absolute brilliant tribute film that has made its way into the annuls of my favorite horror movies. Even Devil's Rejects is starting to grow on me. I think that he is brilliant and definitely has his own point of view.
- Takashi Miike - Even though Audition is his most recognized film in the horror community, I think that his other works such as Gozu and Visitor Q definitely explore horror, discomfort, voyeurism, and exploitation to brand new extremes. I have enjoyed everything I've seen by him including the aforementioned films, "The Box" (a short as part of Three... Extremes) and "Imprint" (a short as part of the Masters of Horror series). I think that he honestly tests his audience in ways that I've never been tested before and I look forward to watching his contributions to the horror genre grow.
- Guillermo del Toro - I honestly believe that The Devil's Backbone is possibly one of the best ghost movies of this decade. He is a true visionary, a brilliant filmmaker and has a keen eye for direction. He adds horror to all of his films, from Hellboy to Pan's Labyrinth. I think that he has a great eye for the gothic and the dark and I think that we can continue to expect great things from him.
And that's just to name three. To consider movies on an individual level,
28 Days Later reimagined the zombie genre while
Ju-On and its American counterpoint
The Grudge reimagines the ghost genre (I love Takashi Shimizu who had the pleasure of working on both of them). In terms of the slasher/home invasion genre, the French film
Inside pushed this genre to a new glorious level of suspense and violence that had me squeezing my boyfriend's hand to the point of cutting off the circulation.
While there are some movies that will make the genre suffer, there are some movies that will continue to revive this genre, even if they are few and far between.