Page 46 of Grimdark Magazine Issue 48

Made it so there was no one left for them to hurt, and left them in the dark. Alone.

Laurel Hightower is a bourbon loving, pitbull snuggling native of Lexington, Kentucky. She is the Bram Stoker-nominated author of Whispers in the Dark, Crossroads, Below, Every Woman Knows This, Silent Key, Spirit Coven, The Day of the Door, and The Long Low Whistle, and has more than a dozen short fiction stories in print.

Rise of the New Wave of Directors: From the Internet to the Big Screen

By Aaron S. Jones

This has been a year of big hitters. Directors with star power have been releasing juggernauts at the cinema and the year isn’t over yet. Spielberg’s Disclosure Day gave us a new alien tale from the legendary director, Christopher Nolan is smashing records with his masterful The Odyssey, and we still have Dune: Part 3 from Denis Villueneve, the dark and grim Werwulf from Robert Eggers (Nosferatu, The Northman) and what looks to be a suitably bonkers but brilliant Digger starring Tom Cruise and directed by the brilliant Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Birdman, The Revenant). But 2026 has also given us a glimpse of the next generation of talented directors. Christopher Nolan has recently praised two such newcomers on the media trail for The Odyssey, Curry Barker and Kane Parsons. So why should fans of film be excited by this new generation of directors, and what are the similarities and differences between them and the directors that have come before?

First, let us look at these two young directors and what they have achieved in this year alone.

Curry Barker’s horror hit Obsession released in May this year and made over $400 million on a budget of only $750,000. It has been a huge hit and the viral attention it has received proves that it is accessible to younger audiences. The master himself, Steven Spielberg, also praised Barker and was impressed with what the young director was able to get out of what is a relatively small budget. At only twenty-six years old, Barker is tapped into this generation’s mindset and seemingly knows what his audience wants. He is now attached to A24’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre so it will be interesting to see what he can do with such high expectations.

Then we have Kane Parsons. The director was only twenty years old when Backrooms hit the cinema screens across the world. The film, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor (Doctor Strange, Children of Men, Serenity), had a budget of less than $10 million and made almost $400 million worldwide. These two weren’t just given the chance to direct these films on a whim. They had already built their audience at a young age, amassing huge amounts of followers that producers hoped would engage with their work on a larger scale. Barker created small-scale films and uploaded them onto YouTube. His $800 found footage film Milk & Serial went viral and when approached by a production company following this, he pitched Obsession, about a young man whose wish comes true when he forces the woman he likes to fall in love with him but she becomes obsessed. Parsons’ path was similar—creating content and putting it online where his work gained enough traction to be of note to the big hitters in the film world before they took a chance on him.

It’s a different kind of path to those before them. It isn’t about film school, learning on a set as an assistant, or similar roles to the Spielbergs of the world. Instead, these directors are using their knowledge and understanding of the internet and viral culture to ensure their talent is seen enough that they become undeniable. They are able to create a portfolio of work that is liked by thousands and sometimes millions of people around the world and this creates a ready-made audience that film companies love—the leg work has already been done. There are differences between this new wave and the older generation but there are also similarities. All directors mentioned had to fight to be seen and then earn the trust to make what they want to make.

Nolan made The Following for $6000 before directing Memento and then was offered the chance to make Batman Begins. He proved his talent on a small budget before being given the reins on a huge property and now he makes films he wants to make with a level of creative control that is most likely unparalleled in the industry. Spielberg worked on TV films to prove his worth whilst trying to fund his own films before being given the chance to make the movie that invented the modern-day blockbuster, Jaws. It is about proving talent and forcing the opportunities and then taking the chance when it is given. Parsons and Barker have been able to use the modern world to get their work out there and they have now taken those first steps forwards with the opportunities that have presented themselves. It will be interesting to see where their careers go from here.

It is interesting that many of the new directors who have used YouTube and the internet to make a name for themselves have also tended to create films in the horror genre. Horror has often been the genre where directors can experiment, especially ones with inexperience. It’s often a cheaper genre to work with and audiences can be more forgiving than most. Peter Jackson wouldn’t have directed The Lord of the Rings trilogy if he hadn’t first had some fun with Braindead. Horror can often be a place where directors hone their craft and test their boundaries so perhaps it is no surprise that Parsons and Barker have started out in this genre.

Recently, other horrors such as Talk to Me and Bring Her Back were directed by the Philippou Brothers who had built up an online presence before taking on directing duties for these big films. We are seeing these new voices bringing their creativity to the genre and working in a different way to those before them but still showcasing talent and an understanding of film and what audiences want. With names like Nolan and Spielberg encouraging such a movement, it is exciting for all film fans. In a recent interview with Empire, Nolan said, “You’ll see things in the first half an hour to forty-five minutes of any horror film that you’d never see in any other genre. Risks that are taken. Dangerous approaches to things, and all the rest. Admittedly, a lot of movies can’t sustain that to the end. But in the horror genre, that kind of innovation is not just respected—it’s really demanded.” This shows how important the experimentation in the genre can be. And if you have seen The Odyssey, I’m sure you are begging for Nolan to make a horror film!

There are other directors waiting to carve their path into the mainstream world of film. Sundance Film Festival showcased The Ugly Stepsister in 2025, a gruesome version of Cinderella that continues the style of Angela Carter with gore and violence grimdark fans can get on board with. Directed by Norwegian filmmaker, Emilie Blichfeldt, it uses fairy tales and body horror to draw the audience in. I am excited to see where her journey takes her following the film’s critical success. If you’re into low-budget body horror, New Zealand director Sasha Rainbow has you covered with Grafted. This early work shows promise with dashes of Takashi Miike (13 Assassins, Audition, Ichi The Killer) and shows a young director working in the horror genre to hone their skills and proves that there is talent all around the world waiting for a chance to shine.

There may be those in the darkness of the internet who might moan about the manner in which some of these new directors are able to get these opportunities compared to old-school routes into film making. I’d argue that talent is talent. The aim in any creative field is to produce something good, but that alone doesn’t get eyes on the product. You need a way into the industry and these young filmmakers are showing that they can use the modern tools of our age to force their way into a position where they can showcase their talent. The next step is to ensure quality under higher pressure. It may be some time before we see the next Spielberg, or Nolan, but the future is certainly bright, even if it may look a little different.

Aaron S. Jones is the author of Memories of Blood and Shadow and The Broken Gods trilogy. When he isn't writing his latest novel or article, he can be found leading a primary school in Kent, UK as a Headteacher, guiding pupils to the best books and stories to inspire the next generation of fantasy and sci-fi addicts. Want to ignite a conversation with him? Mention anything related to Lord of the Rings, films by Guillermo Del Toro, Japanese Cinema (anything Japan-related really!), heavy rock music (think Architects, Sleep Token, Bring me the Horizon) or Final Fantasy.

The Stories We Choose to Live By: A Conversation with Ken Liu & Caroline M. Yoachim

Interview by Beth Tabler

Ken Liu and Caroline M. Yoachim do not approach stories from quite the same direction, which may be part of why they work so well together.

Liu tends to focus on history, systems, myth, and how people make sense of their worlds. Yoachim often turns toward perception, structure, attention, and the emotions within an idea. Liu looks outward at the forces shaping a story, while Yoachim looks inward at how a mind experiences it.

Their creative partnership stands out because both perspectives remain distinct. When they work together, it feels like a real exchange, with each writer taking an idea further, shifting it, and returning it in a new form.

You can feel that shared rhythm in their conversation. They discuss emotion, worldbuilding, agency, hope, collaboration, and the assumptions writers bring to their work. Most of all, they show what becomes possible when two different minds are open to thinking together.

[GdM] Speculative fiction often reaches emotional truths through impossible premises. What can it reveal that realism cannot?

[KYL] Art is ultimately about emotional engagement. All the intellectual/conceptual theorizing in the world can’t save a work that is boring. Art doesn’t have to be clever, but it does have to make people feel. In that vein, I think the “speculative” modes for fiction are far more realistic as art because they don’t let the ideology of rationalism get in the way of the primacy of emotions.

[CMY] This is something I think about a lot, and I absolutely agree about the importance of emotional engagement. There's acomic by The Oatmeal that talks about the psychology of "the backfire effect." Basically, if people encounter something that challenges their core beliefs, their brain is likely to perceive the new information as a threat and refuse to accept it. In the context of writing, I sometimes think about it this way:

Writing a story is like trying to paint a picture in the reader's mind, not knowing what is already on the canvas.

One advantage of speculative fiction is that you can create distance for the reader. Fantasy worlds, alien civilizations, magic systems, far-future technologies, and other speculative elements don't have the same kind of baggage that real-world elements do. Which can reduce the amount of backfire effect, and lets the writer paint the story onto something closer to a blank canvas.

[KYL] I like that a lot. Distance cleanses reality.

[GdM] Every society runs on invisible assumptions. Which assumption do you find yourself questioning most often in your fiction?

[CMY] Invisible assumptions are such insidious things. When I first started writing (back a couple of decades ago), I found myself defaulting to characters who were white, and often protagonists who were male. At that point I'd read a lot of "classic" science fiction, and I'd internalized assumptions about who stories (particularly SF stories) were about, and who they were for. I recognized what I was doing fairly quickly and moved away from it, but it really highlighted for me the importance of pushing back on the things we default to.

[KYL] I find it helpful to question the assumption that we are right and who belongs to that we. It’s generative to look at a settled opinion and think about why someone might disagree and why that someone might not belong to the we who hold that opinion. In practice, I seem to play a lot with assumptions about what makes a good story. I like looking at stories from outside the contemporary popular tradition and think about why supposed flaws are actually strengths.