Posted October 14, 2024
Meet Temple’s alumni horror directors
Whether it’s Black Mirror, It or Yellowjackets, Owls are everywhere in the horror media production industry.
Photography By:
Joseph V. Labolito
Note: This story was updated on Oct. 28, 2024.
Philadelphia has close ties to some notably spooky films and TV shows, so it should come as no surprise that Temple has produced its share of horror film and TV directors. From directing reboots of horror classics to introducing their own bone-chilling creations, these alumni are making an impact behind the camera in the horror industry.
Monica Suriyage has quickly made a name for herself as the newest addition to Temple’s roster of alumni horror directors. She received praise for her debut short film, Black In Red Out, which led to her being featured in the documentary Horror Noire alongside renowned horror director Jordan Peele. Her latest horror short, La Ciguapa Siempre, premiered at the 2021 Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival and was included in the 2022 Philadelphia Latino Film Festival. The short film earned a 2023 Oscar award consideration after winning Best Narrative Short at the 2021 Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival.
Dan Trachtenberg burst onto the horror scene and made his directorial debut with 10 Cloverfield Lane in 2016. The film was a success with critics and at the box office, and Trachtenberg earned a Directors Guild of America Award nomination for Outstanding Directing–First-time Feature Film for his directorial work. He also directed the 2016 Black Mirror episode “Playtest,” about a man testing out a futuristic, augmented reality video game. He directed and co-wrote Prey, the fifth installment in the Predator series, which was released in July of 2022. Predator: Badlands, the follow-up to Prey, is releasing on Nov. 7, 2025. Trachtenberg co-wrote and directed the film.
Fans of the Conjuring horror film series will be familiar with Gary Dauberman’s work. The series currently includes eight films, beginning with 2013’s The Conjuring. Dauberman made his directorial debut with 2019’s Annabelle Comes Home, the seventh film in the series, and he served as a writer for Annabelle, Annabelle Creation and The Nun—the series’ second, fourth and fifth films, respectively. He also co-wrote the screenplay for It (2017), based on the iconic Stephen King novel of the same name, and was the sole screenwriter for the sequel, It Chapter Two (2019).
Ben Semanoff has worked in a variety of genres in the TV and film industry, transitioning from a camera operator to full-time director. He’s earned director credits for horror and thriller series like Ozark, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Candy, One Of Us Is Lying and Yellowjackets, which follows a high school girls soccer team that survived a plane crash in the Candian wilderness. He earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series for Ozark season three episode “Su Casa Es Mi Casa.”