Scott Derrickson has never been afraid of the dark.
The filmmaker behind The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sinister and The Black Phone has built a career exploring the places most people avoid—spiritual, psychological and otherwise. This fall, he returned to theaters with Black Phone 2, the sequel to his 2021 sleeper hit that became one of the decade’s most acclaimed horror films.
Re-teaming with co-writer C. Robert Cargill and star Ethan Hawke, Derrickson expands the story’s supernatural universe while continuing his career-long fascination with the thin line between evil and redemption. For him, darkness isn’t something to be feared or ignored. It’s something to be understood.
For Derrickson—a graduate of Biola University and an outspoken Christian—that tension isn’t just cinematic. It’s theological.
“I love the horror genre for how cinematic it is,” he told RELEVANT. “I gravitated, I think, initially, toward the horror genre because, of all the genres, I think it is the genre that is most friendly to the subject matter of faith and belief in religion. The more frightening and sort of dark and oppressive a movie is, the more free you are to explore the supernatural and explore faith. The two just somehow go hand in hand really nicely. I became very interested in it for that reason, and The Screwtape Letters was the beacon.”
After early work like Hellraiser: Inferno, Derrickson’s breakout came with 2005’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose, a courtroom drama that treated demonic possession and belief with rare seriousness. The film became both a box office success and a cultural conversation starter, earning critical praise for weaving theology and terror in equal measure.
His follow-ups—Sinister and Deliver Us From Evil—established him as one of Hollywood’s sharpest storytellers of supernatural dread, known for his atmospheric visuals and moral weight. In 2016, his blockbuster Doctor Strange pushed him into the mainstream, introducing Marvel fans to a world of mysticism and spiritual conflict that felt distinctly Derricksonian.
But after the film’s success, Derrickson did something unexpected: he stepped away from the Doctor Strange sequel. The move, he later said, was about creative freedom and calling. He wanted to tell stories that were personal again—films that could wrestle honestly with fear, faith and the unseen world. That creative reset led directly to The Black Phone, a modestly budgeted thriller that grossed more than $160 million worldwide and won best horror film at the Saturn Awards.
He’s never shied away from discussing how his faith informs his work.
“The older I get, the more convinced I am that you can’t understand the human experience without understanding the reality of evil,” he told Den of Geek. “And if you believe evil is real, you have to believe that redemption is possible. Otherwise, none of it makes sense.”
That conviction runs through nearly every frame of his films. His characters—priests, skeptics, victims and villains alike—are haunted not just by monsters but by meaning. Derrickson’s horror isn’t about punishing people for sin or glorifying darkness. It’s about forcing both his characters and his audience to reckon with moral and spiritual reality.
Derrickson has often cited C.S. Lewis and Flannery O’Connor as guiding influences. Speaking to Christianity Today, he explained O’Connor’s approach to shocking imagery.
“She said to the deaf you have to shout and to the blind you have to draw large and startling pictures,” he said. “That phrase itself is as good of an apologetic for horror as you’re ever going to speak.”
His work reflects that conviction—using terror not as spectacle but as illumination.
“To be honest with you, I genuinely don’t understand why everyone isn’t obsessed with discovering and unmooring a deeper understanding of [evil],” he said. “If we’re not compelled to gain a deeper understanding of good and evil, how can we make the world a better place?”
Even in public conversations, Derrickson frames horror as a theological exercise. While speaking at Biola’s chapel in 2011, he told students, “Christ, in his moment on the cross where he endured the ultimate horror, gives us God’s mindset. He is not detached from suffering.”
And though his subject matter is dark, Derrickson’s outlook isn’t.
“I don’t make horror films because I’m a dark person,” he said. “I make them because I believe in hope. Horror allows us to confront evil, but only so we can look beyond it. The best horror ends with light.”
In recent years, Derrickson has expanded his creative reach through his production company Crooked Highway, which he founded with Cargill in 2020. The company has since partnered with Blumhouse and other studios to develop original projects that combine suspense and soul. It’s a fitting banner for a filmmaker who’s spent his career walking the crooked line between faith and fear.
“I think the great gift of horror,” Derrickson said, “is that it’s one of the few genres that lets you explore moral truth in a raw, visceral way. You can’t fake it. When people are afraid, they’re honest. And that’s where you can actually talk about good and evil in a way that feels real.”
For Derrickson, that’s what makes horror sacred. It’s not about sensationalism. It’s about honesty. His films don’t offer tidy endings or simple answers—but they always leave room for light to break through.
What has helped make Derrickson so influential is that he seems to understand—and illuminate—that what makes darkness so compelling isn’t the fear it provokes but the light it reveals when faced head on.
And after decades of confronting the darkness on screen, Derrickson’s vision feels more relevant than ever. In an age defined by cynicism and disbelief, he reminds audiences that faith can stand firm even in the shadows—and sometimes, that’s exactly where it shines brightest.