Dario Argento
If I'm being honest Dario Argento was the very first name that leapt to mind when I first considered this as a possible topic, not just because he is such a prime example of the phenomenon but also because his recent attempts to push back into mainstream awareness have failed so badly.

At his peak Argento was arguably the most important horror film maker in the world and remains one of the most influential. Incredibly prolific as a writer in his early career Argento became a household name as a director thanks to enduring classics such as Suspiria, Tenebre and Profondo Rosso while - as a producer - he was hugely important in George Romero's rise to international prominence. And then it all went wrong with a string of substandard releases whittling away all but the core fans with even those having a progressively harder time getting excited about each subsequent release.

What went wrong? The general collapse of the Italian film industry certainly couldn't have helped but Argento seems to have been, as much as anything, a victim to his own ego and a blind faith in his own genius. Argento's general view of the world came into painfully clear view for those of us here in Toronto when he publicly accused the Toronto International Film Festival of racism for placing Mother Of Tears in the Midnight Madness program rather than in the main competition, completely disregarding the fact that acceptance in the a-list festival had just breathed new life into his career and that Toronto does not have a competitive program of any sort and never has. These days he's better known as the father of Asia than as the creator of his own work, which is a sad, sad situation.

Why He'll Always Matter: Suspiria.

John Carpenter
Everything you need to know about John Carpenter can be summed up this way. One ten year stretch of Carpenter's career produced Assault On Precinct 13, Halloween, The Fog, Escape From New York, The Thing, Christine, Starman and Big Trouble In Little China - an incredible run of iconic and diverse films. Now compare that list to his five most recent theatrical releases: Ghosts of Mars, Vampires, Escape From LA, Village of the Damned and In The Mouth Of Madness.

Now, I realize that Mouth has a good number of fans out there and I myself am one of the relative few that actually really enjoys Escape From LA - which I happily paid to see in the theater - but nobody could ever suggest that latter-day Carpenter holds a candle to his peak period.

There are two basic positions on what happened with Carpenter. One theory is that he simply got bored and became content to go through the motions and coast on his own name. The other - and the one I tend to lean towards - is that Carpenter was very much a product of his time and has failed to keep up with his changing audience and the changing culture around him. Other than a couple Masters of Horror episodes Carpenter has been on an extended hiatus for years now and with three new projects announced we can only hope that the rest has done him good.

Why He'll Always Matter: Depending on your mood, Halloween, The Thing, Escape From New York and Big Trouble In Little China are all bona fide classics.

John McTiernan
If you, like me, are a child of the seventies who hit adolesence in the mid-1980s then John McTiernan's inclusion in this list should require no explanation. At a time when action directors were disposable and interchangable, McTiernan was - for a three film stretch - just short of a god, the only true action film auteur of his time.

First came Predator, the beefiest of all the 1980s beefcake action films, and also one of the most enduring. Then came Die Hard, the film that snapped the world out of the beefcake action mode by introducing a believably realistic anti-hero, made a HUGE star of Bruce Willis and remains an enduring holiday classic. And then came The Hunt For Red October, the film that proved McTiernan was a real, live grown up director capable of working with serious actors to create a taught thriller that parents could enjoy just as much as their pimply-faced kids.

Hunt came in 1990 and since that time McTiernan has produced one other trio of solidly b-fare - the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair is his best work in that period - along with a fistful of Razzie-nominated pictures. Legal troubles - he did time recently in an illegal wiretap case - have taken a bite out of McTiernan's career but mostly he just seems to have lost the taste, instincts and confidence that made his prime work so iconic.

Why He'll Always Matter: Die Hard. It'll never get old.

Tsui Hark
An incredibly prolific producer - fifty seven credits listed in the IMDB - and director - forty five of those - not to mention writer (37), actor (22) and editor (4), Tsui Hark is arguably the most important figure in the 1980s Golden Era, a seemingly omnipresent force, his name on the credits a virtual guarantee of quality. For many of those years, Tsui made a potent pairing with John Woo with the two collaborating on a number of pictures.

Whether on his own or working collaboratively Tsui was a major force pushing Hong Kong cinema forward to new levels of action and technical acheivement, the man a major player in the post-Shaw era when the industry was struggling to redefine itself, find new stars and a new place in the international market place. Tsui did all of that and more, his films - particularly titles like The Blade and the Once Upon A Time In China films - making a huge impact around the globe.

And then came the move to Hollywood.

With the handover of Hong Kong back to Chinese control looming, Tsui - like many of Hong Kong's key players - tried to make the transition away from Hong Kong and into Hollywood and the results were - to put it kindly - less than satisfactory. Double Team and Knock Off failed both critically and commercially and whiel Tsui's return to Hong Kong cinema - Time and Tide - was somethng of a return to form it was clear that the bloom had come off this particular rose.

Output since has been spotty, ranging from middling fare such as Seven Swords to critical failures (Missing, Black Mask 2) and one very messy anthology contribution - his segment of three part puzzle film Triangle was subjected to significant recutting after being slammed in Cannes - but Tsui is still by far the most prolific of the directors of this list, the most willing to experiment and adapt and therefore also the most likely to rebound.

Why He'll Always Matter: Once Upon A Time In China

Wim Wenders
While discussing this list with a friend last night - one of the most prominent film critics in print here in Toronto - I mentioned that I was considering giving a spot to Germany's Wim Wenders and the reaction was immediate. In his opinion you could make the argument that no currently active film maker has seen their skills erode as badly and as quickly as Wenders.

Once the darling of the international art house thanks to the one-two punch of Paris, Texas and Wings Of Desire it has been a long slide into obscurity for Wenders. His last film to achieve significant positive notice being 1999's music doc Buence Vista Social Club, a film that seemed ready to push Wenders to new levels of commercial acceptance until he made the critical mistake of following it with the critically despised Million Dollar Hotel, a film penned by U2's Bono that came out so badly that even its star - Mel Gibson - openly took shots at it for being boring while on the press tour.

Million Dollar Hotel failed so badly that it essentially marked the end of any commercial aspirations Wenders may have had - he has never since had a film released on any sort of wide scale despite remaining busy on a number of projects ever since. And, honestly, that wouldn't really have bothered fans if the end of commercially-minded Wenders had meant a return to the form that produced his greatest works but that hasn't happened either. His presence on the festival circuit has declined with every successive release, as has critical response and excitement.

Why He'll Always Matter: Wings Of Desire