Leigh Janiak

Leigh Anne Janiak (born February 1, 1980) is an American director and screenwriter whose career has become synonymous with inventive, genre‑bending horror. Raised in Mentor, Ohio, she graduated from Mentor High School where she was deeply involved in theater before pursuing an undergraduate degree in comparative religion at New York University and later studying at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study and the University of Chicago, where she began a PhD in Modern Jewish literature but left before completing it. After moving to Los Angeles in 2005 she worked as a producer’s assistant at Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way and gained insight into the industry, eventually declining a network directing opportunity out of concern that shadowing a veteran would pigeonhole her as a female filmmaker. Janiak made her feature‑film debut with the slow‑burn horror Honeymoon, which premiered at SXSW in 2014 and earned praise for its sepia‑toned, desaturated aesthetic and body‑horror focus on identity and isolation. She co‑wrote the script with Phil Graziadei, shot the film on a limited budget in North Carolina, and the project was noted for subverting traditional gender roles within the genre. In 2017 she began work on the Fear Street trilogy, directing and rewriting three interconnected slasher films that were shot consecutively over a 106‑day period in Georgia and released on Netflix in July 2021; critics highlighted her skillful blend of 1990s, 1970s and period‑specific visual styles, as well as her nuanced treatment of queer protagonists, class division, and systemic oppression. Alongside feature work Janiak has directed episodes of television series such as Scream, Outcast and the teen drama Panic, and more recently she helmed two episodes of the true‑crime miniseries The Staircase, earning Emmy and TCA nominations. Her personal life includes a marriage to fellow filmmaker Ross Duffer in 2015, which ended with a filed divorce in 2024, and she continues to be an influential voice shaping modern horror storytelling.