Nelson McCormick

Director Nelson McCormick has established a solid career helming television dramas, but in the 2000s, he expanded into film with a couple of scary movies. In 1993, McCormick stepped onto the television stage as a director on the hit cop drama "NYPD Blue." After a string of TV movies, he helmed several episodes of Pamela Anderson's action-packed crime comedy series, "V.I.P.," later landing work on more reputable fare, including the J.J. Abrams spy drama, "Alias," and the Aaron Sorkin White House drama, "The West Wing." By the mid-2000s, McCormick was dabbling in producing: on "Over There," an Iraq War drama series, and on the hour-long crime drama "The Evidence." Both proved to be short-lived, but near decade's end, McCormick had moved onto bigger things. In 2008, he made his feature film directorial debut with "Prom Night," a re-imagining of the 1980 horror movie of the same name. Though critics panned the film, it did well at the box office and was embraced by horror fans. The next year, McCormick returned to the film stage with another horror remake, "The Stepfather," based on the 1987 horror feature inspired by the murders of real-life killer John List. Again, critics were cold to McCormick's movie, but fans flocked, making the film a financial success. McCormick worked on the crime dramas "Southland," "The Closer," and "Rizzoli & Isles" in the late 00s.