Penn Jillette Quotes

We watch a romantic comedy because we want to cry, say, or an action movie so we can participate in heroics. Horror's different. It can hit you with a moment of revulsion so hard you might want to erase the last five minutes of your life, please.

What you don't see is scarier than what you do. Categorization is always kind of arbitrary, but people have called 'Preservation' a 'psychological thriller.' To me, psychological thriller basically means 'a horror movie without the blood.'

I love horror, I love scary movies, I love thrillers. If things creep you out and spook you? I love it.

The office of drama is to exercise, possibly to exhaust, human emotions. The purpose of comedy is to tickle those emotions into an expression of light relief; of tragedy, to wound them and bring the relief of tears. Disgust and terror are the other points of the compass.

People want to be disturbed when they go see a horror movie.

I've been a fan since I was a kid of that sort of bump-in-the-night stuff. I don't tend to go in too much for the slash-and-burn-'em or the walker kills on 'The Walking Dead.' That stuff's not necessarily the stuff that frightens me or gets me going. It's more the terror of waiting, the thriller aspects, that I find compelling.

I love going to horror movies - especially when they are fun. I think that they get you in touch with sort of these primal instincts that we all have in the relative safety of the theater.

Certainly with a book, people are going to be able to read it and give themselves permission to have that delicious feeling of being terrified because they're in a safe place while they're reading. That's what you can rely on as a writer, that people can let themselves be really frightened because they're really all right.

I think people like to be thrilled and excited. And a scary movie is a safe way to do that because you're not actually doing it. It's entertainment. You know that you're in the confines of this two-hour space of safety in the movie house.

I'm a big horror fan, but I don't enjoy a lot of gore and watching somebody cut their leg off for five hours. I like the older movies where it draws you into the suspense, that sort of shock and awe.

Horror movies don't exist unless you go and see them, and people always will.

It's very difficult to get an audience to be terrified of what's going on. Think about it: You're in a room with so many other people, so for them to be terrified and to care about what's going on on-screen takes a lot of work.

I think when people are scared, they like to see movies where the scares are not real.

You go to see movies to feel something, and being terrified - there's something so fun about that.

That's what happens in a good horror movie: there are always metaphors of greater subjects like humanity and empathy and compassion. It's not about the action and scary moments: You really care about these characters because they're mirrors of our own reflections.

Some people ask why people would go into a dark room to be scared. I say they are already scared, and they need to have that fear manipulated and massaged. I think of horror movies as the disturbed dreams of a society.

The essence of comedy, drama, and horror is surprise. I have an uncanny ability to surprise people because they look at my face, and they don't know where I'm going.

I really feel like the horror genre is capable of so much. Especially as an in-theater experience, something you watch with other people. It can do so much.

The horror genre is real cathartic. It allows us to bring out the things that scare us and get it out and have an emotional release.

We all are scared of bad things… So when you are watching a film, you see your fears on the screen.

I really liked the script of 'Alone.' I thought there were a lot unexpected things in the film, which I would want to watch as a viewer. I did not think like I was doing a horror film; I did not think in terms of genre. I decided on the basis of the script.

The strongest human emotion is fear. It's the essence of any good thriller that, for a little while, you believe in the boogeyman.

One of the most crucial aspects of a haunted house movie is the fear and disbelief of the characters, because they don't know what's happening to them.

I've always felt that there's a lot of similarity between doing a comedy and doing a scary movie because jokes and scares are all about timing. If you give the punch line too early or too late, the joke falls flat. And it's the same with a scare.

I don't think I'm angry. I'm horrified - powered by horror.