I try to pull my inspirations from everyday life. If I came across a situation that is like, 'Oh, that's going to be scary, that's going to be frightening,' that's when I get inspired, and I put that into my films.
I remember the first horror movie I saw - I was five years old; it was a direct-to-video movie called 'Truth or Dare: a Critical Madness,' which is sort of badly fantastic or fantastically bad. And then 'Gremlins' was an early movie that I saw, and 'Nightmare on Elm Street 3.'
I just suddenly thought, people really get off on being scared. They pay money to see green foam come out of people's mouths.
Clowns drink to blot out the ravages of terrifying children for a living.
The things worth writing about, and the things worth reading about, are the things that feel almost beyond description at the start and are, because of that, frightening.
I think most of us can remember from our own childhood, just in the Disney cartoons, things that frightened us profoundly. For me it was Bambi, the scene when the forest was on fire. That was something I had nightmares about. I can't imagine being a little kid of eight and seeing Night Of The Living Dead with living corpses eating the flesh of living people.
When I was a kid, I used to sneak down the stairs when my folks were listening to 'The Witch's Tale' and 'Inner Sanctum' on the radio. I went to see 'Frankenstein' in the movie theater and got the pants scared off of me.
I'm a guy who likes to watch something cool, creepy and suspenseful and there is no show to watch as an adult that would scare me at for even four seconds.
I love to be scared. Not, 'Hey, I think I smell smoke...' scared, but creepy, paranoid, what's-that-out-there-in-the-dark, ghost story scared. It's no surprise that I was the girl who got invited to the slumber parties because I could be counted on to tell a tale to scare the bejesus out of you.
I know what I miss as a cinemagoer is that balance of films that actually scare me, they're so few and far between. I loved ghost stories, I love horror stories, I love all of that stuff, but I really yearn for something to actually frighten me.
I don't go to scary movies. I don't like the experience of being scared. I think it's very weird that some people do. Obviously, humans are the only animals that do that. You don't see a wolf walk to the end of a cliff and look over the edge to freak himself out.
Children like being a little scared, but they don't want to be disturbed.
Growing up as a kid in Detroit, way back, there was a movie station that would show old kinescope reproductions of old movies, and I remember seeing Bela Lugosi for the first time and being duly frightened out of my wits.
The first horror is there's horror. The second is you accommodate it.
'Poltergeist' terrifies me! When the little girl Carol Anne is talking to the TV, I get shivers every time.
I've always dreamed of having a year-round haunted house.
Mother didn't understand that children aren't frightened by stories; that their lives are full of far more frightening things than those contained in fairy tales.
I hated being scared when I was little. Aliens really scared me.
I love horror movies like 'The Exorcist' and 'The Shining,' which freaked me out but in a good way. And I love gore.
Look, then, into thine heart, and write! Yes, into Life's deep stream! All forms of sorrow and delight, All solemn Voices of the Night, That can soothe thee, or affright, - Be these henceforth thy theme. (excerpt from "Voices of the Night")
Wild men, screaming through the keyholes.
I like horror films and romance films. Films where you're going in being like, 'I'm coming here to be scared or to fall in love.' You have a goal.
I like old school horror movies like Exorcist. I always loved scaring myself and I don't know at all what that's about.
