I wasn’t allowed to see movies when I was a child. It was against the religion I was raised in, Fundamentalist Baptist. I didn’t go into a commercial movie house until I was a senior...

The first monster you have to scare the audience with is yourself.

If we shot them from the front, we had to be peering over the heads of the passengers in front of them.

It was the beginning of the end of my affiliation to the church,

A lot of life is dealing with your curse, dealing with the cards you were given that aren’t so nice. Does it make you into a monster, or can you temper it in some way,...

After that, everybody-assumed I must be a terrifying person who lived in a cave. We both tried to make other kinds of films, but we couldn’t get any money. They were offering us money to...

I don’t know where the limits of her range are. I certainly didn’t find them.

[By trapping her on the plane with innocent people in peril, the villain] puts her in a very vulnerable position, … There are decent human beings all around her, but she can’t really tell them...

All of us have our individual curses, something that we are uncomfortable with and something that we have to deal with, like me making horror films, perhaps.

I said, ‘I don’t know how to write a scary movie,’ and he told me, ‘Just pull all the skeletons out of your closet,’ … Over the weekend, I wrote The Last House on the...

She’s a legend in her own time.

Alex made the picture fresh, which was important. None of us wanted just to shoot the original script again. Alex took it and made it his own.

I learned to take the first job that you have in the business that you want to get into. It doesn’t matter what that job is, you get your foot in the door.

I just feel it takes just one picture where it becomes common knowledge that Craven can do other things,

Call it ”12.

I’ve seen the final cut and it’s a lot of fun, … It actually turned out pretty well and it ended up with everybody thinking, ‘By God, John really knows what he’s doing.’ He pulled...

She has a quality that is missing in a lot of American girls now …

But in the original script someone who may or may not be an assassination target was identified only as a businessman,

It’s kind of experiment time, … We’ll see if people get behind us, and if the picture’s any good. But it has to be that people will experiment with me. If not, fine, I’ll just...

Those are the only two films I’ve made in which I have significant ownership. So you can make a deal where a studio releases your film but doesn’t have final cut. You have a lot...

It’s like a chamber piece,

a collection of masks, depicting historical figures in life and what I like to call the eternal repose.

There is an emotionality and vulnerability. She knows what is of value and what is not. And for another thing, she’s a legend in her own time. I think everyone in Hollywood takes her very...

It was a very concise, taut script, … I simply chose not to have a standard car chase or any of that nonsense. I felt it was all about what’s going on between these two...

So then it’s a matter of, do you want to make movies? Yeah. Then you’re going to make scary movies. So it was like, how do I make the best scary movies I can, movies...

It’s obviously not buckets of blood; it’s a psychological thriller, … For me, it was kind of an announcement that I can step out of the horror context and hold my own with the best...

Rachel was one of the early names that came up. As soon as we started thinking about her, we really got excited. She has a quality that is missing in a lot of American girls...

I have a lot of fans who are people of color. I think, if nothing else, I kind of understand that sense of being on the outside looking in, culturally.

But I made him the Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security because that added an element of political espionage.

The audience that would see that movie, by and large, doesn’t go to see horror films, … It was a great pleasure to make, and to see Meryl (Streep) nominated (for a best actress Oscar)...

Without being on the set, I was very closely involved.

Alex was familiar with the location. It also meant we could spend another $2 million without taxes and union fees. As much as you don’t like taking films out of the U.S., we had to...

For me with all this stuff, both the horror films and thrillers like this, the most interesting thing is what goes on inside people’s heads, … The rest is just the setting. She is sort...

Everyone from Tom Cruise to Jude Law was talked about for this role – and not everyone was available, and some we couldn’t afford.

We have a romantic comedy, a road picture and a period piece that I’ve developed over the years, … Now we’re just putting them out there for consideration (by investors).

The monsters are a little silly because they had no money, so obviously they can’t show them for very long, … But the film itself is a romp; a very bloody, goofy, scary one.

That day changed my life,

That’s how this (movie) felt to me, a real director- actors’ piece, with two people just sitting in airplane seats. It’s gripping.

It’s a thriller, it’s definitely not a horror film, but it has enough of the elements that also work in horror films like suspense.

If you think it, the camera will see it.

You can’t ignore the 800-pound gorilla: There’s no shortage of post-9/11 jitters. I don’t think anybody likes sitting down next to a stranger for five hours.

This film, Red Eye, has new elements,

Everybody’s making horror films and, to me, not especially well. I don’t know if it’s (due to) the corporations taking over studios or what it is. But it really calls for some young filmmakers to...