Creative writing and shooting are muscles that atrophy. But when you work them, you become a self-generator who can branch out.

Everyone is so terrified of being labeled a racist.

I think in a post-9/11 world, with the images coming back from Iraq, everybody knows more and more people who are going over there... the images on the YouTube phenomenon where the violence is so immediate. Direct people need something stronger to respond to. I think that there's definitely a wave of directors - who are labelled the splat pack - who really, really care about making great scary movies.

I saw Alien when I was 8 years old. To me, it was like a combination of Jaws and Star Wars and that's the movie that made me want to be a director.

I'd love to see us get to a point where you can make a movie and not worry about the limits of the violence. Then I think they'd get so violent that people would get bored of it.

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

Imagine trying to relive your worst break-up, your worst fight, the most painful death of a loved one, and just really relive it step by step, and bring it up and apply it to the scene you're in.