I would much rather see somebody bring something new to a genre than produce something that seems safe.

If film making is magic, there's a difference between close up magic and David Copperfield. If you're doing close up magic, which independent filmmakers do, it is a very delicate craft, interpersonal relationship, and being able to enrapture a very small audience.

For horror to work, you have to be afraid. You have to keep the monster in a black and white light.

I think we live our lives seeking the shortest route, the closest parking space - everything quick, cheap, fast. And it's not better. Two-thirds of the satisfaction of getting something is the process of getting it.

I think that in the past, in the '50s and '60s, after the existentialists and beatniks and hippie movements, the big deal was, Don't sell out. We live in a society that by virtue of the speed we communicate and sell, everything sells. The danger is buying in; that your concern becomes success, rather than fulfillment. They're two different beasts, and my feeling is that you should seek fulfillment. You should not measure your worth in how much you have or how popular you are, but how happy you are with what you do.

I always thought what if you took a myth of childhood like the tooth fairy and made it a central scary thing. We did it on Hellboy and we did it on 'Don't be afraid of the dark'.

For eight years I did effects for other movies until I got my movie made