It [horror genre] never dies. It just keeps getting re­invented and it always will. Horror is a universal language; we're all afraid. We're born afraid, we're all afraid of things: death, disfigurement, loss of a loved one. Everything that I'm afraid of, you're afraid of and vice versa. So everybody feels fear and suspense.

I enjoyed 'The Avengers.' I couldn't do that kind of movie though. Superheroes aren't my deal.

A lot of it [success] is luck. That's a huge part of it that no one wants to talk about. You just got to be in the right place at the right time.

Film buffs who don't live in Hollywood have a fantasy about what it's like to be a director. Movies and the people who make movies have such glamour associated with them. But the truth is, it's not like that. It's very different. It's hard work.

Horror stories have always worked on film. It's where they work. That's where vampires and ghosts and UFOs are real. They're not particularly real in life, but they're real on the screen. It's the communal aspect of movie-watching.

I had a talent for scoring films; I just developed it.

From a will: And to my communist nephew Oswald, I leave the sum of 10,000 pounds - to be shared equally with his fellow Britishers.