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 don't watch my films. I've seen 'em enough after cutting them and putting the music on. I don't ever want to see them again.

I stopped directing in 2001 for - oh, damn - four or five years, until I did the TV series 'Masters Of Horror.' I had been working steadily as a director since 1970. That's a long time. I was burned out.

The strongest human emotion is fear. It's the essence of any good thriller that, for a little while, you believe in the boogeyman.

First of all, I was a wrestling fan when I was young. Even when I figured out what wrestling was, I was still a fan.

Child pornography is taboo. There are really no such things as snuff films. That's a legend. But movies are like pieces of dreams, and we don't need to go into those dreams. Those dreams are beyond. Child pornography - it's horrible. Human suffering is a horrible thing in real life.

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.