I always loved horror as a kid. On the one hand, I really love monsters, because in a way I feel like I related to their outsider status and like the sentimental romantic plight of the monster. More importantly though I feel like people are completely motivated by fear, especially with our political system here in America which is just degenerating into more and more fear mongering and it gets in the way of real discourse, plus it's just something I'm obsessive about and have always been a little bit of a paranoid guy.

I may love individual people, but I am contemptuous of the arrogance , and in a way, it's both ruined me and fuels me. It's ruined me because nobody cares about these issues, and then it's the source of most of my storytelling now, because I am so preoccupied with it. It fuels me, because this is my outrage. I do believe in that great tradition of literature and storytelling. You know, the downfall and the folly of it all.

When so much is left to the listener's imagination, it is bound to be more scary. But our stories are not just to frighten; they are engaged with the things that are really scary like loneliness and madness.

I'm an old school guy and love the guys in the monster suits and JAWS; even though everyone makes fun of the shark I think it's awesome. You know it's fake, but with my generation that was part of the charm.

I feel very strongly that a film isn't just a story, but the WAY that a story is told. It's why I am such a great fan of Hitchcock because it really is all in the filmmaking.

Sound and sound design has always been very important to my approach to film, because it is a more subversive and allusive aspect of the medium.

The worst thing that could happen to a filmmaker is growing up wanting to be a filmmaker.