Tommy Nohilly, who plays Tubby [ Valley of Violence], he came down to see the movie for the first time and I was like, "You've got to come just to see people react to your [big scene]." I knew that would go well, but it's satisfying to me when he's sitting there and it actually does.

It's this long monologue [in Valley of Violence] with Ethan Hawke talking about life and everything with a dog. That's not in movies. Hopefully when people think about the movie when they go home, they're like, "That's weird. He's maybe crazy. He's talking to a dog the whole time."

I don't really get that nervous about whether people like it. You can't do anything about that. It's more technical. You spend two years of your life obsessing, picturing sound details, and you work so hard to make a movie a certain way, that you get there, and you're like - is it loud enough or whatever, so that this experience with everybody in this room is the fairest chance I can get. And then if you like it, cool, and if you don't, whatever.

Movies aren't "slow burn," and aren't serious, aren't interesting, because everything from the movie to the promotional materials is telling you that you have to see it between Friday and Sunday, and then you can forget about it. It's not an important movie, it's just a lowest-common-denominator thrill-ride for three days when you've got nothing to do. That does a major disservice to the quality of the films

It's very important to me to find ways to relate the audience to the characters. This is the first thing to go in most mainstream horror films.

I've done it with all my films. I always keep an eye on the first time I show it because... I don't know. Neurosis.

If you make just a straight scary movie, people are just - you don't know what they're thinking.