In a traditional Western there's always the bravado, and it's almost like they're winking that they know they're in a Western - "Look how good I can spin my gun." In real life, when the bad guy kills somebody, or they're bad guy friend gets killed, they're upset, too, which is not typical in Westerns.

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

I don't go to see movies to see plots. I'm not interested in puzzles like an Agatha Christie story.

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 is a very classic Western [Valley of Violence], and if you like Westerns, you'll like this movie, but there's a tone to it that's all its own that I think is unique and memorable.

I think you make the movie in your head that you have to make, and you have to get it out of you. You have all these pretentious reasons why you want to do it, and you set out to accomplish them. And you think "This is important for what I'm trying to accomplish for the story," and I think those reasons will come through to an audience, and they will find it. That's the best you can do.

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.