We've become so postmodern as an audience and we're so familiar with the style of horror movies that they all kind of feel the same. I think if you can do something a little bit unexpected, then you as a filmmaker end up being one step ahead again. I think that's the key.

It's funny, because I don't think of my films as "slow-burn." I don't even know if I was familiar with the phrase until people started labeling me with it.

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.

The movie [ The Innkeepers] is in no way a comedy, but I would put some of the funny scenes up against some of the funnier comedies this year. I think it's genuinely really funny, but it's out of the gallows.

I mean PJ - James Ransone - he was a friend of mine, he probably heard all this stuff, but for the rest of the cast [Valley of Violence], we mostly just talked about their characters and things like that. That was the business at hand.

I do think, even though I've made these genre movies, there's what happens in the movie and then there's what the movie's about. And for me, what the movie's about is so much more interesting.

It's unreal. I mean, the dog backflips. It's amazing. Google Jumpy on YouTube - I had seen the dog first and I was like, "Y'all don't even know."