Sometimes I look at it [Valley of Violence] and go, "How did we do that?" But it's a credit to Ethan [Hawke], he had done White Fang, so Ethan is like, "Oh God, that's right."

It's not the plot [of Valley of Violence] - the plot is the reason to get all these things to happen, all these character moments to happen. It was always meant to have these two perspectives.

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.

I'm doing an over-the-shoulder shot on a dog. I'm putting the camera behind the dog's shoulder. This is craziness. You just accept it in the movie [Valley of Violence], but when you make the movie, it's the weirdest thing. There's dog coverage, like it's a person.

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.

We can't make a giant sprawling movie. We're going to make a small movie. And what we got is what I could get, performance-wise.

It definitely could have been a horror story [Valley of Violence], oh my God, if the dog was impossible. So could the horses.