A lot of life is dealing with your curse, dealing with the cards you were given that aren't so nice. Does it make you into a monster, or can you temper it in some way, or accept it and go in some other direction?

People who are kind of at the cutting edge of life and survival, and being near the nitty-gritty, like my films, and I like that.

I realized that I really, almost by accident, had fallen into a labyrinthine, very powerful paradigm for dealing with these things through genre films. And once I realized that and realized the power of it, and the fact that because horror films aren't, in general, studio products - studios back them sometimes, but they don't try to meddle too much, because they kind of don't want to sully their skirts - you have a lot of freedom.

I think the important thing about staying creative and staying sharp and original is not to look back too much.

There's more emphasis on art and culture in Europe than there is in the United States and I think that a lot of American directors and writers are just trying to copy other American horror films, they don't pick up much in the way that European filmmakers do.

I think if anybody had a roll of dice with a lot of money at stake, they would not want Wes Craven and a romantic comedy.

I came to terms with living mostly in a world of horror pictures or genre pictures.