I like to address the fears of my culture. I believe it`s good to face the enemy, for the enemy is fear.

Something like Nightmare On Elm Street, to me, was kind of an examination of levels of consciousness and the pain of facing the truth, and how easy it is to fall asleep, or want to fall asleep.

Last House offended a lot of people. The results in the theaters, even in Boston, reminded me a bit of things from when I was studying theater of the absurd, and the rise and the appearance of Ionesco plays, and things like that. Thinking, "My God, people actually are getting into fistfights. People are having heart attacks. People are actually trying to get into the projection booth to destroy the print."

I believe the cinema is one of our principal forms of art. It is an incredibly powerful way to tell uplifitng stories that can move people to cry with joy and inspire them to reach for the stars.

I make something I can look at and say, "That's a good piece of work, and there's some terrific directing and acting in it, and you should be proud of it."

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.

All of us have our individual curses, something that we are uncomfortable with and something that we have to deal with, like me making horror films, perhaps.