Great horror films don't win Academy Awards.
I was anathema in polite society after I made 'Last House.' People literally would grab their children and run from the room.
If I'm going to be a caged bird, I'll sing the best song I can.
I think the experience of going to a theater and seeing a movie with a lot of people is still part of the transformational power of the film, and it's equivalent to the old shaman telling a story by the campfire to a bunch of people.
There was a period around Columbine when horror films were being kind of assailed by the government. The studios got very afraid that they were going to be sued, and studios at about that time were all being taken over by corporations.
A friend, Sean Cunningham, who went on to do 'Friday the 13th,' was given a small budget to produce a scary movie, and he told me to write something. I'd never seen a horror film in my life; I'd fallen in love with Fellini.
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.
I don't know, I always had an active dream life, and there's something so profound and wonderful about a movie. It's so alive. It's so shared. The thing of sitting in an audience and going into a dream-like state with several hundred other people that are sharing exactly what you're feeling is a profound event.
That's what's great about the horror genre is that you're getting a load of people together in the cinema at the same place and the same time, having them all experience extreme fear and come out alive at the end. It's an uplifting experience, and there's a sense of elation.
I couldn't find an actor to play Freddy Krueger with the sense of ferocity I was seeking. Everyone was too quiet, too compassionate towards children. Then Robert Englund auditioned.
I had been a college teacher. I had taught Greek mythology.
Hawks is great, 'The Treasure of Sierra Madre,' 'The Big Sleep'... He could do the Salt-of-the-Earth very well. He was a very smooth director; a very good film architect in terms of his storytelling.
It's great to be thought of as the master of anything. Even idiocy. Master of idiocy, Wes Craven. But if it's master of horror or fear or whatever, that's great.
'To Kill a Mockingbird' was so important because it was such adult film-making - to see something that dealt with such an important issue and had such an enlightened outlook on the world.
I've experienced a great deal of, you know, ostracism from the making of films.
All I'm doing is rearranging the curtains in the insane asylum.
I've done a few interviews where I realized that 9/11 was the ultimate home invasion, not to be glib about it. You know, where the place that you think is safe and the people that you think are safe and far from evil are suddenly just slaughtered by it, and you have no control over it.
I had a musician friend once tell me that it's not in the orchestra that you get the true test of the musicians but in the little trios and quintets where you really get to see if they've got the stuff. And the composer.
