One of the pleasures of the original 'Grimm's Fairy Tales' is how incredibly ghastly they are. The ugly sisters have their eyes pecked out by crows.
Europe is so much the home of Horror, with its myths of vampires, werewolves, witchcraft and the undead, yet it's like those myths were exported to Hollywood, leaving Europe the room to develop a new tradition as a way of processing its traumas, particularly the two world wars.
The question I ask myself is: have I really just become a squeamish middle-aged man, or has something happened to the horror genre that shows a growing appetite for watching torture, or at least a desire to explore it on film? And if so, why would that be? I can't pretend I know. I just know I don't like it.
My dad was quite a forbidding figure. I realise now that that was mainly because he worked so hard. He wasn't unkind, but he was a presence.
'Misfits' is one of my favorite shows; I think it's a fantastic show.
The reason I wanted to do 'The First Men in the Moon' was that there is something so challenging in the combination of space travel and the Edwardian period.
