I think the location is almost as important as casting the leads of the movie. The location on The Purge was crucial to that movie working.
I love being the underdog. It's one of the reason I like making horror movies, because a lot of people don't like them or are prejudiced against them. So it's one of the many reasons I like horror and it's also the reason I like low budget, because it automatically makes us the underdog.
I think good suspense and horror is really about creating situations that are relatable, and throwing a wrench in it and watching how people respond to it.
One thing I am very strict about is that I don't like spending a lot of money on movies because the more money you spend I think the worse that they get.
The scares are the easier part of scary movies. The hard part of scary movies is what leads up to the scares.
My easiest judgment for a script is 'do I want to keep reading it?'
But one of the rules I don't like to break is we still do - 95% of our movies are low budget. We're offered bigger, larger budget movies to produce a lot, and we don't do them. That's not to say there aren't exceptions, there are a few exceptions, but I try and stick by the rules that produce what I think is the highest quality, most innovative work and try and let the rules go that make us feel like we're retreading.
I think the mistake people make with horror movies and what makes them successful is a lot of horror movies get made by people who don't really like them, so they don't respect them. And when you like horror and have admiration for it, that community knows that what's important for a horror movie is important for every other kind of movie.
Currently there's no other way to get a movie into 3,000 theaters except with a studio. We have a first-look deal with Universal, and it's been fun to work with them. But studios are a part of our life. I think they'll always be, but they'll play a different role. The consumer and the creator are getting closer together.
Let's keep making inexpensive movies.
There are a lot of parallels between doing a sequel and doing low budget movies, which is they give creative parameters. As a creative person myself, I work better with parameters as opposed to anything goes.
When you raise the budget, you make creative compromises. The higher the budget goes, the more cuts in your movie happen. When people talk about how movies are watered down, that's a direct reflection of money and budget. The less money you spend; the more risks you can take. That doesn't mean it will be successful, but at least you can try different stuff. The higher your budget is, the less you can do that.
I found that a lot of people ridiculed contemporary art. I decided I wanted to be involved in art everybody could understand.
I love Hitchcock movies. I took a Hitchcock class in college, so I saw all his movies. I wrote papers on his movies.
For some reason, people value being scared less than they value laughing.
There's S-VOD, which is 3 1/2 months after the theatrical release. The windows are going to get closer and closer, and the sooner they collapse in my mind the better it'll be for everybody. It's coming, but change is hard. It will be more profitable for everybody, including exhibitors.
I love musicals. I love horror movies and I love art movies.
The only way I think about kids in production is practically, the younger the kids are the harder it is to shot the movie.
Horror is great storytelling with scary elements on top of it, but if you don't have great storytelling, you can have all the scares in the world, but the movie won't work.
You can't be a creative person and not fall in love with everything. Every movie I've made there's a complicated, twisted love affair with.
I think the most honest responses to the movies you get to watch are in houses and people's most private spaces, like the bedroom or in your own intimate space. I think that's where you feel safest, so when you're threatened in the place you feel safest, it makes for the scariest situations.
I really like to work with theater actors. Theater actors tend to do lots of independent movies, and those are the actors that I like.
I try to work with people who you're not used to seeing in scary movies. I think it makes for a more interesting mix, when you're watching the movie.
A lot of the reasons why people are annoyed at found footage movies is because people look at it like it's easy and that they could do it, too.
People love being scared, even for long periods of time.
