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In horror, character development is often pushed aside in favor of the shock value. The best genre movies to me are movies like The Shining. You had a connection to the characters in that film.

I like critics with strong opinions.

Horror movies can be very interesting because they can deal with intangible subjects that are full of emotion.

The whole idea of genre and categorising films is a critic's construct. For me, I just try and make stories and see where they go, but there's nothing wrong with horror; there's nothing wrong with romantic comedies.

I don't read critics, and I don't care what they say. You can't let them steal your soul. You do what the director and production is committed to doing. I just think it's terrible that critics have the power to keep people away from a good production.

So I haven't thought about the critics for a long time.

Horror fans are a particular breed. They analyze films with such detail and expertise that I am reminded of the Canadian literary critic Northrup Frye, who approached literature with similar archetypal analysis.

Everybody's making horror films and, to me, not especially well.

Have you ever noticed how most critics disagree with the public? That should tell you a lot about critics.

For me, it's very easy to write a horror movie that's just a succession of scary sequences, but it's hard to find horror movies that have a genuine theme to them that are really exploring some aspect of our psychology and our fears.