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I try not to put pressure on filmmakers to come up with a big scare at the beginning. I think that helps let the audience settle in and get to know the people they're about to spend 90 minutes with. Once the scarier stuff happens, it's scarier because of that.

The scariest thing in my life is the first morning of production on all my movies. It's the fear of failing, the loss of face, and a sense of guilt that everybody puts their faith in you and not coming through.

I don't like to see a scary image because it sticks in my mind. Which is maybe why I get hired to do the scary movies because I'm truly scared and upset.

Scaring someone's the hardest thing to do, and that's why most of these scary movies are not scary. They're sick, but not scary. There's a lot of sickness out there, of people who then sit there and watch it, which I think is absolutely dismaying.

If we're going to be considered horror filmmakers, we have to prove it not only to ourselves but to the audience that we can actually make something scary.

To me, the scariest movie ever made to this day is 'The Exorcist.' It still scares the living hell out of me, and it's because of the fantasy element. It's the exorcism. It's the Devil. It's not a guy breaking into your house trying to torture you or cut your whatever off. Those kinds of movies don't do it for me, and I don't call them horror.

I think that horror films have a very direct relationship to the time in which they're made. The films that really strike a film with the public are very often reflecting something that everyone, consciously or unconsciously feeling - atomic age, post 9-11, post Iraq war; it's hard to predict what people are going to be afraid of.

I feel the horror audience is a great audience, and I would ideally make a movie that would give them as much energy as they're willing to give to the picture.

The history of horror movies goes back a long way... of people trying to convincingly be terrified when looking at a piece of tape on the side of the camera box. I have a whole new respect for it.

With comedy, it's really hard to tell if something's working on the page - you really need the actors to bring it alive. The scariest part is if people will laugh or not.