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There's a real kind of snobbery in the U.K. about horror films.

They wanted me to do Scream 2, and I hate talking about movies I turned down, because it sounds judgmental. There's nothing wrong with horror movies. I enjoy watching them. The main reason I turn a part down is if I think I won't be good.

I think most people, even if they say they hate horror movies, there's that feeling you get inside that you love. I mean, I love it. I love to have the hairs on the back of my neck stand up or get that chill up my spine.

I like horror movies, and in fact I like them even more now after making one. I just think they're much more liberating because you don't really have to apply a very strict logic.

Horror films have always been quite operatic for me. I always sort of scratch my head at people's offense to them? If you don't get them, and you don't like them, then don't watch them.

I think that's the real reason, sometimes, that people talk about my stories as being scary, because if you compare what goes on in my stories to what goes on in popular movies and popular songs, it's very mild.

People who work in horror know they are contributing to a genre that has always been loved and will always be loved - privately. It's the forbidden evil working behind the curtain. My job scoring a horror movie is like being the barker at a carnival. A good barker can get anyone to walk into the roped-off tent.

I have to admit that I really don't care for horror movies all that much. I think mainly just because I'm a cheap scare.

I feel that in horror movies, especially, if you don't care about the characters, you've lost the audience. No one cares, and it becomes a process of watching people get killed.

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.