A Quote by James Wan

I think crafting a new, effective horror movie is not just about when night falls and things get scary. It's about setting a tone and mood that permeates throughout the entire movie. So even during the daytime, things are never quite safe-feeling.
If you just did a horror tone throughout an entire movie you almost, as an audience, can get a little bit used to it. But if you're laughing one minute and, you know, somebody's doing something quite horrific the next minute, it's a little more shocking.
I've seen a lot of movies that were great and scary, but not particularly fancy in their filmmaking or performance. And they're still scary, and I think a good horror movie should be scary above all things.
Ghost Team approached me. They said, "Hey, it's mid-October, do you want to go shoot a movie on Long Island for three weeks about stupid people chasing ghosts?" I had never done anything like that before. It's kind of a mock-horror movie. What I didn't realize was the whole thing takes place at night, as a horror movie should, and so I didn't realize that we'd be working until 6 in the morning every night, or morning.
I never get discouraged about anything. If I got discouraged I wouldn't keep giving out the script then the movie wouldn't be made. The biggest thing about movie industry is to never get discouraged because once you get discouraged you lose interest. You'll stop being successful in something you love doing. If you get discouraged in things and not even want to finish or do them, then why even bother starting?
Directing is a big responsibility to take on. I think I'm only good at doing things I know very well. I don't direct movies because I get offered the new vampire movie or science fiction movie. I don't get offered those, anyway, but if I did, I would just tell 'em, "Look, I'm the wrong guy." I only do things about people and situations, and I do the ones that I think I'm the best guy for the job on, which is usually something I generate myself.
When somebody is making a movie about your life, that's different. A show is a live performance. Things are going to go wrong. You are going to get away with things. A movie is indelible. A movie is through a microscope.
I think if a horror movie is really scary, you'll think about it for weeks, and there's something kind of fun about that - about our art, really.
The definition of horror is pretty broad. What causes us "horror" is actually a many splendored thing (laughs). It can be hard to make horror accessible, and that's what I think Silence of the Lambs did so brilliantly - it was an accessible horror story, the villain was a monster, and the protagonist was pure of heart and upstanding so it had all of these great iconographic elements of classic storytelling. It was perceived less as a horror movie than an effective thriller, but make no mistake, it was a horror movie and was sort of sneaky that way.
A movie doesn't have to do everything. A movie just has to do a couple of things. If it does those things well and gives you a cool night at the movies, an emotion, that's good enough.
I do think, even though I've made these genre movies, there's what happens in the movie and then there's what the movie's about. And for me, what the movie's about is so much more interesting.
You shoot yourself in the foot when you think, 'We have to get a good scary movie director to do a script by another scary movie writer.'
There are moments in 'Body Snatchers' that touch the sort of thing that I find scary... like isolation and the inability to trust even familiar things. But - is that a horror movie - or a thriller? I don't really know the difference.
I was in the very first Scary Movie and then the last Scary Movie 4, so I don't know. I heard they're doing another one, but I'm not sure yet. Of course, I'd love to work on Scary Movie 5. That'd be great.
Horror used to be one thing, and I think that's starting to broaden - there can have subgenres, and other things can be going on in a horror story. In comics, you'll never get the 'Boo' effect in a comic; you can go for mood, atmosphere and personal tragedy to build the horror elements and sense of dread.
Certainly, black horror movie fans have, you know, been particularly vocal. I mean, there's the whole Eddie Murphy routine about, you know, black people in a horror movie wouldn't last very long. Right? They just walk in - you hear get out. Too bad we can't stay, baby.
Horror movies are always a solid dollar. But a movie about Groucho Marx is a gamble. These things just are. Doesn't matter who you are.
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