A Quote by Simon Boswell

I never used to watch horror films because I was a nervous type. I believed all the publicity about The Exorcist when it was released - you know, all that nonsense about people fainting in the cinema - and decided it would definitely freak me out. I particularly remember my girlfriend telling me about Suspiria - ironic considering my first ever film work was with Argento - and how scary it was.
With The Exorcist we said what we wanted to say. Neither one of us view it as a horror film. We view it as a film about the mysteries of faith. It's easier for people to call it a horror film. Or a great horror film. Or the greatest horror film ever made. Whenever I see that, I feel a great distance from it.
I laugh a lot in horror films. If I'm scared in a horror film, I try to think about what's scaring me... particularly, if it's a bad movie, but something they're doing still works. It's the same way I look at comedy. I've always had an intellectual view of comedy, and what makes people laugh, and how does it work.
I used to look at horror movies as being really real and it would totally freak me out and give me nightmares. Now I watch and think, 'whoa how'd they do that?'
I used to look at horror movies as being really real and it would totally freak me out and give me nightmares. Now I watch and think, 'whoa how'd they do that?
Pulp Fiction' was probably one of the first films I ever saw that really kind of took effect on me. I was about four years old - obviously wasn't supposed to be seeing that film; my sister kind of sneaked it out and we got to see it. She's older than me. That was something I always used to watch.
'Pulp Fiction' was probably one of the first films I ever saw that really kind of took effect on me. I was about four years old - obviously wasn't supposed to be seeing that film; my sister kind of sneaked it out and we got to see it. She's older than me. That was something I always used to watch.
I'm honestly kind of scared of horror films. My girlfriend always tries to expose them to me. Being in a scary movie and seeing all the fake blood and stuff definitely takes away from the magic and kind of humanizes scary movies to me now, though.
From an early age I loved horror movies. I read books about horror, cops, firemen and military. Over the course of the years I started to see that there's a reality to this. The first movie I was really conscious of seeing was THE EXORCIST and I don't know if any of you have seen that but it scared the sh*t out of me. It really frightened me.
I think that's my favorite thing about making scary movies, watching people watch them. When my films come out, I like to cinema hop and know what moments are coming up, I pop my head in and watch people squirm or slide down in their seats. I like that sadism!
Film team kept me very, very shielded when I was that young, because of course, I was seven years old. You know, you're still kind of reading. It's still kind of like, "Cat." "Dog." "Ann jumped over fence." So I guess in a way it helped me progress in school, too, because I was reading so much and memorizing so much. But they kept me very shielded from everything that was going on in the The Amityville Horror. I didn't know anything, basically, about the film. I just knew that it was a scary film. I wasn't allowed to watch it. I can watch it now, I'm just too scared.
'Hereditary' is unabashedly a horror film. In a lot of ways, it's in dialogue with other horror films. But I do know that it was important for me that the film functioned first as a family drama. I know that I'm never affected by anything if I'm not invested in the people to whom the genre things are happening.
I like torture. Torture is photogenic. If you make horror movies, you always have to think what's photogenic and what's not. If you stay home with the candlelight and you read a book, Rilke, or whatever, or Sigmund Freud, it's boring. But if you watch Udo Kier in a horror film and people are hunting me and trying to kill me, and there's my love interest with big breasts and beautiful hair, and I believe in her and they kill me at the end, that's more interesting. We're talking about films here. We're not talking about writing stories.
I don't remember the first image of a werewolf I saw, but I suspect it was the hybrid type, up on two legs, with long limbs, hair, claw-like fingernails and lupine head. To me there's nothing scary about complete transformation from human into wolf. Wolves aren't scary. They're dangerous, yes, but so are geese, in the wrong mood. What's scary is seeing the human in the wolf but knowing it's beyond the reach of reason or emotional appeal. That's where the horror and dread kicks in.
My direction as a person working in film has been to never get comfortable with anything I was doing. At the time that I decided to do action films, people were telling me, "Well, you can't do it. You're not that type. It's not going to work." And so obviously that made me think, "Well, that's not comfortable. Maybe I should try it. What can I do with it?" So I did that, and I'm glad I did it. I'll probably do it again, and I did other kinds of things that seemed like challenges for me, because I like being on the high wire.
I hate publicity. The only publicity must be through my work. I can only talk about myself in relation to work. I know about work - but I don't know about me.
I remember the first film I reviewed for the Daily was a John Ford Western. I think it was My Darling Clementine, but I am not certain. And I was just impressed by, first, the story itself. I didn't know that much about films. But the acting, the director. And particularly, the cinematography, the black-and-white use of exteriors, I noted particularly.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!