Horror Films Don't Create Fear. They Release

I Realized That I Really, Almost By Accident, Had Fallen Into A Labyrinthine, Very Powerful Paradigm For Dealing With These Things Through Genre Films. And Once I Realized That And Realized The Power Of It, And The Fact That Because Horror Films Aren't, In General, Studio Products - Studios Back Them Sometimes, But They Don't Try To Meddle Too Much, Because They Kind Of Don't Want To Sully Their Skirts - You Have A Lot Of Freedom.

Something Like Nightmare On Elm Street, To Me, Was Kind Of An Examination Of Levels Of Consciousness And The Pain Of Facing The Truth, And How Easy It Is To Fall Asleep, Or Want To Fall Asleep.

I Don't Want To Rescind American Directors But I Think That European Directors In General, Because Of The Size Of The Nations In Europe Are Exposed To All Different Cultures, They Can Easily Travel From One Distinct Culture To Another In A Matter Of Hours - You Can Drive For Two Weeks Across The United States And You're In The Same Basic Culture - So There Is A Certain Breadth Of Understanding And Sophistication That They Bring To It And Frankly, In Some Cases They Are Less Expensive Than American Directors.

There's More Emphasis On Art And Culture In Europe Than There Is In The United States And I Think That A Lot Of American Directors And Writers Are Just Trying To Copy Other American Horror Films, They Don't Pick Up Much In The Way That European Filmmakers Do.

Last House Offended A Lot Of People. The Results In The Theaters, Even In Boston, Reminded Me A Bit Of Things From When I Was Studying Theater Of The Absurd, And The Rise And The Appearance Of Ionesco Plays, And Things Like That. Thinking, "my God, People Actually Are Getting Into Fistfights. People Are Having Heart Attacks. People Are Actually Trying To Get Into The Projection Booth To Destroy The Print."