I love TV. I've been lucky that I get to do both, and both have things I love about them, features and TV. I hope I get to do both for the rest of my career.
— Drew Goddard
I tend to fall more into the fun horror genre than the traumatic horror genre. I love the films where you're laughing as much as screaming, but that doesn't mean I don't like the other ones.
I love going to horror movies - especially when they are fun. I think that they get you in touch with sort of these primal instincts that we all have in the relative safety of the theater.
I've always said I'm less interested in twists as I am about escalation.
Like anything, I think there are some wonderful found footage movies, and there are some less good. Certainly when it's done well, I really love it. I really love it as a genre.
There's just something wonderful about getting a small group of people together in an isolated location, and there's something about cabins themselves that imply both horror and fun. When you go to a cabin, you're usually going to have a good time.
Some of our best episodes of 'Buffy' were written over a weekend. You can really get in touch with your creative spirit when you're at your most desperate.
The more work you put in on your outline and getting the skeleton of your story right, the easier the process is later.
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.
When Carpenter was shooting 'Vampires' in New Mexico when I was living there, I desperately tried to get a job working on that film, and I couldn't. So my first job as a PA was on a CBS movie of the week that was shooting next door, and whenever I could, I would sneak over so I could watch.
If you can relate to what the character's going through, the story can be as ridiculous as possible, and people will relate to it. You can be fearless in your storytelling if you're vigilant about protecting your characters.
I grew up in Los Alamos, New Mexico, which is my hometown. In Los Alamos is, for people who don't know, a nuclear lab that built the atomic bomb. The only reason the town exists is to make nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction, and that's still happening there.
I love cult movies. I probably have watched 'Big Trouble In Little China' more than anyone on the planet.
The logistics of blood is something that I didn't even understood as a first-time director. Not just actors and make-up, but once a set gets bloody, you don't un-blood it. Once something gets bloody, you either rebuild the set, or you just don't get the shot.
We've always idealized youth and then destroyed youth. That has happened since the beginning of time, and I'm fascinated by why we do that.
I've been lucky between 'Buffy,' 'Angel,' 'Alias,' and then 'Lost.' The thing they all have in common is that they were all fearless. They were not afraid to be different and try something different. Even if you didn't know that it was going to work, just try to do something new and fresh.
I can always tell when a filmmaker doesn't care about his or her characters; they just care about setting them up to kill them off.
It's not like vampires are inherently bad. It's just people need to make better vampire movies.
Directing is a unique endeavor where you are in charge of so many people. As a writer, it is sort of the opposite.
You start to fall in love with characters as you work with them, and anytime that you care about your characters and you realize that you're gonna have to kill them, that fear creeps in. It's sad. It's scary, and it's also sad. Because you like these people.
The greatest villain of all time is The Joker - he always has been, and I don't know anyone who's not going to have Heath Ledger's performance burnt into their brains for the rest of their lives.
I think so much of the horror film is about our primal instincts, and our primal instincts are not just towards violence. It's also towards sex. I feel like horror movies, as much as they're about violence, they're also about sex. It's about our instincts, so in that regard, it's crucial that you honor both of those things.
There will be a Skype movie soon... someone will crack the code, and it will be great. Then, there'll be 30 Skype movies, and we'll be like, 'Oh, that's boring.'
The movies I respond to are by guys like the Coen brothers and Edgar Wright, where it's hard to fit them into any one box.
That's the fun part about being a director. You get to say, 'Oh, now that I'm in charge, I can try and cast whoever I want.' They can always say no, but that's okay.
I love a good harsh horror movie, when it's done well. But there are times when it feels cynical. You can tell when a filmmaker loves the genre, and you can tell when someone's just cashing in a paycheck. Then it becomes a dumbing down - a fetishisation of violence that I react very strongly against.
You can always trust that an audience is smarter than a studio thinks it is.
I think the thing I took most from game playing was just getting in the characters head. I took it really seriously. There's something about creating your character.
In the 'Buffy' room, it was never about a plot twist, ever. It was always about, 'Tell the story, tell the characters, complicate their lives, make things get worse,' but we never worked backwards from the plot, and it was always a great lesson.
As a filmmaker, I wish we didn't have to do trailers at all, quite honestly. I wish we didn't have to do posters. I wish didn't have to give anything away. I wish people could just come in the movie blind. But as an audience member, I respect that you have to tell an audience that this is worth your time.
I think 'The Thing' is so good because it's not just a scary movie. It's also social commentary, which works on multiple levels, which is something I really respond to.
Certainly, 3rd acts of any movie are hard. It's always hard to have something that will give you the promises from the beginning of the movie. That's true for all movies.
Clearly, the works of John Carpenter and Sam Raimi are front and center here. Argento is definitely there. But even stuff like the 'Friday the 13th' movies had quite an influence on me growing up.
When you are dealing with something that's crazy, you still want actors to play characters and find the reality of the situation, no matter how absurd the situation is.
Like everyone else, I love 'Born Again:' that was a seminal work for me. Everything Frank Miller did on 'Daredevil' is like the Bible.
Filmmaking is incredible introspective. It forces you to sort of examine yourself in new ways.
I think that there's good movies and there's bad movies, and sometimes the bad movies spoil it for the rest of us, and we focus on them, but in the long run, all that matters are the good movies. Those are the ones that we will remember.
I feel the way I always do about sequels. If there's an idea that excites me enough, and it feels like a way to do something new and fresh, then great. But I don't ever want to do a sequel just for the sake of doing a sequel.
I think audiences crave something new. I don't think audiences want the same old thing, no matter how much conventional Hollywood tells you that.
With horror movies, a bigger budget is actually your enemy. You want to feel the rough edges, the handmade quality to good horror films. It's a genre that benefits from not having everything at your disposal.
If I had all the filmmakers that traumatized me when I was a little kid in this room, all I would say is, 'Thank you,' because they've made me who I am. As much as I say 'trauma,' it all comes from a place of love. The fact that I am feeling emotions at all based on a work is a wonderful thing, so I'm happy to be a part of that discussion.
You don't want to make a movie just to make a movie. You better have a point of view.
Here's the thing about 'Cabin in the Woods.' I did virtually no research on this movie.
A movie that's about other horror movies isn't interesting. A movie about who we are, is.
It was a lot of 'Dungeons and Dragons' all through my teens.
The horror genre gets you in touch with our primal instincts as a people more than any other genre I can think of. It gives you this chance to sort of reflect on who we are and look at the sort of uglier side that we don't always look at, and have fun with that very thing.
I guess I'm just the kind of person who likes to do it all. It's fun to put on the writer's hat and go hide by myself with my computer for six months. Then it's fun to come out and put the director hat on and deal with all the things that a director deals with. Then it's fun to just be the producer and, um, not do anything.
I understand why offices need to have office parties. I understand why offices need to have betting pools. No matter what the job, you need things to foster camaraderie and let off steam.
If I had to pick one scary movie, I'd go with John Carpenter's 'The Thing.' That's probably number one.
When you're talking about who is doing the most exciting and interesting horror films of the last 20 years, it's Japan. I mean, they are making amazing films.
