Within the structure of 'Scream 4,' there is the film within a film, but that's been part of the 'Scream' franchise since 'Scream 2,' when you had the 'Stab' franchise.
— Wes Craven
When you have a name that means scares, you have to live with that.
I like to think I'm making films in the film business where movies are making enough numbers for the studios to let me keep working, but you also want those films to have content that makes you proud you made the film. That's not easy, but it's a fun puzzle to figure out.
I never went to film school, so I never had the chance to be rejected.
The thing of sitting in an audience and going into a dream-like state with several hundred other people that are sharing exactly what you're feeling is a profound event.
I think everybody goes off and does their own vision. And I don't take responsibility for other people's work, frankly. It's bad enough taking responsibility for my own.
I've done a few interviews where I realized that 9/11 was the ultimate home invasion, not to be glib about it. You know, where the place that you think is safe and the people that you think are safe and far from evil are suddenly just slaughtered by it, and you have no control over it.
A lot of life is dealing with your curse, dealing with the cards you were given that aren't so nice. Does it make you into a monster, or can you temper it in some way, or accept it and go in some other direction?
The first monster you have to scare the audience with is yourself.
Everybody's making horror films and, to me, not especially well.
The whole business is changing dramatically, and the way fans follow and participate in movies, and make their own movies to emulate those movies, is profoundly different.
The 'Scream' series is unique in that it's an ongoing murder mystery, even though it's a different killer, so if you know who that killer is, then half of the fun of the movie is gone.
How can you have 'Scream' without Ghostface? It's like 'Friday the 13th' without Jason.
I've experienced a great deal of, you know, ostracism from the making of films.
If something comes along that is totally outside of horror, fine, but I find there's an immense amount of freedom within the genre.
I came from a very strict background.
All of us have our individual curses, something that we are uncomfortable with and something that we have to deal with, like me making horror films, perhaps.
I think the experience of going to a theater and seeing a movie with a lot of people is still part of the transformational power of the film, and it's equivalent to the old shaman telling a story by the campfire to a bunch of people.
When you do a film like 'My Soul to Take,' and people think it sucks, that hurts. We put a lot of work into it, and it's a good film, but you go on.
I didn't see many films until I was in college teaching.
My brother and I both used to worry about dying at 40 because our father died at 40. That probably wasn't terribly rational, since my father led a rather unhealthy lifestyle, shall we say.
I was anathema in polite society after I made 'Last House.' People literally would grab their children and run from the room.
Whenever I go to have a meeting at Universal, the security guard just leaps to his feet and comes over, bumps my hand, and says, 'Thank you! Thank you - I love your films!'
I have a lot of fans who are people of color. I think, if nothing else, I kind of understand that sense of being on the outside looking in, culturally.
I learned to take the first job that you have in the business that you want to get into. It doesn't matter what that job is, you get your foot in the door.
