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 just didn't want to make another movie about teenagers being stalked, |
I just feel it takes just one picture where it becomes common knowledge that Craven can do other things, |
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. |
I said, 'I don't know how to write a scary movie,' and he told me, 'Just pull all the skeletons out of your closet,' ... Over the weekend, I wrote The Last House on the Left , and those guys (in Boston) loved it. We shot it in 16 mm. It caused a firestorm of controversy, and off I went. |
I wasn't allowed to see movies when I was a child. It was against the religion I was raised in, Fundamentalist Baptist. I didn't go into a commercial movie house until I was a senior in college, and that was on the sly. It wasn't until I was in graduate school that I immersed myself in films. Then, I went to see all the films by Bergman, Fellini, etc. |
I'm writing a film called 'Bug.' It's an original script, and it's not about killer insects. It's a thriller set in a high school. The bug of the title refers to a surveillance device. |
I've seen the final cut and it's a lot of fun, ... It actually turned out pretty well and it ended up with everybody thinking, 'By God, John really knows what he's doing.' He pulled it off. Absolutely. He did a real, real good job. |
If Vegas can take it, we can make it. |
If we shot them from the front, we had to be peering over the heads of the passengers in front of them. |
If you think it, the camera will see it. |
It was a very concise, taut script, ... I simply chose not to have a standard car chase or any of that nonsense. I felt it was all about what's going on between these two characters. And the moment they're separated, I want to figure out how to get them back together again. I've actually had a lot of people thanking me for not making the movie go any longer than it had to. |
It was the beginning of the end of my affiliation to the church, |
It's a thriller, it's definitely not a horror film, but it has enough of the elements that also work in horror films like suspense. |
It's kind of experiment time, ... We'll see if people get behind us, and if the picture's any good. But it has to be that people will experiment with me. If not, fine, I'll just go back to writing books or something. But I have the feeling I'm onto something. |