There’s nothing that defines who you are more than boundaries, whether you cross them or not, in every aspect of your life, and horror is a really great boundary.
I think once a Catholic, always a Catholic. You never escape. I still have Catholic guilt. It is in its basis a really powerful religion and a really strong set of beliefs. They permeate my work in many ways.
I think damage to the eye or damage to the teeth is one of the most universally cringing things you can do in a movie and these are very fragile sounds.
When somebody says something I don’t agree with, I say I’d rather not. It comes to the point where that is the strongest form of resistance. As a Mexican, it took me a long while to learn one word in English, “no”. And that is the one word we have in common.
I’m a big fan of the Harry Potter books, but I’d love to do one where one of the kids dies, or one of the main characters dies. I love for those things to have a little bit more tragedy.
When I stage a violent scene, I try for it to serve a purpose. I do love those things, the makeup effects. But I love them more with the monsters. I never was much of a gore guy. I’ve always enjoyed just creating monsters.
I think when the joke comes from the situation in a horror film, it’s really great. I don’t like jokey horror films like where people are cracking a joke or being post-modern about it.
Somebody said to me, in a very well-meaning way, at a screening, “We love the movie but it’s too violent. If you tone down the violence you could reach a great audience of kids.”.
