For me, 'Jaws' is much more of an adventure movie, but when it's scary, it's terrifying. When it's funny, it's hilarious. When there's drama, it's the most sincere stuff on screen. When there's adventure, there's swashbuckle. It's all those things.
One of the scariest moments was being on Tyler Perry's first movie, 'Diary of a Mad Black Woman.'
For me, what usually makes a horror sequence scary is the journey not the destination.
When I was filming 'Ouija,' there were some elements in that that really creeped me out.
I think it's sort of rare in TV shows or movies to see people being vulnerable. That's sort of scary to an audience.
The key to a good horror movie is what happens between the scares. The scares aren't the tricky part. If you're involved in what's going on in between, the scare is going to trick you. If you're not, the best scare in the world will not be scary.
It's really scary when you have a moment of temporary sanity.
Number one is that it just scares people! Your hair is standing up on your arms, or at least that there's a few moments when you're jumping. That's what makes it a good horror movie.
A good horror movie should have peaks and valleys, a good horror movie should move you emotionally; a good horror movie should be exciting to watch and energizing in a weird kind of way.
I try not to put pressure on filmmakers to come up with a big scare at the beginning. I think that helps let the audience settle in and get to know the people they're about to spend 90 minutes with. Once the scarier stuff happens, it's scarier because of that.
'Poltergeist' terrifies me! When the little girl Carol Anne is talking to the TV, I get shivers every time.
I think we all get into situations where we don't know how to proceed, and those are really the scariest moments that we have, but that's also what makes us 'grow up' and learn a lot about each other.
That's what happens in a good horror movie: there are always metaphors of greater subjects like humanity and empathy and compassion. It's not about the action and scary moments: You really care about these characters because they're mirrors of our own reflections.
One of the things I like and appreciate a lot is when somebody will come up to me and tell me how much Judge Doom terrified them as little children when he takes the shoe and puts it in the dip. They were literally scared out of their minds. I love that.
